United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) New Book on Reading

UKLA have produced a new booklet on reading. This will be a timely publication and I would urge all involved in education to buy a copy; talk about what it says in staff meetings; discuss it with student teachers and make it available for parents.

You can buy it from UKLA's web site bookshop

Readers of the Daily Telegraph have their say..

Here are some comments from The Daily Telgraph forum page on their web site after reports in the paper that Michael Gove will be 'reforming' teacher training. It followed a piece which accused the teaching profession of being lefties


"Gove draining the leftie swamp ? good man."

"High time, Mr Grove, to get rid of the so called educational experts with a degree in sociology at teacher training colleges...Sociologists' and educationalists' ideas of facilitation, group work , 'teaching is a conversation' and 'knowledge is not the primary need' have been a major contribution to to our falling educational standards"

"I suggest you have a look at some of the teacher training forums on the net and see the "quality" of those in training - 3 times to take basic literacy and numeracy tests, they witter; appalling spelling and punctuation, total inability to express themselves - and you will quickly see that sarahlucy's experience is far from an isolated case. Deeply depressing"

"At this very moment a young lady from my village is training to be an English teacher at one of the Manchester university colleges.

She has 5 bad GCSE's, 2 poor quality A levels, a degree in education (2.1) from an ex-poly during which time she was never required to write a single essay or take any examinations or prepare a project. She had a half hour interview and bingo - a 2.1 degree. She then worked as a teaching assistant for 12 months in an infant school.

Last week, she showed me her first essay on Jane Austen. It is dreadful, it is unstructured with no introduction or conclusion, no paragraphs, no sentances and the punctuation is non existant. It is a list of comments drawn from Jane Austen films. When I suggested that she use quotations and discussion etc she admitted that she has never read any Jane Austen - or any other classical book, or any plays and she doesn't like poetry.

She is totally ignorant.

What on earth has teacher training come to?"

Policy for Teacher Education

Radical government reforms to shift teacher training away from universities and focus it in schools could be 'fraught with difficulty', a leading expert will warn today.

James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET), will tell delegates at a conference organised by UCU that proposed plans to replace teacher training courses at universities with apprenticeships in schools could pose problems for the future of teacher training. Noble-Rogers will highlight the fact that many schools are already working in successful partnerships with universities.

The seminar comes after education secretary, Michael Gove, hinted at a proposal to move away from the current system which sees trainees split their time between theoretical work in university and practical experience in schools. Instead, he suggested that initial teaching training for primary and secondary levels be concentrated in schools.

Mr Noble-Rogers will explore the myriad advantages of the current system of teacher training, and highlight figures that show OFSTED rates the quality of some 85% of teacher training as being either 'good' or 'outstanding', while every year, 85% of trainees rate their training as 'good' or 'very good'.

He will tell delegates: 'Any wholesale shift of funding from existing teacher training providers to schools could be fraught with difficulty. Many schools are already reluctant, or unable, to take part in teacher training programmes. Would they be forced to train their own? If they did not, where would they recruit their teachers from?

'And many schools that are involved in teacher education welcome the relationship that they have with universities, and would not want to have lead responsibility (and presumably accountability) foisted upon them. The current link between funding and the quality of teacher training would also be lost.'

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Contrary to Mr Gove's assertion that teaching is a 'craft' learned through simple observation of others at work, there is much theory and research behind the profession. Our members in teacher training departments in colleges and universities have a breadth of expertise and experience which would be lost in this crazy reform along with hundreds of jobs.'
Dan Ashley
press@ucu.org.uk

Students and Lecturers Demonstrate in London

New Book on English

There is a new book on Primary English Teaching edited by Robyn Cox. I have a chapter on reading in it. It is published by Sage in partnership with UKLA.

The book is mainly for undergraduate or PGCE teaching students and has a lively and slightly unusual approach to its presentation.

It is refreshing to see 'English' in the title. English has often been replaced by 'Literacy' in many books on this subject, as indeed it has been on many Education programmes.