Book Trust Funding Cut

This message was posted by the Book Trust on their website. The funding for the book gifting programme and two other initiatives is going....but there will be a phonics 'check' (test) for all childrern at the age of 6...

Booktrust funding news

Recently we received the following news...
Department for Education funding cuts to bookgifting programmes in England

Booktrust had notification on Friday 17 December from the Department for Education that funding for our bookgifting programmes Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up in England will be cut by 100% from 1 April 2011. Please note that this news applies to England only.

Bookstart currently gives free packs of books to children up until the age of three-years-old through health visitors, children’s centres and library services. Booktime gives a free book pack to reception-aged children, shortly after they start primary school. Booked Up gives a free book to children when they start secondary school from a choice of 13 titles. These bookgifting programmes support and encourage book sharing and independent reading in the home, as well as the use of public libraries.

We are immensely surprised and disappointed by this decision especially as it has been made at a time when the government has identified a need to improve literacy levels in children of primary school age. We passionately believe in these programmes and the proven extraordinary transformative power of reading for pleasure.

Merry Christmas

A scene from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. You will need to bring the volume up to the limit to hear this clip.

The starving children are dreaming as they sleep lost in the wood. The composer asked for a staircase and angels to guard the children as they sleep. The directors of this production from Covent Garden thought they knew better. The music is wonderful. Is that Gunther Kress as the father in the background?

As well as being a composer, Humperdinck worked with Wagner on productions of Wagner's operas in the 19th Century.

Gove offers 'freedom' for teachers?

Here is an interesting piece from the web site Teacher Talks: http://thinkpolitics.co.uk/tpblogs/teachertalks/

The writer discusses what Gove means when he talks about providing more freedom for teachers with reference for their plans for early reading.

"Look also at their plans for reading. Of course, the fact that the Government has a centralised doctrine on how children should learn to read indicates Gove is not quite the radical, let it all hang free and loose Secretary of State he thinks he is. Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of their chosen methodology (and this one prompts passions on both sides), Michael Gove and Nick Gibb have, with a so far undisclosed expertise in these matters, decided what’s best for the classroom. Politicians, not teachers, are calling the shots.

Not only do they advocate one particular approach to reading (synthetic phonics), with all the inherent dangers of putting your eggs in one basket, they would like to introduce a test in Year 1 of a child’s school life to make damn sure schools do what Gove wants.

However, the crude lesson from the SATs – the dreaded tests faced by Year 6, the final year of primary school – is that what matters gets measured, and what gets measured gets done. Too many schools, knowing they will be judged by their test scores, play by the book and play safe - in other words, they teach to the test.

What this means is that everything else gets squeezed, pushed to the side or ignored completely. Horizons shrink. This is dismal enough for eleven year olds, even worse for children experiencing their first moments of formal learning.

So, by prescribing in precise terms how reading is taught and then introducing a test to see whether schools are complying with their exhortations, Gove and Gibb have certainly called into question their credentials as freedom-bringers (not to mention whether the reforms will actually work).

The attempt, pitiful, it must be said, to disguise their controlling tendencies – by calling this test, a ‘check’ – doesn’t disguise that this is Whitehall taking control and that it will have a direct effect on teaching and learning. Strange that the recent White Paper was called ‘The Importance of Teaching’, perhaps ‘The Importance of Following Directives from Education HQ (contd.)’ may have been more apt.

The schizophrenic approach to policy – torn between the rhetoric of freedom and the instinct to prescribe – is confusing, muddied further by the seemingly random selection of targets. Why the strong views on teaching reading, yet nothing said on writing? Why review Year 6 tests because of the negative, limiting effects on the curriculum, yet bring in more of the same when children are even younger? Why trust free schools to appoint who they like, yet tell teacher-training institutions who they can and cannot let on their course? And, let’s cut to the quick – why Dryden?"

Is there a leader in the House?

Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, in an interview for television was asked about his view on student fees rising, he said:

“I think it is a bad decision but I am not going to fall into the trap that the Liberal Democrats fell into of making a promise that I am not sure I can keep. I think the lesson for politicians is that you should under-promise and over-deliver rather than overpromising and then breaking your promises.”

Hmm...

Student Protest

Extraordinary scenes from last Thursday 9th December in a new era of protest.

Paul O' Grady on the Coalition Government

Clever popular politics on Paul O' Grady's show.

'The Era of the Subject'

My thanks to Anthony Wilson for this information:

Notes of a meeting between subject association representatives and Nick Gibb (Schools Minister) on Wednesday 1st December 2010 (2.00 – 3.10 p.m.)

Meeting Present:

•Nick Gibb MP (Schools Secretary)
•John Steers (Chair CfSA, General Secretary NSEAD)
•Richard Green (Chief Executive of D&T Association)
•Annette Smith (Chief Executive of ASE)
•Rob Staples (ASPE representative, primary Headteacher)
•David Jones (CfSA liaison officer)
•DfE Representative
•DfE Representative
•DfE Representative


During the meeting the subject association representatives addressed each of the points for focus and the following sums up the discussion:

•The forthcoming primary and secondary curriculum review (a single review) will be carried out by academics.
•There is a need for course textbooks to support the curriculum in each subject. The texts should present pupils with ‘core subject knowledge’ – children need ‘fundamentals’.
•These should not be produced by government (or the awarding bodies) and therefore this is an opportunity for SAs.
•The curriculum should support sequential learning – the question was posed ‘when is it best for pupils to learn e.g. long division or the periodic table? ‘Why does B & Q need to run classes to show people how to use a saw?’
•Focus should be on the most appropriate time during the schooling process to introduce particular knowledge.
•The process of consultation leading to the review of the curriculum has already begun. The first draft for consultation will be ready by September 2011, with the final version in schools by September 2012 so that first teaching can begin in 2012.
•The review will take into account international evidence and will adopt a 'seek and search' approach.
•The Government is awaiting the Wolf Report before considering how technical, practical and vocational approaches to education will sit alongside the traditional/academic. It is considered important not to offer pupils choices too early in their education that close off possible routes that can be taken later.
•CPD for teachers will focus on pedagogy both within schools and outside schools with the intention of deepening subject knowledge (sabbaticals were mentioned by NG – he also said ‘Haven’t you heard? There’s no money.’).
•Real interest was shown in chartered teacher status as a means of recognising CPD specifically in terms of professional development and classroom impact for both primary and secondary teachers.
•Industry links may be encouraged. GCSEs and A level examinations should be constructed in a way that doesn’t narrow the curriculum. NG was at pains to stress that pupils should learn a body of knowledge and that a terminal examination should test their ability to recall that knowledge. Recently, there has been too much expectation that examination papers will include questions in ‘specific’ areas.
•ITT will be delivered by ‘University Training College’ (UTCs)working as clusters. The training schools will take the lead acting as a catalyst in raising the quality of teaching expertise.
•It makes sense for subject associations to be involved in the work with the proposed “Specialist Leaders of education’ (SLE) and to be engaged in the sharing of good practice in their curriculum area.

Nick Gibbs final comment was: ‘This is the era of the subject

Marjorie L. Hourd

I am re-reading Marjorie Hourd's The Education of the Poetic Spirit published in 1949. She is said to be one of the founders of the creative writing movement. I'm interested in the ways adults read children's poetry - the nature of their responses and the distinction to be made from these responses and those of a teacher.

At one point in the book Hourd writes: 'I do not think that we need to teach children how to write poetry; and all children are not poets in words. Some use paint or movement or music with more success. But many more of them are poets then we think, and our job as teachers is to leave the way open' (p.83) Hourd believed that the 'same aesthetic laws apply to child and adult writing' (p.73) and she does not shy away from a full and honest critique of the poems that she offers that children have produced, berating signs of what Ruskin called 'composing legalism' in the work.

No Broken Promises

This is really quite extraordinary as a Liberal Democratic video. It documents one of the biggest U-turns in politics. It is still breath-taking. Clegg is skillfully portrayed as genuine, caring, passionate and principled. He walks the streets which are littered with broken promises. It may well be the Lib Dem's undoing. What a mess.

Tim Minchin

Just in case there are those out there who have not seen and heard this song. It has also been a while since a video has turned up on this blog.