Good letter about the economy in The Observer this week

If capitalism is unstable, it's not just because it deals with unknowable risk but because it lives by that risk and makes it more unknowable.
Capitalism disconnects wealth, profit and growth from any material or social measure of benefit or improvement. Hutton calls for daring deeds, not words, but fails to get much beyond the chimera of monetary growth and GDP. His bold measures treat mainly symptoms, not causes, symbols, not substance. The task of government is not simply to quantify and manipulate financial targets, but to enable us to define and deliver the goods and services we most need. Not just to turn the tap marked "Growth", but determine what is to be grown and how.
Human wellbeing is never totally knowable or quantifiable. But we do know we all need health, housing, education, useful employment, peace and care in old age. And a world fit for our children and theirs. This real market is all our business, central to good life and good government. Our future is not reducible to "Profit" and "Loss", or to be left at the door of "Good Capitalism".
Greg Wilkinson
Swansea

Democracy in Europe?

Politics and Literacy. These are amazing times.
On Friday, Nov. 11, Time magazine published an article by Stephan Faris with the title: Regime Change in Europe: Do Greece and Italy Amount to a Bankers’ Coup? It says the following:

“The voice of the people isn't something the markets seem to want to hear these days. First there was Greece, the cradle of democracy itself, where early this month, the merest mention of a referendum offering its citizens a say in a series of severe austerity measures was enough to send the markets into a tailspin. The ultimate result: the collapse of Prime Minister George Papandreou's ruling coalition, the rejection of any notion of bringing the proposal before the people, and the installation of a caretaker government under the leadership of Lucas Papademos, a former vice president of the European Central Bank and, until earlier this week, a visiting professor at Harvard.

“Then came Italy. As Athens threatened to go under, Rome found itself under pressure not so much for its level of debt — which though high is generally considered within the limits of sustainability — as much as for the erratic behaviour of its flamboyant prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. On Monday [Nov. 7], investors seemed to make the collective decision that he could no longer be trusted at the helm of the euro zone's third largest economy and sent Italy's cost of borrowing up towards crisis levels. By the end of the week, not only was Berlusconi finished, so was the very idea of holding a vote to replace him. The markets had spoken, and they didn’t like the idea of going to the electorate. ‘The country needs reforms, not elections,’ said Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council on a visit to Rome Friday.”

"What was it Sisyphus pushed up the hill?"

Reading Carol Ann Duffy's new book 'The Bees' and her poem 'Big Ask' made me go back to Greek Myths to answer her question

Then there was Albert Camus

I now tweet more than I blog...
#ALambirth

Blogging

I have been neglecting this blog. I must put it down to having two new jobs in two years. i suspect no one has noticed...

I have begun tweeting, but this may prove to be rather pointless.

The painting here is by Peter Greenham.

News: I'm currently recruiting teachers from the local area to work with me and two colleagues on the funded 'Poetry Champions' project which starts in January 2012. There are many basic but fundamental issues around the teaching of poetry in primary schools which continue to be a problem and need some attention. A little matter of how teachers can respond and formatively assess the poetry written by children is one of these issues. I have just written a small article for NAWE about this subject.

'Teaching Early Reading and Phonics' has just been reviewed favourably by the UKLA and English Association magazine 'English 4 - 11'

Ken Loach at the BBC

At last, the BBC have released a 6 DVD set of Ken Loach's work at the BBC including 'Days of Hope'

It has been a long time coming and may well be very timely.

Crown Woods School

Read this article from the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/25/secondary-school-streaming

Poetry Champions

I have just won some funding to begin the 'Poetry Champions' project in schools around my University. We will be recruiting primary school teachers to the project which aims to develop poetry teaching in Foundation to Key Stage 2. This is exciting as I'll be working with a great team of experienced colleagues and poetry is the central focus!!

Sats tests shift more to teacher assessment

This news was buried.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14186263

The SATS writing test will now be marked by teachers in schools

But according to the BBC web site:

'The creative writing test will be replaced by a composition which will be marked in schools by teachers.

Teacher assessment will make up the "larger part" of the overall writing mark.

But the writing part of the English test is still likely to also include some external marking, says the education department.

There will be a pilot to develop a test in spelling, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary' (Oh dear).

In terms of school accountability, league table results will include a rolling three-year average, which is intended to present a more rounded picture, rather than a single snapshot of one year.

More on the 3K

Here are the Phonics programmes that have ('not') been 'approved' by government so far. These are the programmes that have provided a self-assessment of what their programmes contain.
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/pedagogy/a0010235/publishers

'Primary schools will be able to claim up to £3,000, if they match that funding, to spend on materials which meet the Department for Education’s criteria for an effective phonics programme.

A list of approved resources – including phonics products for teachers and pupils and training for teachers – will be published by the Department by September although some products and training will be available by the end of June. Schools will decide which of the resources will help them to deliver high-quality phonics teaching for their pupils and will be able to buy products and training with the match-funding any time up to March 2013'.


Please note that the procurement of approved products and training for the catalogue is a separate process from the arrangements for publishers’ self-assessments of their phonics programmes. The list of self-assessed programmes on the Department’s website is not an ‘approved’ list and the programmes in the list are not automatically eligible for match-funding. Schools should not, therefore, assume that the list in the catalogue of approved products will be the same as the self-assessed list already on the website.

Self-Assessed List

'All self-assessments that appear on the site have been scrutinised by independent evaluators to make sure they provide an accurate reflection of the products they represent. Settings and schools should note that this does not constitute an endorsement of the products themselves and should not be regarded as a list of approved programmes or resources.

Full programmes:
•Phonics International – Debbie Hepplewhite
•Read Write Inc – Oxford University Press
•Sound Discovery – Synthetic Phonics Ltd
•Jolly Phonics – Jolly Learning Ltd
•Floppy’s Phonics Sounds and Letters – Oxford University Press
•Phonics Bug – Pearson
•Letters & Sounds – DfE
•Sounds-Write – Sounds-Write Ltd

Supplementary resources:
•Project X phonics – Oxford University Press
•Songbirds – Oxford University Press
•Read Write Inc. Fresh Start – Oxford University Press
•Bug Club – Pearson
•Reading Corner Phonics – Hachette Children’s Books'

I recognise many of the names associated with these schemes, don't you? Can I buy shares? ; )

Schools 'pushed into phonics by financial incentives'

The BBC web site has this report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14029897

It says: 'Schools in England are being given financial incentives by the government to use certain phonics materials to teach reading, MPs have said.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Education said matched funding was directing schools towards a "small range of products".

It also warns this way of teaching reading by blending sounds can "switch off" children from a love of books'.

It goes on:

The report, by the independent cross-party group of MPs, says: "For cash-strapped schools the incentive to take advantage of the matched funding offered for phonics products and training will push them in the direction of synthetic phonics."

"The message appears to be that if educational professionals want to take advantage of matched funding, they have to buy from only a small range of products and only from one source.

"The financial incentive will be very strong and will be hard to ignore for many cash-strapped schools."

The report says: "This is in contrast to many teachers' experience that a broad-ranging approach to literacy, alongside one-to-one tuition is most effective."

It says: "There should be no government prescription of resources, and funding should be given directly to the professionals to deal with their school's literacy issues, for example, targeted support for a wide range of programmes that have been proven to work such as Reading Recovery."

It also argues that schools should have a whole-school approach to reading, in which teachers and parents are encouraged to work together

Chris Riddell: click the picture to read the caption

Financial Times (30 June) commented:

“A 48-hour Greek general strike over austerity measures, coupled with running battles between police and stone-throwing youths, will surprise few. But today's one-day stoppage by up to 750,000 teachers, lecturers and civil servants in Britain, over reforms to public sector pensions, raises fears that trade union militancy is suddenly being reawakened in a nation where it has long been dormant.

“The dispute creates a serious test for David Cameron's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The situation may – so far – be nothing like as difficult as in the 1970s heyday of militancy, which culminated in a 'winter of discontent' that brought the Thatcher government to power. Nonetheless, it threatens to become the biggest labour struggle for a generation, the outcome of which could define the state of industrial relations in the globe's fifth-biggest economy for years to come.”

Francis Gilbert on Teacher Training

Good piece by Francis Gilbert in the Observer about the importance of retaining the essential link with Universities for teacher training. Thanks Francis! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/17/teacher-training-education-university

CLPE Poetry Prize

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) has asked me to judge their poetry prize. I did this last year with John Agard who had won the previous year. I will be judging this year's competition with the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. As you might imagine, I'm thrilled.

I'll be sitting in a room with the Poet Laureate, Margaret Meek (Chair) and others discussing poetry written for children. Bliss.

I want to recommend 'Little Red Hood' by Marjolaine Leray. It was originally published in French. It's a quick read, but with plenty of depth. It's an intriguing take on the traditional tale. The illustrations (in pencil) are superb.

Phonics Dawn

Dame Tickell has written a response to newspaper headlines that her report into the EYFS appeared to suggest that phonics was not all that learning to read was about

'I have not recommended that phonics should be downgraded. Phonics is one of the most robust and recognised ways of helping children to learn to read and write. My report clearly highlights the importance of children starting school ready and able to learn, and I set out in the reading and writing goals the phonic development children should have reached by the age of five.'

The Times Educational supplement reported: 'In contrast to the Government’s promotion of phonics, reception teachers should use a wide range of approaches when preparing children to read, a review of the early-years foundation stage (EYFS) published this week recommended. Dame Clare Tickell, who led the review, has recommended that assessing five-year-olds on their ability with phonics should be scrapped. Instead, children should be tested only on how good they are at reading. The proposals appear to be a stark contradiction of Government plans to introduce a test of children’s phonics skills in Year 1 as a stand-alone skill. Ministers are pressing ahead with the plans, despite opposition from teaching unions'.

What do experts really think about phonics? Anyone would think that people were afraid in some way to suggest that teaching phonics alone is not the answer. Ken Goodman in his book 'Phonics Phacts' and other writings has always said there is a place for grapho-phonics reading cues, but that semantic and syntactic cues must be taught and learned at the same time. Before we become hooked on phonics it is important to read the research. Visit the United Kingdom Literacy Association's web site. You can find the phacts there.

Masters and the March

Saturday saw the biggest march in the history of the British trade union movement, with some saying 500,000 people turned out. This has not gone unnoticed. “The most sustained squeeze on living standards since the 1920s is about to hit the UK,” explains the Financial Times. “There is no telling how the general public will react, or indeed what will be the impact on the Coalition’s cohesion. Mr Osborne would be wise not to count his chickens just yet.” (FT, 27/3/11) More news...I've been writing part-time Masters courses in Literacy to join the Masters framework at my University. They will begin in September. One is the core literacy course which is concerned with literacy and learning and enriching the practice in classrooms from foundation to Key Stage 3 and the other concerns the texts - oral, written and multi-modal - which are used in schools. They are exciting courses which also involve teachers in their own creative participation. Sign-up now!

Tolstoy

I'm a great admirer of the fiction of Leo Tolstoy. Here's some interesting footage from his last years.

Robin Alexander on the New National Curriculum

This article was in the Guardian newspaper.

The photograph was taken by Phil Polglaze

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/15/national-curriculum-ministerial-meddling

New Standards for Teachers

Michael Gove has announced he wants new standards for teachers. The press release says:

The new approach will set out rigorous standards teachers should meet in order to:

• provide excellent teaching
• crackdown on bad behaviour
• improve pupils’ skills in the basics of English and maths • provide better support to those pupils falling behind.

New standards will help raise the bar for performance and help identify those who need more support to improve. Under the current approach, teachers and headteachers say:

• it is hard to measure a teacher’s progress • there is a lack of clarity about when a teacher is meeting the standards • the standards do not fit easily with the procedures for tackling underperforming teachers.

The review will be led by Sally Coates, the outstanding Principal at Burlington Danes Academy in London. Other excellent headteachers, teachers and education experts will sit on the review.

They will recommend to Government a simple and clear set of key skills that teachers must meet.

'Simple and clear' - the profession may wish to decide if these 'simple' standards represent what good professional teaching should be or whether this is an attack on the professionalism of teaching.

TUC March: March 26th

For those of you who wish to demonstrate your disquiet with this government's policy on public services, pensions, education and health reform...etc etc. the TUC, which is the organisation containing most of the Trade Unions in the UK, is organising a march in London on Saturday 26th March.

Here are the details:
http://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/2011/01/tuc-national-demonstration-against-cuts-26-march-london/

The TUC are expecting large numbers of people

Teachers as Writers

This is an interesting article about a teacher attempting to interest her class in reading and writing by authoring her own novel.
This teacher has got into a great deal of trouble as a result.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/22/teacher-risque-novel-tribunal-result

Well worth serious discussion.