Press Release (14.05.01)

Concerns over Government's KS3 Literacy Pilot

The following statement has been issued today by the committee of the London Association for the Teaching of English:

"We are concerned that the pilot is being rolled out nationally before a full evaluation of its effectiveness and that the training has been a top-down model with little or no time for critical debate.

There needs to be a much fuller discussion about the assumptions underlying the NLS. We are concerned that:

- teaching to the objectives may ignore the underlying causes of pupils' lack of progress in writing;
- starter activities unconnected to the rest of the lesson may lead to a very fragmented experience for pupils;
- exercises in basic skills may not readily transfer to pupils' own writing;
- extended reading and writing are in danger of being sidelined;
- guided work in groups may not always be the best way of managing whole classes.

We welcome the focus on literacy across the curriculum but consider that it is inappropriate to measure progress in this through SATs in English. We do not believe that the resit SATs for Year 7 level 3 pupils (taking place on Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th May) or the 'optional' Year 7 and 8 SATs will adequately assess the strengths and weaknesses of these pupils across the English curriculum. We call on the DfEE to support the development of properly moderated teacher assessment.

We recognise that considerable extra resources are required to support English departments and that:

- training needs to take place over a longer period of time and at times convenient to schools' timetabling and development planning;
- departments need extra money for equipment such as OHPs, whiteboards, flipcharts, photocopying;
- teachers need increased non-contact time to produce materials and to develop short-term, medium-term and long-term planning.

We insist that evaluations of the KS3 pilot by the departments involved are fully published."

John Wilks, LATE General Secretary, commented:

"English teachers in some of the KS3 literacy pilot schools have already decided not to mark the completely unnecessary "optional" tests for Years 7 and 8. This dispute is not about the minor irritant of a spelling list. It is about the unwelcome administrative burden, the centralised pedagogical straitjacket and the refusal to listen to arguments about assessment. Government control-freakery and the continuing contempt for the professional judgement of classroom teachers are rapidly turning English into a shortage subject."