Providing every child with the essential skills and knowledge needed to read and write is the ultimate ambition for our education system.
All the skills of literacy are essential to participating fully in society and so those who do not speak, read and write fluently are therefore disenfranchised. These literacy skills are essential in being successful at school and crucial for life beyond education. The Education Endowment Foundation published a report on ‘Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2’, which highlighted the significant difference for disadvantaged pupils:
‘Disadvantaged pupils are 20% less likely than their peers to reach the expected standards in reading, writing and maths by the end of primary school, and the gap in literacy attainment grows substantially during Key Stage 2, with pupils making less progress than their peers in both reading and writing’.
Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) laid bare the impact on poverty caused by Covid-19; between 2020-2021 the number of pupils who were eligible for free school meals rose by 300,000. A report carried out by Juniper Education, which tracked attainment data of more than 6000 schools, also showed an increased gap between the disadvantaged and the advantaged pupils. In 2021, fewer than half of primary aged disadvantaged were working at or above age related expectations (ARE) for writing (the equivalent figure in 2019 was 61%).
To close this gap and level up for all, it’s clear there needs to be a renewed focused on literacy development, particularly in Key Stage 2. Although the building blocks are laid in the early years and Key Stage 1, in Key Stage 2 we see children become skilled writers with a focus on composition; highly technical sentence structure and children writing to engage the reader. To achieve well in literacy in this crucial phase, we must enable and encourage our pupils to enjoy reading and writing; with an emphasis on enjoyment. Last month, children in year 6 sat their KS2 SATS. But the criteria teachers go through to assess that their pupils are meeting certain ‘benchmarks’ is huge and arguably at times, can detract from the enjoyment of the writing process and composition. Positive writing cultures to encourage children’s creative craft for writing need to be fostered with less focus on trying to write by grammar. This is not to diminish the importance of grammar, but that we also need a writing for pleasure culture, where schools celebrate children’s creative ideas.
The Education Endowment Foundation have published 7 recommendations which ‘represent lever points’ where there is useful evidence about language and literacy teaching that schools can use to make a significant difference to teaching and pupils’ learning.’ Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)
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