I have just seen a report from the Sheffield on the success of the Governments strategy on literacy
The latest evidence on reading shows 17 per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds are functionally illiterate and Professor Brooks of Sheffield University said this had also been the case for at least two decades
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“People at this level can handle only simple tests and straightforward questions on them where no distracting information is adjacent or nearby,” his report says.
“Making inferences and understanding forms of indirect meaning, e.g. allusion and irony, are likely to be difficult or impossible. This is less than the functional literacy needed to partake fully in employment, family life and citizenship and to enjoy reading for its own sake.
This seems to bear out a frequent complaint from employers that so many young workers lack basic communication skills such as an ability to read.
How can we have arrived at a situation after 13 years of New Labour and the refrain of education, education, education that we have such a large proportion of the nation’s youth can lack basic skills following such a massive investment?.
This is a problem that has a direct bearing on our local scene. I recall a major article in the Sentinel last October where the blame for the very low literacy is fixed firmly on parents. An investigation carried out into why there is such a failing in achievement levels in Key Stage 1 concluded that the lack of assistance by parents in getting their children to read, write and add up. One Councillor accused Stoke parents of refusing to engage with the “system”. It is true that the City scores very badly against bench marked similar Councils.
I do some voluntary reading at a school in leek and the range of reading skills especially for boys is extremely marked.
The latest assessments of seven-year-olds show two per cent more Stoke children are reaching at least level two in reading and maths, and one per cent more are reaching this level in writing.
It means out of 2,515 pupils, 1,936 achieved the standard expected for their age in reading 1,810 achieved it in writing and 2,087 in maths.
This isn’t something recent. In the days when it was Pit and Pots reading was not a priority. Many adults find no pleasure in reading, and hardly ever write. Many struggle with spelling and write mainly in upper case. In very many family homes there are no books to be found. Kids start school not even knowing what most pictures on the ABC charts are. Good or bad, a gang of people in Whitehall aren’t going to make a lot of difference in just 13 years.
I’m not going to make this political, but I think a large portion of the problem is lack of actual ‘hands on’ knowledge from those making the decisions and influencing the policy at national level.
We are given free books for our children by health visitors at several stages before they reach school, and encouraged to read by the glossy pamphlets enclosed, but there’s no reference to local libraries, with the specifics of what they offer for young children, and little focus beyond the ‘well, we’ve given you some books, do the rest yourself’ box ticked mentality.
We have good local libraries but in the last 4 years of taking my son, I have yet to see more than 2 children in the (young) children’s section. There are activities for young children which are great if you have a well-behaved attentive little one, but very few boys fit that definition! The libraries staff themselves are nice and attentive but we actually need to get people in there and aware of what our libraries offer – or maybe we need to take libraries out to people?
We really need to stop looking for reasons to explain this, and instead think about what we can do to address it.
This is an interesting article Bill.
Councillors had a meeting yesterday with Alan Turley from the LSP giving an update on progress in a number of areas.
He revealed that 50,000 adults in Stoke-on-Trent are functionally illiterate (literacy or numeracy).
I would argue that this has a dramatic impact on the level of literacy of children and young adults leaving education, as this indicates that many parents or carers do not have the basic skills to support children outside of the school environment.
Tackling this depth of illiteracy requires a long term plan and likely to take a generation to fix.
Fr Peter hit it flush bang on the head, when I was at school in the 70′s and early 80′s thats what you got, ‘your as thick as two short placks, but its ok, you don’t need brains to dig out coal or load and off load pottery klins, just a strong back’. Even if you showed drive, you where pushed towards local industry.
We then have the problem of, and I know this sounds harsh- I don’t mean to be, well, I do, but, I won’t admit it, thickos who can’t read or wright at the lowest level, and have no intension of ruddy well trying, bringing kids up, who can’t do the same. I know I can’t spell, without Word- god bless it- I’d be done for, but some just don’t want to know, then wonder why they have a problem finding a job.
Jaroslav Hasek the Czech anarchist and creator of the anti hero of the First World War “The Good soldier Svejik”- a marvelous read- recalled serving in the Ukraine with the Reds in the immediate aftermath of the Russian revolution. The local Red commander had a unique approach to the problem of illiteracy in that part of the Ukraine by issuing an order that if anyone was found to be lacking the basic skills of reading after a given time then they would be shot.
Extreme I know
Blame culture strikes again….. teachers blame home life , parents blame the education system. The teachers (sorry trainers) have not trained the pupils good enough to obtain the desired results for which the teachers are employed and paid to do ! Whilst parents do have an input into their off springs development they too could have been failed by the government and education system and can’t read and write themselves ! Warren’s very true comment that locally the employment was not reliant on obtaining any qualifications , for example the figure painters never had an NVQ or Degree in art and yet look at the masterpieces they turned out ! No miner needed an Engineering City & Guilds to extract coal with a pick and shovel !
Fr Peter’s comment that Whitehall officials are not going to make any difference in 13 years – well that is a child’s normal school life which they have let be destroyed – yet more people employed and paid but can’t deliver – so much for the qualifications they have !
But still , somewhere , someone can magic a bit of spin on the figures and show that the figures are better than expected and we need more of the same !
The root of the problem is with the highly insular psychology of the area. If you never even think about living a life outside of your few streets, your bus-route and the local town centre – then you won’t even think that your kids need better reading and writing skills. “What was good enough for me and mah dad is good enough for them”, etc. Compound that with the appalling decline in teaching skills due to basically i) taking any teacher trainee who failed their degree with a 2:2 or a 3rd class pass and ii) taking people who just don’t seem to like or understand kids. Then add in the decline in the secondary school classroom standards, due to disruptive behaviour and lack of speaking/language skills, and you have a recipe for bottom-scraping low standards. That’s everywhere, but what makes it worse in Stoke is that the the inward-looking culture attracts a low-pay culture which promotes low standards, which deepens the a low-pay culture… how do we get out of this spiral without all the better-educated kids bogging off to Birmingham / Manchester / working on the Internet by the time they’re 21?
This problem really came home to me when working locally as an agency nurse in care homes,where a disproportionate number of carers came from countries of the old Soviet Union. Aside from their amazement that they had come so far and found work in Stoke despite our high unemployment,the real eye opener was their faultless written English(in contrast to the locals’ neolithic scrawls). I realise there are lots of factors at play here,but it’s pretty evident that both our education and welfare systems are lacking.
I would say that insularity is one important aspect in the malaise that grips the area and I don’t see it as a problen only associated with people on the lowest rung. Essentially I think the problem is endemic. I once got a job in Wigan and was told after coming back to Stoke after a few weeks “what was I doing in Stoke” from a guy who was a senior probation officer told in the manner of something who mthought that the Manchester Ship Canal was a yawning chasm.
I don’t think its a problem in other industrial areas famously the miners in S Wales were very keen on Education for thier children as a way out of the pits. But then again the Welsh famously had a well developed system of Grammar Schools. I guess this is a heretical statment but what about bringing back the Grammar Schools? I do not have a vested interest in this as I failed my 11plus and went to Carmountside SM on the Abbey although that had streams and I was able to take CSEs and GCE O level eventually.
. I said in the piece that I take some kids for reading for a couple of hours a week. I was shocked to hear from the literacy coordinator that the parents view of reading was that it was effectively farmed out to the schools. Instead of seeing what the schools do as an adjunct to what goes on in the home the school becomes the only place in which kids get access to books. I was taking reading from a very bright 7 year old girl. The coordinator told me that thatb although the girl was bright and capable this was despite the parents who did not read to her. As a parent this shocks me. We were talking about a middle class family in this case and the attitude of the parents was that education was the job of the school. There job was simply to feed and clothe the child put her bed so that they could watch “Eastenders” or whatever.
With reading a child can open up a whole imaginative landscape. I don’t understand parents who deny their kids this opportunity
And getting back to Fr Peter’s piece about writing. I did study many of the letters home from soldiers of the North Staffs Regiment in the FWW. Its clear that many of them from working class backgrounds could write beautifully. Something has been lost
By wrighting Bill I take it you mean handwrighting. The problem there is plain, its the computer. There is not much call for neat sripted wrighting now. Most homework and school work is done with a computer. I don’t think any handwrighting classes are given in schools now as they were before. From a very early age, we were told how to wright, how to form letters.
I think upon entering education, a child sould at least be able to wright there own name, in a way a teatcher can understand, know its ABC and talk to a level that it can be understood and make its needs known, anything less and peranting needs to be looked at.
This article sent me scurrying to my archives to confirm that the relevant items were there to enable me to make an effective contribution.
And there it was. An Aladdin’s Cave of information with a little gem in the form of the Education Committee (of which I was a member) Report covering 1964-73, made prior to the local government re-organisation of 1974 which demoted Stoke-on-Trent to ‘shire district’ status. It was done to establish a record of successes in education and to point the way for Staffs County Council – the successor Local Education Authority to follow our footsteps. Some hope !
Page 73 of this document detailed the way that BBC Radio Stoke had worked alongside the Committee to pioneer many education initiatives. The first Education Producer was David Harding and in 1970 he handed over to a very dear friend of mine, the late Arthur Wood.
The output included supplementary French courses for middle schools and a programme which included musical accompaniment for nursey rhymes for infant schools – the latter being a very useful precursor for later reading and writing. A survey in 1971 showed that the audience of nearly 13,000 children a week listened, with 98% of middle and infant schools using the programmes. Of the 145 schools that responded 122 said they were using broadcasts or taped programmes in a total of 424 classes.
But the real success came in 1974 during the BBC’s ‘literacy year’ when Arthur Wood met Amy, a 50-year-old non-reader. She complained that she could not get a record request played because she was unable to send in the necessary postcard. Arthur struck a deal with her, that he would teach her to read “live” on air in six months. Together they did it, creating a blueprint for teaching reading skills which has since been used from the Western Isles to Australia.
Arthur went on to become a consultant in Tanzania where he assessed their use of the media. Using his natural empathy with story-telling he linked village community life to the teaching of reading, writing – and even farming and fishing techniques. First picked up by South Africe, these methods are now used world-wide and their effectiveness is acknowledged by all concerned.
So it is particularly galling for me to see the abysmally low literacy level here in Stoke – almost the birthplace of adult literacy teaching.
So what of BBC Radio Stoke ? The department which covered this type of provision was closed some time ago.
Another item in my archive is an audio tape of two broadcasts made live from the library of the VIth Form College and promoted by the N.Staffs Fabian Society (the secretary of which being a certain Mick Williams !) The two programmes were broadcast on 27/3/77 and 3/4/77, the first featuring the then Minister for Education, Gerry Fowler, MP and the second a panel of local speakers.
Again , the ‘Features’ department which covered this has now been subsumed under the general rubric of ‘news’.
As to the question of ‘why ?’ – I am quite clear in my mind that the rot started in 1979 with the election of the Thatcher Government. Her notorious saying that “there is no such thing as society” was promoted through her attack on the trade unions, local authorities and the communities in which they found their strength. This was exacerbated by Blair, and his mantra of: ‘education, education, education’ should be read as: ‘Euan’s education, Euan’s sister’s education, Euan’s brother’s education’ (Leo came along later). To his everlasting shame he continued the destruction of solidarity in working-class communities by pandering to his middle-class friends.
So, will Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ reverse this trend ? It is most unlikely, especially if his plans for academies are realised. Under Labour there was a feeble attempt at justification of this by claiming they would improve standards of poorer schools, but Cameron’s vision is more concerned with widening the gap in educational provision, thus dividing society even further.
Perhaps it is time for the working class to adopt James Connolly’s slogan: “Let us rise !”. Sadly, with the current standards of literacy they would be unlikely to be able to read any of Connolly’s work or even E.P.Thompson’s “The Making of the English Working Class”. So literal illiteracy is making for political illiteracy too.
Bill’s reference to the Welsh experience and the fact that it seems to be more successful than that here in England is replicated north of the border. Scottish families tend to put a high priority on education for their kids, even sacrificing material assets and foreign holidays to ensure that they get the best. So is the attitude to education a cultural phenomenon ? Several indicators would seem to show this, and in many countries education is revered as the most valuable ‘positional good’ available. Certainly those who overcome barriers to social mobility appear to hold this view.
[And for a personal note to Bill: also in my archive is a photo showing his dad (Bill senior), Stuart Hancock, Doug Watson and myself as the victorious POEU team in the Radio Stoke 'Name Game' Quiz series. We won this two years running despite being ordinary working-class people - but who would fight any challenge from any others.]
Congratulations to those who have ploughed through the ramblings of an old man (76 today) and more power to your elbow if you decide to do something about what I have written.
(Above in a personal capacity – but I feel most of D4S would agree.)
An interesting article and response Mick. It was good to recall father in the POEU Quiz Team. It rubs off I think as I won my heat of Mastermind yesterday in Manchester. A sweet victory because one of the contenders was a Deputy Head of a Public School- Stowe I think. a minor skirmish in the class war
I think of my own education and the access to information and books I had when I was young( I asked for the complete works of Shakespeare when I was 10) It is a pity that many of the local people should want to deny their kids the treasure house that is the English Language and Culture.
And Happy Birthday Mick we will have to get together sometime
As a council house kid, with a factory worker for a father, I was reading (and enjoying!) Shakespeare and other anti-establishment authors and writers by the age of 8. How could this be?
The answer is quite simple – my parents simply refused to have television in the house, and our evenings were spent with quiet reading, pleasant (or unpleasant!) conversation and the occasional game of ludo, or snakes and ladders. Weekends were normally spent in the great outdoors, hiking or mountaineering, and holidays nearly always enjoyed at our wonderful Youth Hostels.
Journeys were always made either on foot, or by public transport, and in the dark nights my dad made sure that we were exposed to the delights and mysteries of the heavens above us, and we quickly learned the names of the major stars and constellations.
My formative mind was highly intrigued with the wonders around me, and the books in our house constituted a large part of these wonders. I read Tom Paine’s “Rights of Man” and “Age of Reason” well before taking my 11+, and I sneaked pre-views of some of my all time favourite authors such as the Brontes and George Borrow. It was only later that I stumbled on Frank Harper’s “Tilewrights Acre” and more studied works such as those by Christopher Hill and E.P.Thompson.
No competitive “games” were ever allowed. We were not permitted to play with toy guns or swords, and no balls were to be played with, either inside or outside the house.
When I first found out about “Cowboys and Indians” (on a neighbours television), my anti-imperialist instincts were already in overdrive, and when I was first exposed to advertisements and other hollow exhortations, I just couldn’t believe that people could be influenced by them.
We were certainly encouraged to enjoy our locality and its history. Even then, there were far more questions than answers on which a young mind could dwell. We were made intimate with our local hills and fields, and enjoyed working for the local farmers at hay-making. It was this, I think, that led to my fierce local and class loyalties, and those who attack me as “parochial” and “stick-in-the-mud” can simply never understand. For this reason, I would never be prepared to learn any foreign language, until I had satisfactorally learned my own, and dabbled with our historic language of Cymraig (Welsh).
“Education”, in my opinion, should never be used for the purposes of diluting our population. (i.e. social and geographical mobility) Education should be used to enable us to struggle for true human rights, sympathies and aspirations. KPI’s and other establishment tools will not do this. Literature, as the key to imagination, should be the most important subject on the curriculum. The shoddy goods, throw-away philosophy in our schools that promotes consumerism and false interest should be exposed and expunged by all who work in education. Co-operation is far more useful as a survival tool for our children than competition and confrontation. It is this cruel and exploitative philosophy that is damaging our children, and leaving them with nowhere to hide.
I’m afraid I can’t help laughing in the faces of those who continue to bemoan our lack of educational “achievement”!
Yep. Stoke-on-Trent has always lived in the shadow of Birmingham and Manchester..in fact any other nuclear city with a character and any not entirely based on industry. When we had the steel, the mines and the pots it didn’t matter that much. It certainly does now! This city’s had the stuffing knocked out of it through a process of savage de-industrialisation of the last 30 years and the rise of private benefit at the expense of social benefit. And I feel that it’s this that lies at the heart of this, but also the other symptoms of a city suffering from low-self esteem (if you like): high mortality rates and a rise in teenage pregnancies. Apart from Stoke City FC (who’ve had a bit of luck themselves) and the municipal “Gift from God” that is The Staffordshire Hoard Stoke-on-Trent has very little going for it. Endless master-plans continually p**s hard earned tax-payers’ money up the wall without results of any worth – as we all know to our cost. A plea to our decision-makers who read this site: please consider “thinking outside the box” and strip away the traditional and continually unsuccessful ways of approaching the predicaments that face this city. Because of the nature of this city it needs a few more iconoclasts than other cities.
Wigan is an area and a town which has some similarities with Stoke and is in the shadow of Mancester and Liverpool and yet, I lived and worked in Wigan for 10 years, it seems to have tackled the same problems as faced by Stoke in a more proactive way.
I realise that this is straying off the point but the key question ought to be which do some towns seem to tackle problems with more vigour and creativity than Stoke?
Good post Kenneth to which I readily identify. Another point that Mick brings up is access to music. Stoke kids in the 60s were taken to the Victoria Hall to hear children concerts with the Halle. I feel that part of the problem is the idiot dichotomy that has been allowed to grow up over access to culture and fear of charges of elitism
I’ve never lived in Wigan Bill so I can’t comment. It doesn’t look an inspiring place on the few visits I’ve made: it certainly didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. If, as you say, it’s “moved on” perhaps the decision-makers have had more of a social conscience there, more keen to support entrepeneurial and philanthropic flair with incentives for do-ers in the community and the private sector. Perhaps there’s more people in Wigan who’re prepared to (pardon the eternal cliche) “walk the walk” instead of just “talking the talk” on sites like this and in the papers. To go further off the point, I asked a “decision-maker” at The Civic’ what the discount was for booking The King’s Hall for a week was. The response was, “Errr, Oooooh, I don’t know if there is a one…there used to be.”
Personally there needs to be a shift in the philosophy of the City Council to encouraging small business and entrepreneurship. I think the spirit is there take the example of the interest in Stoke Market a few months ago when over 40 businesses turned up for a few stalls that were on offer suggests that.
To be really radical the Council should be offering empty shops on a pepper corn rent. It should be experiementing with economic zones why not do something with the empty Woolworths in Campbell Place other councils have using empty Woolies, for example, as farmers markets.
There are examples of good practice elsewhere in the UK and in the States where communities in the Mid West are suffering the same economic down turn as are the traditional industrial areas of the UK. Some cities such as Cleveland are coming up with some interstiing policies around renewable energy and the Green economy.
I might be doing the economic development arm of the City Council an injustice but distributive centres and retail parks do not seem the answer
You just have to look at the state of some of the leaflets that came through the city’s letter boxes during the election to see how poor mastery of the written word is.
I’m sorry Carole, I don’t buy into this theme that you need a high class degree to be a good teacher. you need to have the skills. I work in education and now wont be able to become a teacher due under the Tory plans to limit access to those with a 2:1.
Despite working with kids everyday.
I could read Ladybird books from the age of 4, and my daughter, 6 can read any kids book she picks up. Why, because from the day she was born, my good lady and I read to her, every night.
And we encouraged her by buying her pens and pencils and showing her the alphabet, and doing little quizzes with her. It doesn’t take much to get kids interested in reading if you start them young.
To get out of the situation we are in we need STRICT discipline in Schools. Force kids to do it, Get to this standard or break-time detention, read that page and write about it…or no golden time.
We are always rewarding kids for just turning up. Make them earn their prizes and they might take an Interest.
I get your point Warren, but really I thank god for the computer. without it I’d be a “Duncan thicket” for sure. I have always had poor handwriting, and although I used to write lots of letters in my teens, Mostly to French girls, but that’s another story; I cannot abide using a pen and paper, its so inaccurate and laborious.
I always smudge the ink, and one momentary lapse of concentration and you mess up the whole page with a mis-spell or a bodged letter. The computer has allowed me to learn to type and thoughts down in to something almost coherent. Also It’s allowed me access to read a heck of a lot more than I would if I only had access to print.
Happy Belated Birthday Mick. I enjoyed reading your post. And would be very Interested to get a sneak peak at your archive sometime.
[quote=Bill Cawley]
To be really radical the Council should be offering empty shops on a pepper corn rent. It should be experiementing with economic zones why not do something with the empty Woolworths in Campbell Place other councils have using empty Woolies, for example, as farmers markets.
[/quote]
I agree totally Bill, What harm could it do to transform the empty shops into thriving mall businesses. I know other businesses would say it was unfair but the council should have a policy of every premises being occupied, on short leases…with cheap rents…we might get some diversity into the city then. instead of the endless pubs, pie shops and mobile phone outlets.
Thanks, Bill. Another dichotomy is that between home and school. In the present circumstances, give me home, however humble, over school. I must admit to having been very lucky with my upbringing, despite the grinding poverty, and I’d love to hear what others think, who perhaps have not been quite as fortunate.
I concur with others here who have mentioned the importance of reading to your children from a really early age. I always did this with my own children, having been set the good example by my own parents.
What I thought was a really useful thing was that when my Mum read to me as a young child, which she did a lot, she always followed the words with a finger so the link between the visual and the aural was perpetually there. My Dad was good at answering any questions I had and when I insisted at the age of 3 that he teach me how to put the letters together into words, he did so. I was amazed and excited at learning to read, it was a good experience and I think that gave me a positive view of learning in general from a very early age.
My home experience of reading was very good. We had books at home, though not a huge number, but we were enthusiastic users of the mobile library that visited the council estate where I lived. My school experience was more mixed. I could read very well before I started infant school at age 5, so I found the reading scheme books dull, boring and way too easy. I had to go through them anyway, but on the positive side the school let me borrow a wider variety of books from their library and when I’d got through those I was allowed to go and read to the junior school head teacher and then borrow books from the library there. On the writing side it was positive in the sense I had a lot to say (haven’t changed much) but I struggled with handwriting and was in remedial handwriting for a while in junior school. I never did learn to do joined up properly. I don’t know what the answer should have been with that, but I do know that the mind numbingly dull repetitive exercises did nothing to inspire. At high school – your bog standard comprehensive – I enjoyed science and maths the most and was very enthusiastic about these subjects, but did not get along too well with English. I never got to grips with how to figure out what answer the teacher was actually wanting and having my own opinions didn’t always go down too well. I took the option to drop literature and just do the English language O level and after that I was very glad to leave it behind and concentrate on science and maths A levels. But all the way through, outside school I read huge numbers of books, fact and fiction and thoroughly enjoyed this, free from any interference about how to interpret them or what my views should be on them.
So the upshot from my experience I think with literacy is to start very young, tap into individual enthusiasms and work broadly and extensively.
I agree that reading to your kids from a early age is important & have read with mine from an early age, all thought I did have problems with my youngest son, I have no shame in saying he ended up in special needs with his reading, this wasn’t through lack of trying with us as parents or his school, he showed no interest in reading what so ever, until 1 night whilst sitting reading the dreaded “kipper books” for nearly an hour (nearly falling asleep whilst doing it) I gave up with the book & picked up a paper & started him reading the sport pages, that cracked it, it wasn’t that he couldn’t it was that he found what he was been given to read was boring so he wouldn’t do it.
I also think that social net working sites like facebook dont help with literacy, as if like me you like to keep an eye on your kids on-line, you will find they speak to there friends in text speak, that is like some sort of foreign language that only teenagers seem to understand.
Yes I’ve done that struggling to stay awake over the Kipper books as well. But I have to say… they beat Dick and Dora. In case you’re not old enough to understand, it’s what we had to put up with at infant school in the 1960s…
Dick went to the park.
Dora went to the park.
Dick and Dora both went to the park…
and so on… and all the while you had to smile at the teacher and pretend you were interested, whilst rolling your eyes in your imagination… then you’d turn the page hoping something exciting might happen but oh no it would be more of the same.
Dick and Dora met their friends.
They were going to the park.
They all went to the park…
(I’d bet Warren could spice up that story.)
Speaking of falling to sleep …zzz … goodnight.
Nicky yes I do just about remember Dick & Dora (shudder) books & a series of books about a dog (cant remember his name) & a ball that were about as boring & used to make you wish for your milk & nap time, God I feel old now lol.