DEPARTMENT FOR
CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES News Release (2007/0171) issued by
The Government News Network on 26 September 2007
Ed Balls launches
3Rs catch-up support for primary pupils
Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families,
today announced a new programme of intensive support for writing
in primary schools - Every Child A Writer.
He also announced the roll out of intensive support and
one-to-one tuition in reading and maths: Every Child A Reader and
Every Child Counts.
The Government will invest £144 million over the next three years
into rolling out nationally the Every Child A Reader (ECAR) and
Every Child Counts (ECC) programmes.
By 2011, 30,000 seven-year-olds who need help with maths and
30,000 six-year-olds who have difficulty reading will get
intensive one-to-one tuition through ECAR and ECC each year.
By the end of 2010/11 it is expected there will be 1,600 teachers
trained to offer the high level of expertise involved in Every
Child Counts and at least 1,800 teachers trained for Every Child A Reader.
This more intensive support is additional to the one-to-one
tuition announced by the Prime Minister, which will reach a total
of 300,000 primary and secondary school pupils over the three
years to 2010/11 in each of English and in maths.
Ed Balls said: "I want all children to master the skills
they need to succeed at secondary school, which means that every
child should leave primary school able to read and write and do
maths. However, some children need extra help early on so that
they don't lose heart and get left behind by their classmates.
"Every child should be able to do simple sums using
subtraction, addition, division and multiplication appropriate to
their age. Every child should be able to read fluently and
understand what they have read in the same way. That is why we
have developed Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts, and
why we are now rolling them out nationally.
"Our new Every Child A Writer programme will complete the
package of support, ensuring that children can express themselves
clearly in writing and can spell correctly."
Every Child A Writer is still being developed and may offer
support later in primary school than Every Child a Reader and
Every Child Counts, which are targeted at younger primary
children, potentially reaching a greater number of pupils and teachers.
New guidance and training is also being made available this term
for the first time to primary schools to support the teaching of
writing for six, eight and ten year olds.
Ed Balls announced today that the new Every Child A Writer
programme would build on this, with further support to ensure that
every teacher uses the best teaching methods, including one-to-one
coaching, in areas of writing which primary children find hardest
to master.
The case for further action on the 3Rs is clear: while test
results in writing at age 11 have improved by 14 percentage points
since 1997, only 67 % of pupils currently achieve the expected
level for their age. By comparison, 77% in maths and 84% in
reading achieve the expected level. A focus on writing will help
ensure that all children are secure in all of the 3Rs.
Every Child Counts will be a partnership between the Government
and the new charity, Every Child a Chance, a coalition of business
partners, charitable trusts and others. The Charity is currently
recruiting partners to bring both financial support and
educational expertise to the development phase of Every Child
Counts. The charity expects to raise £5 million from business and
other sources. Every Child Counts will build on the highly
successful collaboration between Government, business, charitable
trusts and the education community pioneered by the KPMG
Foundation in Every Child A Reader.
John Griffith-Jones (Senior Partner and Chairman of KPMG), Jim
O'Neill (Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs), Sir Peter Lampl
(Chairman of the Sutton Trust) and philanthropist Paul Marshall
have agreed to serve as initial Trustees of Every Child a Chance.
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The KPMG Foundation has set up a new charity "Every Child
A Chance" which will bring both business expertise and
financial support to the development of ECC and ECAR
2. The programme will develop effective intervention strategies
and train teachers to provide support to those who need it most.
In developing ECC, the department will work with six local
authorities to trial a range of approaches and take into account
recommendations made by Sir Peter Williams in his primary Maths review.
3. Teachers will be given professional development to ensure they
have the expertise to provide children with the right support.
Children will continue to receive support once they have caught up.
4. Education Secretary Alan Johnson announced the national roll
out of Every Child A Reader on 6 December 2006, as part of the
Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report announcements. He announced
30,000 boys and girls would benefit from the programme to improve
reading skills by 2010. A study by the Institute of Education
showed that children completing the programme increase their
reading levels by an average of 21 months - well over four times
the expected rate of progress.
5. Pupils will receive intensive daily half hour one-to-one
tuition sessions from teachers thanks to the Every Child Counts
and Every Child A Reader schemes. They will continue to attend
their normal daily literacy and numeracy lessons and will leave
the programmes once they have caught up with other children of
their age.
6. Evidence suggests that once children start to fall behind in
basic skills like literacy and maths, it becomes tougher to
reverse a trend that can be damaging for the rest of their school
and working lives. Findings from pilot schools for Every Child A
Reader shows they are improving reading results and that early
intervention works.
7. New guidance and training "Improving writing with a focus
on guided writing" is available to all schools from the
Government's Primary National Strategy on: http://www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primaryframeworks/cpd/literacy/improving_writing/handouts_resources/
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