Asked by Baroness Benjamin To ask Her Majesty’s
Government whether they have any plans to recruit, train and
support volunteer reading helpers to go into primary schools and
work with children who are struggling with their literacy. The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education
(Lord Nash)...Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans
to recruit, train and support volunteer reading helpers to
go into primary schools and work with children who are
struggling with their literacy.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, we have no plans to recruit and train volunteers,
but schools have the freedom to do so where they think this
is in the best interest of their pupils. It is vital that
all children learn to read fluently. We have reformed the
curriculum and placed phonics at the heart of the approach
to teaching children to read. Thanks to our reforms, an
additional 147,000 six year-olds are on track to read
fluently.
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(LD)
My Lords, staff best qualified to deliver intervention to
pupils with special needs are having their time dominated
by children with behavioural problems, but the charity
Beanstalk has an answer. It recruits, CRB checks and trains
volunteer reading helpers to work with schoolchildren
struggling with their literacy—importantly, working with
the same children for a minimum of a year. This continuity
develops the child’s confidence, motivation and
self-esteem. As part of the Prime Minister’s shared
society, will the Government support this initiative and
encourage businesses to allow their staff to volunteer to
help children with their reading?
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My Lords, we are clear that businesses have a strong role
to play in engaging with the school system, either directly
through work experience, careers advice or as speakers, or
through engaging with charities such as Beanstalk. Evidence
is clear that where school reading volunteers are involved
in a structured programme and given appropriate training
and support, for instance by charities such as Beanstalk,
Springboard or School- readers, the results can be highly
effective.
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(Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that some years ago, when my
children were small, the local libraries used to run a big
programme in the school holidays? Schools issued a list of
books and the librarians’ encouragement for those children
gave them a love of books and literacy. Surely that could be
used again in the same way now.
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My noble friend makes an extremely good point on the
importance of librarians. They can be crucial because they
influence the books that are chosen. It is about not just
learning to read, but what our children read and improving
their knowledge.
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(Lab)
My Lords, what happened to the promotion of volunteer groups
under the big society?
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Under the shared society, we will promote what the noble
Baroness, Lady Benjamin, referred to and certainly support
groups such as Beanstalk and Springboard.
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of Soho (CB)
My Lords, digital literacy is as fundamental for children as
literacy. It is literacy. In 2013 the Government enacted a
bold policy to put coding on the curriculum, but, as I
understand it, with extremely scare resources behind it with
which to train teachers and, therefore, children. Will the
Minister answer two questions? First, how many children are
currently learning coding in the school system? Secondly, how
can the Government support brilliant groups such as Code Club
to encourage teachers and children to learn this vital skill?
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The noble Baroness makes an extremely important point; I know
that she is very experienced in this area. It would be nice
to see all schools have coding clubs—I know that an
increasing number are. I think that the figure for pupils
doing computing at GCSE is around 50,000, but I will write to
her on that, and I will certainly look at the resources
available. I am very happy to discuss the matter with her
further.
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(Lab)
My Lords, further to the question on libraries, is the
Minister aware that the gap in reading and especially in
writing between boys and girls continues to widen? The most
innovative schemes, which often help the most disadvantaged
families and therefore boys, are in libraries. Is the
Minister further aware that 8,000 jobs have been lost in
libraries during the past six years and that 350 libraries
have closed in that time? Can he tell me how many libraries
are likely to close in the coming year—I am happy for him to
write to me—and what impact he thinks it will have on his
ambitions for literacy?
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Sadly, I cannot predict the future, but I can say that we
have more than 3,000 public libraries and I understand that
approximately 110 static libraries have closed in the past
six years—some have merged. Local authorities are legally
required to provide a comprehensive and efficient library
service. Some do that via mobile libraries, but we leave it
to them to decide how to do it.
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(Con)
My Lords, those of your Lordships who have visited further
education colleges will know as I do that, too often, their
mission is distorted by having to teach, instead of
vocational skills, reading to 16 year-olds. Will my noble
friend ensure that primary school children can read fluently
and well, and that the task is not left to further education
colleges to carry out?
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My noble friend makes a very good point; I know that he is
very experienced in this area. Since the introduction of our
phonics check, the proportion of pupils reaching the accepted
standard has risen from 58% to 81%. The proportion of good
and outstanding primary schools has risen in the past five
years from 69% to 90%. Ofsted reports that the focus on
reading and synthetic phonics has been a particular strength.
However, my noble friend is right about the importance of
primary, because those pupils who do not achieve level 4 when
they leave primary school have only a 6% chance of getting
five good GCSEs.
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(Lab)
My Lords, the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady
Benjamin, perhaps underestimates what is involved in the
teaching of reading. Children who have difficulty with
reading require specialised help from teachers and teaching
assistants in their preparation and supervision. As the
Minister has conceded, a firm grasp of phonics is absolutely
essential, which may not apply to volunteers. Children in the
poorest families have lower literacy rates than their peers,
yet last month the Government chose to abolish the child
poverty unit. What effect does the Minister expect that to
have on education policy and the attainment of poorer
children?
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The noble Lord is quite right that children from less
advantaged families struggle more to read. They hear many
fewer different words and we all know that hearing words at
home is incredibly important, which is why we have to place
such a strong emphasis on teaching phonics and other
programmes such as Read Write Inc. and Talk for Writing, and
on volunteer programmes to make sure that our pupils are
literate at as early an age as possible.
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(UKIP)
My Lords, further to the noble Lord’s last answer—
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(LD)
My Lords—
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park)
(Con)
My Lords, we will hear from the UKIP representative.
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My Lords, I am more than usually grateful. Are the Government
confident that our teacher training—which, after all,
underlies our whole education system, at primary school and
so on—is doing enough to teach future teachers to teach
children how to read? For instance, can the Government
confirm that the phonic method is now actively promoted,
instead of being eschewed, as it was for many years?
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We have strengthened the teaching standards in this, and
there is a clear expectation that teachers will be trained in
phonics, particularly primary school teachers.
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