Thursday 14 November 2019
The Committee for Education, Sport & Culture is making additional investment of nearly £300,000 to support schools in securing high standards of literacy across the Bailiwick.
This additional funding includes recruiting two literacy specialists to work in secondary schools with Key Stage 3 students (school Years 7 to 9); a better range of books and resources in primary and secondary schools; and an increase in funding for the Dyslexia Day Centre to support an increase in the number of children referred to the Centre in Key Stage 2 (school Years 3 to 6).
The Committee is making these additional funds available from its cash limit budget agreed by the States. In October the Committee released data which indicated a possible decline in literacy standards in recent years.
Deputy Matt Fallaize, President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said:
"My Committee is determined to provide the investment necessary to ensure the highest possible standards of literacy for the island's children and young people. Literacy is absolutely vital to allow children to make progress at school across almost every subject area and then as adults to participate fully in society and achieve their ambitions wherever they may lie.
"The Committee recently directed the Education Office to work with all schools to carry out a deeper review of literacy standards and prepare any measures which could be put in place to deliver any improvements necessary and generally secure the highest possible standards. This review is now under way and schools are being given the opportunity to shape the future strategy for high literacy standards.
"Initial findings indicate some clear priorities. I am very pleased the Committee is able to respond decisively and allocate this significant additional funding. This will help to ensure there is no delay in putting measures in place for students to receive further support as quickly as possible."
In recent years, the Dyslexia Day Centre has seen a significant increase in children referred for additional support. The Committee is pleased to meet the request for additional funding to enable the Dyslexia Day Centre to start working with children earlier - in Year 4 rather than Year 5 - without any disadvantage to students currently on the programme. Students will still receive public funding for two years on the programme.
The Committee has allocated several tens of thousands of pounds for new phonics books for primary schools. Research into the effective teaching of early reading shows clearly that priority must be given to teaching through systematic synthetic phonics (SSP). It is important that the books children use to practise reading match with the sounds they are being taught in class and this is not always the case at present. In order to address this, funding has been allocated to give each school six copies each of 100 different books per form of entry. This equates to approximately one book per week per child in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
Secondary schools will receive funding of several thousands of pounds to provide additional interventions for children who need support to improve their reading and significant investment is being made in the recruitment of two new literacy specialists.
One literacy specialist will work between what are currently La Mare de Carteret High School and Les Beaucamps High School during the transition period in which they will merge to become de Saumarez College. The second literacy specialist will work between what are currently St Sampson's High School and The Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre during the transition period in which they will merge to become Victor Hugo College.
Further to this, additional funding has been allocated to purchase books for secondary schools to improve reading for pleasure and support broader reading across the curriculum. This will help to develop students' background knowledge within subject areas. Secondary school staff have been given the opportunity to nominate texts for purchase and to suggest how they might be used within schools.
Kim Hutchison, Headteacher of La Mare de Carteret Primary School, said:
"We are always looking for ways to strengthen and develop our teaching of all subjects and I am delighted that investment is being made to provide more quality resources for the teaching of phonics in the early years. We look forward to adding the new resources to our phonics programme."
