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s #HILDRENFROMDISADVANTAGEDBACKGROUNDSARE
likely to be further behind in their reading than
children who struggle with reading but are from
wealthier families.
50
s #HILDRENWHOFALLBEHINDINPRIMARYSCHOOLARE
less likely to catch up and achieve a good English
GCSE than their better-off peers.
51
In what is likely to be a tight public spending round,
our priority for further investment is to improve the
quality of early education for the poorest children,
as set out above. However, there are options for
reforming existing
pupil premium spending for
primary school children so that it focuses resources
and accountability on children from disadvantaged
backgrounds who are falling behind.
Currently, a catch-up premium worth £500 is paid to
secondary schools for each Year 7 pupil who did not
achieve the expected standard in reading or maths
at the end of primary school.
52
There is no specific
catch-up premium for children who start primary
school without achieving the expected standard
in early language and literacy,
or who fall behind
while they are in primary school. Yet there is strong
evidence that low-income children who are falling
behind benefit from earlier support, rather than
waiting until they get to secondary school.
53
One option proposed by the Fair Education Alliance
is to refocus the existing pupil premium on children
who are eligible for free school meals and who start
primary school behind.
54
This would use existing
funding and accountability mechanisms for the
pupil premium to focus
attention on children who
need the most urgent help to progress, including
in reading. It would make primary schools more
accountable for how they support disadvantaged
children who are falling behind.
The primary pupil premium will be worth £1,300 per
pupil in 2015–16 and is paid straight to schools for
any child registered as eligible for free school meals
at any point in the last six years. The FEA proposes
halving the existing premium, and redistributing the
other half to children who meet
the existing eligibility
criteria
and
have low prior attainment. New baseline
tests for children at the start of the reception year,
to be introduced in September 2016, could be used
as the basis for measuring the prior attainment of
children starting primary school.
17
#HILDRENWHOENJOYREADINGANDCANREAD
well by the age of 11 have the door opened
to new discoveries and wider interests,
to knowledge, creativity and confidence.
Reading is the key to unlocking every
child’s full potential and opens up a world
of possibilities.
While we all have a role to play
in getting all children
in our country reading well by 11, there is an
important role for government to play in leading
this national ambition for our children’s futures.
The year 2015 represents a crucial moment in the
Read On. Get On.
campaign – action needs to begin
now if we are to meet our 2025 goal of all children
leaving primary school able to read well.
Schools, of course, have a huge part to play, and
thanks to the hard work of teachers and other
school staff across the country,
hundreds of
thousands of children reach the necessary standard
to do well at secondary school and into adulthood.
But what happens before children begin primary
school has a big impact on their achievement at
age 11. That is why this report argues that we must
focus more investment and priority on our early
years education system, through improving the
quality of the early years workforce. In particular,
we want to improve quality through ensuring that
more children – particularly
those from low-income
families – attend nurseries led by a graduate.
We also need to ensure that staff working with
very young children are trained in children’s early
language development, as language development is
the building block on which later reading develops.
On schools policy, we argue for further reform in
line with policy changes that have been introduced
in recent years, including building on the focus on
phonics and the introduction
and implementation
of the pupil premium. We want to see a focus on
reading comprehension, a strengthening of middle
leadership in schools, particularly roles such as literacy
coordinators, and stronger support for disadvantaged
children who are falling behind.
The
Read On. Get On.
campaign’s priorities for the
next government are:
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