£10 million additional funding for literacy in the North

The campaign is being run by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and Northern Rock Foundation and will span over five years. The programme will be used to discover which methods are most effect in helping children to learn to read and write well, so that the successful techniques can be introduced to schools across the region.

The project will be implemented in all 880 primary schools across the area, but will be aimed specifically at schools with high numbers of disadvantaged pupils. Each school’s involvement with the programme will depend on their individual need.

The EEF will begin recruiting a network of local advocates who will be used to work within the schools in order to identify specific problem areas. Subsequently, the advocates will be able to provide relevant training and information on what is available in regard to evidence-based programmes.

Sir Kevan Collins, chief executive of the EEF, said: “We know that good literacy is absolutely fundamental to success in secondary school and later in life, but your chance of leaving primary school without decent reading and writing skills is significantly increased if you come from a poor home. We hope the campaign will leave a lasting legacy of evidence-based programmes and effective practice in the region, building on the good work already under way in schools.”  

A report published recently by IPR North has already found that disadvantaged pupils in the North begin school at a worse off position academically than those in the capital. The report found that 47 per cent of children born into the poorest families achieved a good level of development by age five, compared to 59 per cent of children in London.

The EEF will use the project to run trials of literacy programmes that have previously showed promise, and will subsequently look to implement those methods which are evaluated as successful.

So far, there have already been a number of EEF trials which have yielded positive results. These include Catch Up Literacy, which provides one-to-one support with a teaching assistant, Fresh Start Phonics aimed at older children and an approach called Using Self-Regulation to Improve Writing, which utilises memorable experiences to inspire writing.

James Turner, deputy chief executive officer of the EEF, said: “We have not yet decided which programmes we are going to roll out but there are already some which have shown promise. Initially it is about testing those programmes on a bigger scale in the North East.

He added: ”But when we have proven they are effective then we would look for a model where the EEF puts in its own money to get it going. It’s unlikely that a sustainable model would be that the EEF just pays for it [a particular programme], but the EEF may give money to get it going [in schools]."

Dame Jackie Fisher, trustee of Northern Rock Foundation, said: “All the evidence shows that children who do not read well by age 11 have significantly less chance of achieving good GCSEs and of moving into work.

“We hope this programme will help to break a cycle of poor literacy among disadvantaged children in the North East, and improve the lives and employability of young people across our region.”

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