Take-up of match funding

Since the government launched its scheme to encourage schools to train teaching staffs in how to teach phonics, only 1,000 primaries have booked such training.

Graeme Paton, writing in the Telegraph, reported last week that in many areas of the country in which pupils are failing to reach the national average in reading, schools are simply ignoring the opportunity to take up the government’s offer of matched funding. As the scheme suggests the arrangement matches pound for pound up to a maximum of £3,000 the money any school with a Key Stage 1 component spends on phonics training.

This is an important moment for education in this country because it is abundantly clear that Michael Gove and Nick Gibb are resolutely determined to drive through reform of the education system.

With the newly announced Y1 phonics screening check about to be introduced across all schools in England in June, there will be no hiding place for those schools ignoring advice on the teaching of phonics.