(A series of 6 short posts, where I think out loud about where I’ve been, where I am, and where I want to be.)
There will always be children for whom classroom instruction is not enough and for whom extra support must be provided. After training as an Every Child a Reader (ECaR) teacher in 2010, my last decade has been built on the value of literacy interventions. When the Herefordshire County ECaR funding ran out, I returned to full-time class teaching.
As a class teacher, I made a contribution to meeting the needs of children with specific learning difficulties, but I knew I wasn’t enough. As a literacy intervention teacher, I pulled out all the stops to make weekly 30 minute lessons count, but I knew I wasn’t enough. I worked in children’s homes, where I encouraged parents to sit in on lessons, so I could model evidence-informed teaching and learning strategies. I felt I was making a positive difference – but only for families who were able to pay.
When Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,”…
…was he saying, ‘It is what it is,’?
For the vast majority of children, the support they receive from home will make a significant and lasting impact on the child’s reading journey. The books their families provide them with, the bedtime stories they share, the interest their parents show in the contents of their school book bag, the times they see their own parents curling up with a good book… are investments in the child’s future success as readers. But when, for whatever reason, parents are unable to give their children these advantages, what then?
‘It’s lovely when parents work alongside schools to facilitate the journey to literacy, and I encourage the recruitment of keen parents to help out in this way. But it simply cannot be one of the make or break factors. We have to inoculate our students against circumstances not ideal for literacy acquisition. Approaches that are in some way reliant on home life only perpetuate social disadvantage.’
Lyn Stone, ‘The Home Learning/Literacy Myth’
Last Thursday, I tuned into Herefordshire Council’s live cabinet meeting where the soberingly ‘inadequate’ Ofsted report of Herefordshire’s Children’s Services (July 2022) was discussed. When the DfE Children’s Commissioner, Eleanor Brazil, addressed the meeting, she assured the councillors,
‘…I come with no assumptions about what the solution for Herefordshire might be… but first and foremost, my role is about supporting the council and its partners to improve things for your most vulnerable children, at pace.’
Herefordshire Council Cabinet 29/09/22 (27:28)
Many believe that when Jesus told his followers, “The poor you will always have with you,” he was leading them back to a well-known passage of scripture:
‘If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be …
For the poor you will always have with you in the land. Therefore, I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
Deuteronomy 15:7-11
There are times when I feel utterly overwhelmed by the vast complexity of desperate need in this diseased and broken world. When I look into my own wide-open hands, I’m tempted to despair. What do I have to give in the face of so much need?
Read with Julia 
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