Extra schooling ahead

Byers: "An important first step"

Byers: "Literacy can be fun"

Extra Schooling for Failing Pupils

Mr McAvoy said the summer schools were a "welcome initiative" but could not overcome "the deep-seated problems left by the last Government".

Stephen Byers, the Education Minister, said funding for the scheme will come from the withdrawal of public funds from the Grant Maintained Schools Foundation.

Pilot projects will give around 900 children extra help with reading and writing in the summer holidays. Children who have left primary school without reaching the expected level of literacy will get special tuition to help them make the transition to secondary school.

The lessons will be given by a teacher from the secondary schools involved in the pilot, along with an adult helper.

Announcing £300,000 funding for the pilot projects, Mr Byers stressed that children must achieve basic literacy before they leave primary school.

Reading, writing and arithmetic for all

Without it, they are likely to fall quickly behind at secondary school, heading for the exams scrap heap from their early teens.

Teachers working at several of the schools due to take part in the initiative have given the Governments' plans their backing. Tony Turner, a teacher at the Hartcliffe School in Bristol, said, "At last we have been given some money to do something that could really make a difference. This enables us to deliberately target those students who need help."

The Government hopes the scheme will go someway to tackling the low level of literacy often associated with children who live in deprived areas. Teacher Sue Rothwell talking of her own school in Leicester said, "This is recognised as an area that suffers form economic deprivation. Poor literacy standards are a problem but we have been doing a lot of pioneering work to tackle this."

As a teacher, you have to come to an awareness that, whatever you teach, you are essentially a teacher of literacy."

The principal of one school which has already run its own successful scheme to tackle reading problems in the North-East welcomed the scheme as well. Phil Turner of Westgate College in Newcastle Upon Tyne said, "We are obviously very pleased."

"I think it is accepted now that illiteracy is a huge issue for many areas of the country. People are quick to blame primary schools but they have had a difficult job to do. They have been required to teach the national curriculum and have not had time to concentrate on basic literacy skills."

The summer schools are one of the initiatives which the Government is launching to help realise its ambitious literacy targets.

By the end of its five-year Parliamentary term, it has pledged that 80% of 11-year-olds will be able to read and write at the level expected for children of their age, up from barely half.