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Hey Phoebe, leave those phonics teachers alone!

In a piece supoosedly arguing ‘against a phonics versus books stand-off’, yesterday’s Guardian gave space again for Phoebe Doyle, described on their pages as a former primary teacher who now writes on education, parenting and health issues’, to bellyache about how phonics is being used in school. She had previously written ‘Boy-friendly practice is just… Continue reading Hey Phoebe, leave those phonics teachers alone!

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More on high-frequency words

In the next two hundred HFWs in Letters and Sounds, I’ve calculated that a further sixty-two are again easily decodable. This makes a total of ninety-four out of the three hundred listed which are commonly occurring words but which are easily decodable and should never be taught as ‘sight words’. At Sounds-Write, our approach has… Continue reading More on high-frequency words

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The truth behind the ‘rise’ in the education budget

The widely heralded increase in the schools budget is, it turns out, not what it at first seemed. The Financial Times this weekend (30th/31st October) spelt out the reality behind the rise.The resource budget, which is used to fund day-to-day running costs will, it appears, rise by 0.4 %. However, the increase in the numbers… Continue reading The truth behind the ‘rise’ in the education budget