OF COURSE children from poorer backgrounds are being, and will continue to be, left behind unless urgent action is taken to improve education.

The question is: what exactly is the urgent action needed to be taken? The answer is certainly not to be found in your piece.

We hear platitudes about how early years teaching is “absolutely critical” to the lives of our young people. Yet, not a single one of the ‘experts’ seems to have the remotest idea about what can be done.

The answer isn’t simple, it is true, but there is a single first step that is essential, so essential that it constitutes the foundation for everything taught at school: teach every child, regardless of their background, to become literate.

If a child hasn’t been taught to read and write fluently in the first years of school, the likelihood is that they will never catch up. Literacy has to be the most urgent priority. As Bob Price admits, interventions have not had the impact that was expected. So, isn’t it time that the authority put into place a plan that works?

Take the phonics programmes approved by the DfS, implement programmes in schools matched for SES for, say, a period of three years, involve statisticians from the universities to test, and compare results.

Until Oxford is willing to invest in a rigorous investigation to find out what works and then implement it across the board, we shall be forced to keep revisiting this question every few years.

JOHN WALKER
Manor Street
Oxford