Back to basics

Bradford was celebrating today after a £500,000 windfall for its back to basics campaign to improve literacy levels in the city's primary schools.Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett announced the news as part of an extra £54 million for the National Literacy Strategy in primary schools for 1999-2000.The minister also awarded the district a further £42,000 towards improving family literacy. Bradford Council has not yet decided how the money will be spent but Education Committee Chairman Councillor Jim Flood welcomed the cash injection. He said: "I'm particularly proud of our pioneering Bradford Reading Partnership which the government has taken up. Taken together with the Literacy Hour and other initiatives such as Books for Schools, I believe that in another couple of years the ability of our children to handle the written language will have been transformed. This money obviously helps us to keep up the momentum." The National Literacy Project was set up by the DEE in September 1996 with 250 schools from 18 local authorities taking part.This cash is aimed at extending the back-to-basics approach in teaching children through the use of phonics - where children decode words by spelling out the sounds of the letters in the traditional way. A report by the Literacy Task Force published in September 1997 formed the basis of the National Literacy Strategy recommending the introduction of back to basics teaching in primary schools.This included an emphasis on phonic teaching along with spelling and grammar all contained in a new literacy hour introduced in most of Bradford's primary schools. Bradford Council's leader Councillor Ian Greenwood said: "I'm absolutely delighted that we have got this amount of money to address literacy within the district." National Association of Head Teachers national council member Mike Newman said: "The important thing is that the money finds its way directly into the schools. The implications of the Learning Hour are quite huge in terms of resources. The financial load is quite considerable, in terms of buying new reading books etcetera, so therefore any money that can be used to buy more resources both physical and human is to be highly welcomed." In December last year Bradford Council was awarded around £600,000 which it pumped into efforts to improve literacy and numeracy levels.The grant came only months after the council launched it Bradford Year of Literacy campaign after it was revealed two-thirds of Bradford's children were failing to reach national standards of literacy by the time they are eleven.