School should be about understanding each learner, not turning education into a conveyor belt of catchy quips and neatly packaged expectations. Perhaps we should be judged less on how well children fit into prescribed boxes and more on how well we support those who don't. The children who aren't motivated by pressure to perform, who don't respond to being told to try harder, and who might simply need a little more time.
I often think back to my own experience as a child. I will never forget how it felt to be told to be neater, to do it again, to try harder. If only someone had understood that what I had produced was as neat as I could manage, that doing it again wasn't going to magically improve it, and that, in that moment, I really was trying as hard as I could. I was proficient for me, at that moment in time.
I can still remember standing at the front of the class, lined up alongside other children, with our camp posters on display. Mine was being judged against those belonging to children for whom this sort of thing came easily. I remember how that felt, and I wonder how many children are experiencing something similar right now.
It reminds me of the way our curriculum is encouraging us to view children, as though they sit somewhere along a continuum, with failure at one end and success at the other, and with a prescribed set of expectations determining where they belong.
But what if the child at the 'wrong' end of that continuum is actually making enormous progress? What if they are giving everything they have, but simply need more time?
Did those experiences motivate me as a learner?
Well, what do you think?
Something Is Not Sitting Right
There has been something gnawing away at me, nibbling at my brain and generally making me feel rather uncomfortable.
After many revisions, we are now faced with a curriculum that places achievement firmly within prescribed year levels. It is there in black and white, almost as though children should progress in neat little boxes, with the assumption that they all start from the same place and, with the 'right' teaching, will all make the same progress.
This is incredibly problematic. Particularly in the first three years of school, and particularly when it comes to reading.
Firstly, I want to put it out there that I am absolutely not against high expectations. Far from it. I believe in having high expectations for every child. However, high expectations, when applied in such an arbitrary fashion, can become incredibly damaging. Nowhere, in my opinion, is this more evident than in the way we are beginning to talk about reading achievement.
This really comes to the fore at reporting time, when my social media feed starts filling up with questions, comments and discussions about where children should be.
And I find some of these expectations for our Year 1 and 2 readers, quite frankly, ludicrous.
Before you come at me with the usual arguments of 'we haven't got time', 'we are failing children' or 'we are letting some children fall through the cracks', let me be clear. This has absolutely nothing to do with not teaching children using the very best pedagogical approaches. It has everything to do with understanding each child as an individual. It is not about delaying support or lowering expectations; it is about knowing the difference between a child who needs more support and a child who simply needs more time. Because these are not the same thing, and we need to become much better at recognising the difference.
Not All Readers Start at the Same Starting Line
Yes, as has always been the case, some children will leap over the hurdles we set, while others will still be just starting the race.
That is the nature of development. It is the nature of learning. And it is certainly the nature of learning to read.
To see comments suggesting that a Year 1 reader needs to be at Stage 7.1 to be considered proficient absolutely blows my mind.
Think about that for a moment.
With this mindset, some of the children who will go on to become our strongest readers by Year 6 are already being tarred with the brush of failure before they have barely begun their schooling.
How on earth have we arrived at a place where we are so comfortable applying these labels?
Let's be realistic for a moment. Depending on the school entry cut-off, a Year 1 child may have had as little as seven months at school, or as much as eighteen months. At our school, we use the beginning of Term 1 as our marker, which means some of our Year 1 children will have had seven terms of schooling across their Year 0 and Year 1 journey, while others will have had considerably less.
How is it possible that we are even considering using the same yardstick to measure their achievement?
We are comparing children with vastly different amounts of time, experience and opportunity to learn, and then wondering why the results don't fit neatly into the boxes.
Knowing Your Readers Matters
I have been teaching for almost 30 years, and for the majority of that time I have worked within the first three years of school.
I know when a child needs additional support. I know when there are gaps that need addressing, and I know when a child is progressing well and will be just fine, even if their current reading stage doesn't quite match someone's prescribed expectation.
If we look at this through the LLLL stages, I know that a Year 1 child reading at Stage 3–4 with good fluency is well placed as they move into Year 2, in fact many of my best Year 2 readers came to me with just Stage 1 and 2 firmly under their belt.
Quite frankly, there is no reason to panic if this is the case.
Over the years, and increasingly so in recent times, I have had children join my Year 1/2 class after spending time in Year 1 from other schools, and I have found myself having to undo some of the damage caused by the push to accelerate children through a scope and sequence.
Sometimes this looks like a child who has picked up bits and pieces of understanding around long vowel spelling patterns, but whose foundations in short vowels are still incredibly shaky.
Sometimes it is a child who appears to be a capable decoder, but has very little understanding of how to blend sounds together and turn those sounds into a word.
They may have been moved along the sequence, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have secured the learning.
And this is the bit that worries me.
Moving through a scope and sequence is not the same as mastering the learning.
We need to be looking beyond the stage, beyond the number and beyond the expectation written in a document. We need to understand what children actually know and, just as importantly, what they can do with that knowledge.
The Importance of Building Strong Foundations
As for my Year 2 children, I am genuinely happy when they have developed good fluency within Stages 6–7.
Why?
Because I know that reading is about so much more than reaching a particular stage.
I am looking at their fluency, their ability to decode accurately, their confidence, their understanding and their comprehension of what they are reading. Not only that, I am looking to see if they are able to use set for variability, can they get close to a word and then understand it does not quite sound like and flex the sounds to correct their attempt?
I know that when these things are developing well, they are building the foundations they need to move forward. I know I will be looking at them in year six and wondering why anyone would ever have been worried.
In fact, many of these children are likely to be ready to move beyond decodable texts as they progress into Year 3, with the skills and understanding to tackle increasingly complex texts.
I am not suggesting we lower expectations or become complacent about progress. Quite the opposite. I want children to make progress, and I want them to be challenged.
But I also want that progress to be meaningful.
I want children to have the time to secure their learning rather than being hurried along because a particular number says they should be somewhere else.
There is a significant difference between extending a child and accelerating them before they are ready.
And I think we need to be much more careful about confusing the two.
Please Don't Let a Number Define a Reader
I am not going to label my children as not proficient when I know they are doing well, when they are making progress as readers, when their foundations are developing and when there are no red flags to suggest otherwise.
And I will not allow an ill-thought-out, prescribed curriculum to tell me that what I am seeing every day in my classroom is somehow wrong.
A reading stage is a useful piece of information. It can help us identify gaps, plan next steps and understand where a child might need additional support.
But it is just that. A piece of information.
It is not the child. It is not the whole story. And it certainly shouldn't be the sole measure of whether a child is succeeding.
We need to be careful that, in our pursuit of measurable achievement, we don't lose sight of the actual reader sitting in front of us.
Let's Bring Professional Judgement Back Into the Conversation
The first three years of school are crucial. They are also incredibly varied.
For some children, the journey into reading is relatively straightforward. They pick things up quickly, make connections and seem to leap from one stage to the next.
For others, it is a much slower process. They need more time, more repetition, more opportunities to practise and, sometimes, a different approach altogether.
And some children simply haven't had the same amount of time to get there.
That doesn't make them failures. It makes them learners.
I know, from experience, when a child is likely to need additional support as they move through school, and when a child is progressing well and simply needs more time to develop. I know what I am looking for, and I know the difference between a child who is struggling and a child who is simply on a different trajectory.
So, when you are sitting down to write your reports, I am asking you to consider the child.
Really consider them.
Look at the progress they have made. Look at how long they have actually been at school. Look at their fluency, their understanding, their confidence and their ability to apply what they have learned.
Look at the foundations they have built and the next steps they need to take.
Then make a professional judgement about what proficiency looks like for that child.
Because high expectations should never mean identical expectations, and consistency should never come at the expense of understanding the learner.
We need to stop measuring every child against the same starting line and start recognising the journey each child is actually on.
After almost 30 years in the classroom, I am still far more interested in the reader in front of me than the number beside their name.
And I think we need to remember why, because if we are in for another three years of this, we need to have our wits about us!
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