As the chair of governors at a large secondary school in a deprived area, I’m glad that there’s a push to close the literacy gap. But most of the debate gets lost in headline battles with unions over compulsory age-13 tests instead of focusing on why so many children show up in year 7 without the reading skills they need (Bridget Phillipson ‘ready to take on unions’ over year 8 reading tests, 1 November).
Our pupils already go through national assessments in primary school. When they transfer, we run our own screening, and more than half start secondary school already behind. Adding another test at 13 won’t fix that. All it does is pull staff away from the real work: teaching children to read, which is already time-consuming and demanding.
