We could be forgiven for putting ourselves above the national testing race: knowing that outstanding outcomes is about more than test results and that prioritising the production of test scores above the provision of support for children’s learning narrows the curriculum.
However, the facts are that in England last year (2022−2023) only 44% of our disadvantaged children reached the combined national expectation in reading, writing and maths in KS2, compared to 66% of children who were not disadvantaged (DfE, 2023). This must be challenged. The following tells the story of our collection of schools, and how we are tackling this very issue in writing, so that there are outstanding outcomes for all children.
It was whilst reading Quigley’s ‘Closing the Writing Gap’ that these figures really stood out for me, encapsulated by the figure ‘Daniel’ and Quigley’s honest reflection that he did not have the literary knowledge required to break down the disadvantaged barriers, describing the complex act of writing as “tantamount to a game of chess” (Quigley, 2022). This reflection being an honest truth for many teachers and leaders within our schools: changing this was a driver for our writing team vision that every child (and adult) is a writer who must break down such barriers. The EEF guidance documents have been crucial during this process, most notably: ‘Putting Evidence to Work’ (EEF, 2019), ‘Effective Professional Development’ (EEF, 2021) and ‘Improving Literacy in KS2’ (EEF, 2021).
Does the data really matter when it comes to improving literacy?
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