Nursery World - DfES backs phonics with training funds

New guidance on the use of phonics will be issued in October to England's teachers and practitioners in the Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics, as part of a 37m training grant from the DfES. A DfES spokesman said, 'In 2006-07, the Department has allocated around Pounds 37m to enable schools to access training to help them implement the literacy elements of the renewed Primary Framework. Each school has been allocated a total of up to 14 days training for them to undertake the new framework.'

A DfES spokesman said, 'In 2006-07, the Department has allocated around Pounds 37m to enable schools to access training to help them implement the literacy elements of the renewed Primary Framework. Each school has been allocated a total of up to 14 days training for them to undertake the new framework.'

Jim Rose, author of the Rose Review, said that 'high quality phonic work'

was the best means for teaching young children how to read and spell. 'The principles of such work feature prominently in the renewed Framework which will help schools support all children in acquiring the essential knowledge and skills they need.'

The DfES plans to set up an independent quality assurance system to assess commercial phonics programmes and commission experts to develop a new scheme to replace 'Playing with Sounds: a supplement to progression in phonics'. See www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary.