READING MATTERS!

I know that we all want every child and young person to go to a great school where we release the magic and enable them to reach their potential. I was concerned therefore when a brilliant colleague was talking to me the other day about the fantastic things in her school that were stopping because the additional resources were no longer available from authorities or the Government.

And to be honest I was confused because surely we don't need additional funding for the really important things, especially if they make such a difference! OK, I understand the thing about headteachers making choices about what they spend their resources on but this is not even a starter for ten. The cost of failing to teach a child to read increases incrementally as they move through learning with the latest estimates being that the cost of any remedial programme later on is around ten times more expensive and the ultimate cost of failing to teach anyone to read is scarily huge; just look at the prison population which is full of them!