Twenty-five years ago, I sat in an exam room or hall and completed my Year 6 SATs. The only part of it I recall is – for some reason – sitting the Level 6 Maths Test, because someone somewhere mistook my complete misunderstanding of algebra for genius. I remember it because I hated it.

There’s little else I remember about my primary education, despite returning to teach at the same school for 14 years as an adult.

There are some fleeting memories: one particularly competitive game of Kickball Rounders in Year 6 that ended with a friend of mine kicking the ball into the classroom through the fire exit, finding a packet of my teacher’s cigarettes in the store cupboard in Year 4 and treating it like I’d discovered a nuclear bomb, and a talkative boy being lifted onto the table by our Year 3 teacher to be told off. I’ll admit there have been times where repeating that feat myself has been tempting, although I imagine it might be somewhat frowned upon in the modern world of education. I understand, though, why I recall these things: they are, or were, exciting in some way.

This is why one particular memory I have of my time in Year 6 sometimes nags at me: why do I recall sitting, one day, in the classroom, glancing at the day’s timetable and being distinctly annoyed by the name change for the subject of English to Literacy?

I remember thinking it was totally unnecessary; in my mind, the subject hadn’t changed. We still read books in class. We still wrote stories. We were still learning reading and writing. It was still English, wasn’t it?

Today, though, as I collect and clarify my thoughts having read fully the Curriculum and Assessment Review and Government Response, I see perhaps a dawning reason for recollecting this specific and seemingly trivial memory: it reminds me that everybody needs to take a beat.

In the 25 years since I completed my SATs tests, there has been a, quite frankly, staggering swinging of the pendulum and amount of documentation supporting this in the government-commissioned advice presented to schools on how to teach literacy – sorry, I mean English.

Deep breath. This is going to be a deliberately long, correctly punctuated and grammatically accurate sentence that, simply by length, could sum up our approach to teaching our own language.

We’ve moved from the rigid National Literacy Strategy (circa 2000), which alone spawned three versions of the Framework for Teaching Literacy, included the Searchlights mixed-method model for teaching reading, into the Primary National Strategy (2003) which eased up a little on the highly-prescriptive nature of its predecessor, before the Rose Review in 2006 introduced systematic, synthetic phonics, killing all other ways of teaching reading, then a further Rose Review (2009) suggested an entirely new curriculum – again – based on “areas of learning” as opposed to traditional subjects; however, this was rejected by the coalition government before OFSTED published “English at the Crossroads”, noting inconsistencies in the teaching of the subject, and this was followed by a 2010 white paper on ‘The Importance of Teaching’, which set the stage for rigorous assessment backed up the Bew Review (2011), ending the writing test in Key Stage 2 SATs and introducing the much-maligned “SPaG” test (now due to undergo its own reforms); OFSTED piped up again in 2012 with “Moving English Forward”, followed by the introduction of the phonics screening check and then, in 2014, the new National Curriculum in England, then the ‘new’ SATs tests in 2016 before OFSTED gave us the Education Inspection Framework (2019) and the Reading Framework (2021, updated in 2023) - underpinning the reliance on phonics – the Research Review Series in 2022 led to the Telling the Story: the English education subject report in 2024, before the writing framework this year, the new ‘five-point’ OFSTED inspection report cards and, finally (but probably not finally), the Curriculum and Assessment Review 2025 and Government Response which will introduce a new oracy framework and lay the foundations for the third iteration of the national curriculum in just over two and a half decades in 2028.

And breathe. That’s all the changes. Well, all the major ones. Although it doesn’t include external reviews, like the Cambridge Primary Review in 2009, the Education Endowment Foundation’s Guidance Reports, the National Literacy Trust’s various reports on Reading for Pleasure, the SEND Code of Practice (2015) and the Statutory Framework for the early years foundation stage. There are even more changes to be considered when you note Ofqual’s sweeping examination changes to GCSE English circa 2015.

I note all this – and in such a way - not to demonise any approach or document or even progress in our understanding of how best to teach English. I don’t disagree with the government’s enduring commitment to trying to better the teaching of English and the outcomes for children associated with this. But the question must be asked: does so much reform, so much advice, so many approaches harm any progress?

I’ve seen a lot of responses online to the publishing of the Curriculum and Assessment Review and the Government Response over the last 24 hours. I decided not to write yesterday, but to consider my response a little longer first.

Here it is: everybody needs to take a beat and remember, despite continuous reform, conflicting advice, various approaches, there are some timeless truths about good English teaching which were evident 25 years ago, that are still true now, and will be in 25 years’ time:

·  Everything starts with immersion: whether working from a whole text, an extract or a different stimulus, make it engaging and interesting. Pupils who are engrossed in the topic enjoy it more, learn more and progress more.

·  Read to pupils well beyond the age they can read for themselves, every day if possible. Being read to means that pupils can focus entirely on language comprehension and leave the decoding to the reader. Reading to pupils also models how a text should be read – reading it well is absolutely vital.

·  Give them a wide diet of texts over time: classics, beautifully written texts, poetry, non-fiction, contemporary, a range of genres, a diversity of authors, picture books… the list can be endless. Comprehension is not a generic skill; it is a product of knowledge (Recht & Leslie, 1988). Build their frames of reference.

·  Provide opportunities for pupils to discuss, articulate and debate. Model to pupils how to do this. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development shows us learning is a social process, developed through dialogue with others.

·      Do not sacrifice decoding for language comprehension, or vice versa. Whilst these can be taught independently, they must both be taught from the beginning. This is the most important lesson from Gough & Tumner’s (1986) Simple View of Reading.

·      Decoding cannot be left to chance: teach the alphabetic code explicitly. Children must be systematically taught the relationship between sounds and letters to become independent readers.

·      Reading, writing and speaking are not subjects – English is the subject. Plan and teach them together.

·      Remember the purpose of English: to communicate. The “point” of English is not knowing the grammar, or the decoding, or using the punctuation, or answering questions about a text. We communicate with authors by reading what they write; we communicate with each other through drama, speaking and listening; we communicate to others by writing. Teach this.

All educators, and all involved in education, must recognise, whichever way the political pendulum swings, these are the things at the heart of English that do not change.

One of my favourite films is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. At the beginning of the huge battle scene, Aragorn calls for everybody to hold their arrows. One man panics, releases an arrow and chaos ensues. There’s mountains of advice, of schemes, of research, of voices out there that could cause you to panic, release the arrow and invite chaos into English education. Instead, hold your arrow, take a beat and ensure whatever changes you make are underpinned by the timeless truths of good English teaching.

One of the (many) reasons for scrapping the Year 6 writing test in favour of moderated writing samples was that teachers were teaching children how to write in a very specific subset of genres with rigid rules and conventions that went against what writing is supposed to be: free, creative, entertaining. Whether the change has had the desired effect depends on who you speak to. Personally, I think it’s created a different set of rigid rules and conventions based on the teacher assessment frameworks, such as including modal verbs religiously in every piece of writing…

And, so, this raises wider questions, and one that I think is more pertinent right now for reading than writing. What is the purpose of reading assessment? What are we actually trying to assess? Have we considered the different purposes for which we read in these assessments? Has the government considered the impact these assessments have on classroom practise (that is, beyond the wildly idealistic notion that schools don’t need to do any preparation for them)?
As a Year 6 teacher, I taught many pupils who were able to access reading content far beyond their years. They rocketed through practise SATs papers in Year 5, let alone Year 6. They could read aloud more fluently than many adults I know. What were we testing them for? Indeed, once children reach the Shangri-La of being a ‘fluent reader’, what else do we actually need to know that means we keep teaching and testing reading?

English can be such a wonderful subject through which to critically engage with the world – through debate and discussion, through personal reading, through writing. These three ‘modalities’ are all skills we need to learn and then refine in the modern world – and it makes clear sense why, at an early age, when we first begin to learn these skills, we separate them to build that automaticity. It’s why we have separate handwriting and spelling lessons in primary school.

Once children are fluent in reading, spelling, handwriting and beginning to refine – not learn – their craft in writing, then it’s time to bring the subject back together again and use those skills to explore books and, thus, the world around them. Without meaningless tests that distort learning in our classrooms.

So, I’d like to end by asking a simple question about reading: once children are fluent readers, what is the point of the lesson ‘guided reading’? Can’t we just do English properly?

I’m currently reading Dan Brown’s new thriller: The Secret of Secrets. He’s the one author I like to check when his next book is due. On the off chance he stumbles across my blog by accident, I’d like to point out to him I’ve had to wait eight years for this one!

I don’t think he’s my favourite author. I’m not sure I have one. I think the reason I check is because the geek in me loves being taught about the history of a place as I race through the latest mystery. I can directly attribute a trip to Rome in 2016 to reading Brown’s Angels & Demons.

I recall a friend at university telling me they had stopped reading his latest novel, The Lost Symbol, part-way through as they had tired of the same ‘murder starts the story’ trope. I was almost personally offended; I finished the whole novel in three days.

But this is what I love about reading. It’s an intensely personal experience. There’s so much variety and you can choose to read what you want, when you want, how you want. You can never be forced to read something if you don’t want to.

 Or, at least, that’s how it works as an adult. When you’ve already decided you love it, you get to do what you want.

For children, this freedom is stolen every day. One in three children see reading as a subject to learn rather than a fun thing to do. Just one in five choose to pick up a book in their free time. There has been a 36% decline in reading enjoyment amongst 5-13-year-olds since 2005 (National Literacy Trust).

Who, or what, is committing this theft?

As Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary at the time of writing, promises new libraries and a National Year of Reading in 2026, she blames the decline directly on parents choosing to scroll on phones rather than pick up a book.

There are other various criminals mentioned in research and reports up and down the country: schools not evaluating reading for pleasure initiatives effectively, children’s attention spans being cut short by today’s ‘entertainment-now’ culture, inequality leading to lack of choice.

There are two that really pique my interest, however.

The English Education Subject Report by OFSTED blamed ‘decoding over pleasure’ and recommended schools ‘encourage pupils to read a wide range of books once they are fluent readers, so they build a reading habit.’ One of the main solutions presented was ‘prioritise time for pupils to read and talk about books.’

I’ve worked in seventeen schools this year. Classrooms teachers tell me that the ‘packed curriculum’ is to blame. They just don’t have the time to dedicate to reading for pleasure and claim children don’t have ‘the mental space to do it’ in the classroom.

Like most people, I have some strong and some fleeting memories of my time in primary school (26 years ago!). One thing I do remember well is dedicated time for silent reading. Or, as I like to call it, ‘pretend to read, make funny faces at my friends, turn a page about once a minute, check if the teacher’s looking, hopefully get an atlas because at least that has pictures, think about other things, anything but reading time’. I’m still working on the name.

We’ve all done it. The best was straight after lunch, testing the lunchtime supervisor’s patience as they shouted at you to read rather than daydream.

In my experience, we no longer dedicate a single long hour to silent reading; instead, we do the same thing in short bursts in schools all day, every day. We dress it up as DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) or ERIC (Everybody Read in Class) time, but it’s the same philosophy. Children: read silently, don’t look up, don’t smile at anybody, and don’t you dare talk. Reading and behaviour management all rolled into one.

As teachers, it can be a relieving time. Time to check an e-mail or fix a display or mark a book.

Often, we go further – all in the order of calm in the classroom rather than love for reading.

“Oh, I see you’ve finished your work and I’ve nothing left for you to do in this geography lesson… get a book.”

“You’ve got to miss your break time inside as a punishment? Get a book.”

Leaders often mandate it too. Unstructured reading for pleasure forced into the fifteen-minute block first thing in the morning, disrupted by other children and adults entering the room, trips back to the cloakroom to get forgotten water bottles and answering names as the register is called. Or, perhaps, the end of the day, if you can squeeze it in. All in the classroom, altogether too – remember, children love nothing more than forced silent reading in a room full of their friends. Would you choose to read in that environment?

OFSTED, the government and school leaders are telling us that we need to prioritise time for pupils to read – and I don’t disagree with the sentiment – but it’s how we use that time that matters. Once children are fluent readers, we need to find ways to encourage them to choose to read:

-  Encourage discussion about books in the classroom

-  Read to the children

-  Give them ‘reading time’ – where they can draw their favourite characters, write their own unstructured stories, talk about books with a friend, or curl up in the corner with a book if they choose to.

It’s time to stop killing the magic, stop using reading as a tool to manage behaviour and boot the real criminal from our classrooms: mandated silent reading.

My favourite quote about reading is by Walt Disney: ‘There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island.’ The treasure in books is real. If we keep locking those treasures in the behaviour management vault, we will raise a generation that doesn’t think it’s even worth looking for the key.

On the walk to school each morning, my six-year-old son insists we play the story game. It starts with turn-taking sentences, but his excitement quickly takes over as he jumps around the pavement as chief narrator. Frequent characters are Violet Beauregarde and Voldemort - not forgetting himself and his best friend as the protagonists. 

As educators, we call this oral composition; but, in reality, it’s something far purer: fantastical, whimsical, endlessly creative storytelling, a vivid reminder of how an early love of English can look, borne from the stories we read together each night.

But it also begs a question: where does this magic go?

I recall his Year One teacher telling me that the first piece of writing they wrote at school after three weeks - a poem about cats and dogs - was ‘a real slog’ for him, that it took days and they had to keep encouraging him. Somewhere between the playground and the curriculum, his creative spark had been diminished. 

I can’t accuse his teacher of not wanting him to love English. I didn’t get that impression, and I don’t from any teacher I speak to. But the contradictions must be pointed out: a child of six, still learning to sit properly at a table and hold a pencil, let alone form letters correctly and write simple sentences, asked to craft a poem (a literary form that often doesn’t follow the conventions he is trying to learn) about a subject he has no interest in - in fact, he has a slight fear of dogs! 

So the questions must be asked… What was the ultimate goal of this task, or at least persisting with it when it became clear it was merely feeding frustration? What purpose did it serve in the grand narrative of his English education? Are we, as educators, so focused on ticking boxes that we are willing to sacrifice the long-term love of a subject for the short-term completion of a task? 

While the government may point to English results generally showing a recovering, positive trend following the pandemic, the devil is in the statistics we should really be focusing on:

• Only 1 in 3 children aged between 8-18 enjoy writing in their free time; this figure drops to 32.7% for reading (National Literacy Trust, 2024)

• Fewer than 1 in 5 children read daily in their free time (National Literacy Trust, 2025)

• Teachers believe that ⅓ of their pupils are weak readers (Renaissance Learning, 2024)

• The proportion of children who believe reading is “cool” has dropped by 29% over the past decade (Farshore, 2024)

• 1 in 6 children aged 8-11 said they found reading “difficult” (National Literacy Trust, 2024)

• Combined entries for English at A-Level in 2025 are at 74% of their 2017 numbers (the English Association, 2025)

• Degree numbers in English have declined from 35,000 to 33,000 (UCAS, 2025)

A business that chases nothing but profit becomes an empty financial shell, and, eventually, that shell shatters. As we chase exam results and conformity, it’s the love of English that pays the price. The subject is becoming an empty shell. Are we really going to let it shatter?