Let’s fine schools who don’t teach kids to read, says riots report

About a fifth of school leavers have the literacy skills of an 11-year-old or younger, leaving many with no stake in society and no reason to stay out of trouble, the riots communities and victims panel said.

Introducing fines, which would then be used to help bring children up to the required standards, would help ensure the risk of future riots on the scale seen last August was “significantly reduced”, it said.

The report, due to be published tomorrow but widely leaked online, added: “Every child should be able to read and write to an age-appropriate standard by the time they leave primary and then secondary school.

“If they cannot, the school should face a financial penalty equivalent to the cost of funding remedial support to take the child to the appropriate standard.”

Almost 106,000 seven-year-olds failed to reach Level 2 - the standard expected of the age group - in writing, figures published by the Department for Education (DfE) last September showed.

Just over 83,000 pupils have a reading age of no better than a five-year-old.

One in three 11-year-olds in England failed to achieve at least Level 4 in reading, writing and maths in their national curriculum, or Sats, tests, separate DfE figures published last August showed.

Schools should also help young people build their characters to help them realise their potential and help prevent them making poor decisions, like rioting, the panel said.

The wide-ranging report also suggested the desire for designer brands fuelled young people’s involvement in last year’s looting and violence.

The panel found the riots were characterised “by opportunistic looting and very much targeted at brands”, with half of all recorded offences being acquisitive in nature.

Most of the shops targeted sold “high-value consumer products”, including designer clothes, trainers, mobile telephones and computers, the report said.

The report called for the Advertising Standards Authority to make the impact of advertising and branding techniques on young people a feature of its new school education programme “to raise resilience among children”.

It also called for the Government to “appoint an independent champion to manage a dialogue between Government and big brands, to further this debate”.

Some 200 people in each of the six areas affected by the riots were polled over the phone between February 14 and 22, the panel said.