GP Taylor: Keep politics out of school to awaken love of reading

GROWING up on a council estate in Yorkshire, reading wasn’t a priority in my early life.

The school I went to was at the end of my street and I saw it as a place of incarceration rather than education. It was foreboding, loud but easy to run away from. Especially when I was asked to be an angel in the Nativity play. The last thing I was going to do was put on wings and a dress.

My main problem at school was that I could quickly see the link between reading and formal education. What it certainly wasn’t was fun.

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The books I was given were dry, boring and out of date. Janet and John were a couple of middle class kids who got to do things that I knew would never happen in my life. I certainly didn’t want to read about them.

All changed for me when a copy of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was pushed into my hands. T

he teacher had faithfully read the book to my class every day. She had enthralled and terrified us with the adventures in Narnia. Now, she expected me to read it for myself.

From that moment on I was hooked. My life changed with every book I read. I could escape the confines of my council house and go on mind adventures as I turned the pages of any book I could get my hands on.

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So it really pains me to see that my beloved Yorkshire is falling behind the rest of the country in its level of primary school pupils reading.

The reasons are complicated and not easily solvable, but something has to be done to reverse this frightening trend in educating our children.

I believe that traditional reading is being killed off in primary schools by a desire from Government to use the education system as a political tool.

Teachers have become the whipping post of blame and schools are being forced to compete with each other as if they are rival businesses.

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League systems put schools in conflict and do not take into consideration the financial, cultural and social considerations of the catchment areas of each school.

It is very easy for a school in a leafy suburb to do well when most of the children are from middle class families where reading is promoted at home. Dreaded faith schools are oversubscribed and seen by parents as the next best thing to private education.

What has to be understood is that there are significant areas of Yorkshire that have a high level of social deprivation. Reading in these areas isn’t second nature.

Parents of children may themselves have issues with reading and possibly don’t value the purpose of education.

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I recently visited a school where parents turned up in pyjamas and dressing gowns and there had been an incident of heroin dealing in the playground.

How does the headteacher there cope with government pressure to meet what I believe are meaningless targets?

A school day is a crowded and busy event.

Where once it had a leisurely pace and the school set the curriculum for the needs of the children, now teachers have to cram in a varied and often frantic timetable.

Again, this is often done to please government desires and placate the gargoyles of Ofsted.

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My belief is that it is this which is slowly killing of the passion for reading.

Politicians often jump on the bandwagon of the three Rs. Yet, they never allow teachers enough time to teach them.

As a writer, I often get invited into schools to promote reading. Sadly I have noticed that there is a significant North-South divide. For every one invite in Yorkshire, I will get 10 from schools south of Doncaster.

I also see that many schools in the South have developed times of day when the only things on a desk is a book. Teachers and pupils read together in silence.

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It is an almost spiritual experience to be in a school where 300 children are all reading at the same time.

There are many reading schemes that turn children into readers. In my opinion the best is Accelerated Reading.

In my travels I can spot an AR school as I walk in through the door. Their motto of “every child has a book and every child is a reader” really works.

Solving the reading crisis isn’t going to be easy, but action has to be taken now.

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The Government has to get rid of its suspicion that teachers aren’t doing a good job. League tables have to be scrapped.

Children have to be given time in the school day to read.

Head teachers have to stop turning libraries into IT suites without books and parents have to understand that they are just a big a part of the education of their children.

Reading starts in the home. A home without books is a home without a heart.

GP Taylor is a bestselling author. The film adaptation of his latest book, the Adventurer – Curse of the Midas Box – is available on DVD.

Bernard Ingham is away.