Dismay at ‘approved’ book list for primaries

The proposals would bring primaries in line with secondary schools, where the current curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds includes a recommended list of authors, and demands pupils study Shakespeare.

But well-known children’s authors have attacked the proposal.

Former children’s laureate Michael Rosen, author of We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, told the Times Educational Supplement: “I’m all in favour of people recommending books to each other. What I’m utterly against is some centralised list which is supposed to be the Government’s view or the state’s view.”

Children’s author Alan Gibbons said: “What we need to see in schools is trust in teachers and librarians. We need a network of people who know about books and keep up to date with children’s literature, who have the freedom to select books according to their pupils’ backgrounds and interests.”

Mr Rosen also told the Press Association news agency: “I think that any list that is produced that doesn’t say who produced the list is counter-productive.

“You shouldn’t produce a list of books for teachers and not say who it’s come from.

“If the Government says who’s recommending them, then that’s democratic, that’s the way we share ideas.

“If it’s just a dictation that this is the way we read books, then we don’t live in a totalitarian country, we’re not in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia where they dictated what books you have to read.”

Under the current primary curriculum children are expected to be introduced to a range of writing, including fiction, poetry, myths and plays, but there is no centralised list specifying books or authors.

Education Secretary Michael Gove announced a review of the entire national curriculum earlier this year. He has previously raised concerns that many GCSE students are only reading one or two novels, and for the majority this is John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men.

He suggested that young people should be reading around 50 books a year.

Ministers have also announced plans for a reading test for six-year-olds in a bid to boost literacy levels.