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Anne Glennie submits petition in Scotland for parliamentary inquiry - everyone please support!

Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:40 am
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
Regardless of the country in which you reside or the role/s you fulfil, please do support Anne Glennie’s parliamentary petition to bring about an official enquiry in Scotland regarding teacher-education in evidence informed reading instruction:

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvol ... nstruction

It is an absolute travesty that England has made good strides towards the need for systematic synthetic phonics and yet to all intents and purposes, Scotland has made a back-slide.

Worryingly, this is the case in Wales too.

How ironic that the parliamentary inquiry in England – leading to Sir Jim Rose’s exceptionally important independent review – was highly influenced by the Clackmannanshire studies in Scotland (Johnston and Watson) – and yet in Scotland itself, promotion of systematic synthetic phonics is not universal and a leading academic, Sue Ellis, (and others) works actively through official auspices to undermine the need for systematic synthetic phonics.

Scotland also appears to be moving increasingly towards discovery learning and the official guidance, Curriculum for Excellence, is nothing short of a nightmare in its complexity and unhelpfulness for teachers in Scotland.

Recently, authorities in Scotland cancelled Anne Glennie’s phonics training which is urgently required, indeed wanted, by many teachers in Scotland. On asking why the training had been cancelled, ideas and research was quoted which is outdated and flawed.

Subsequently to this, several schools in Scotland have actually invited me to train in systematic synthetic phonics as another route to professional development where the authorities have pulled the plug on the regional training. In other words, at least some teachers are seeking information and guidance in evidence-informed reading instruction – but as people know, my protest over and again is that the professional development teachers receive, and the content and quality of reading instruction that children receive, SHOULD NOT BE LEFT TO CHANCE.

Further, this is an issue of very serious accountability. There is plenty of evidence to urge the inclusion of systematic synthetic phonics for reading instruction - which means that teachers may require educating in the findings of research and leading-edge classroom practice.

To date, Anne Glennie has worked tirelessly not only in her ‘day job’ of teacher training (not only in phonics but also in the wider literacy and literature) but she has tackled various authorities in Scotland and done her utmost to raise awareness and promote evidence-informed reading instruction.

Anne is a founding member of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction. Clearly she is working for the greater good as shown by her support to the international scenario. It is Anne who has designed the IFERI logo, who manages the site administration, who updates the site and creates the blog postings for IFERI. Of course none of this is funded – how she manages I do not know.

Ann has also joined the UK Reading Reform Foundation and created the new RRF website. I could go on and on about her contribution not only in teacher-training but behind the scenes.

So, I am unashamed to implore you to support Anne’s petition, and as quickly as you can, which she has initiated in Scotland entirely by herself. What you won’t know is that she fears for her livelihood in Scotland because of the backlash she is receiving from some in authority, but she still presses ahead at this high level. Believe me, I know, this is a very brave thing to do on a personal level. Many who know about the IFERI organisation know exactly what I am talking about and will have experienced similar backlashes and fear.

And to reach the point of the launch of an official petition such as this has already involved a huge amount of Ann's personal time and effort – writing and re-writing the submission – and so on.

Please, then, if you are a genuine pioneer, like Anne, in promoting evidence informed reading instruction, as I said regardless of your country or your various roles, please take the time to sign the petition and don’t hesitate to add a personal comment.

Thank you so much.

Best wishes to all,

Debbie

PS: If anyone has the time or inclination to read the kind of challenge put forward by Sue Ellis and others, I started a thread on Scotland’s scenario some time ago, see here:

https://phonicsinternational.com/forum/ ... .php?t=707

And here is the amazing Anne Glennie providing a fantastic, moving, short talk at the Reading Reform Foundation conference in 2015 – this is worth watching for any of you in your different countries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqpNzASnJA

Re: Anne Glennie submits petition in Scotland for parliamentary inquiry - everyone please support!

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:05 pm
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
In 2016, Anne Glennie wrote about:
Education Scotland and the mystery of the shifty document swap
http://www.thelearningzoo.co.uk/2016/04 ... ment-swap/