Industry News
Further action on early skills
Posted on 26th September 2007
Secretary of state for children, schools and families Ed Balls has announced further action to improve early reading, writing and maths skills with a new scheme of "intensive support" labelled Every Child a Writer, Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts.
The government will invest £144 million over the next three years in rolling out these programmes, he declared.
Gordon Brown announced at the Labour Party conference that more one-to-one tuition would be offered to pupils but today's announcement is in addition to those pledges.
Mr Balls said some children needed extra help early on to ensure they "don't lose heart" and fall behind their peers.
He said: "I want all children to master the skills they need to succeed at secondary school, which means that every child should leave primary school able to read and write and do maths."
In a speech at the conference he accused the Conservatives of having a "crude" policy on education which only benefited the "privileged elite".
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