One-to-one lessons plan for failing pupils

Thousands of primary school children struggling with literacy and numeracy skills are to receive one-to-one catch-up lessons, ministers announced today.

Intensive early intervention projects will aim to stop youngsters from falling behind, which if not addressed, can impact on their schooling later on.

Official figures published last month, based on national curriculum tests, show that one in five 11-year-olds are failing to reach the standard expected of their age group in English and maths.

In writing, just 67 per cent reach this standard, in reading it is 86 per cent and in maths the proportion is 78 per cent.

The new package of measures, designed to boost these standards, will see £169m invested in three programmes over the next three years.

Ministers said 23,500 children would be covered by all the programmes from this month, rising to 100,000 a year by 2011.

The Every Child A Writer initiative, for seven and eight year olds, will focus on schools which have the weakest writing results at the end of Key Stage 1 - the standard expected of seven year olds, with five or six children from each school receiving individual support.

The scheme will be piloted in nine areas, a total of 135 schools and 2,500 pupils, from this month, and rolled out nationally by 2011.

Teachers will focus on common problems children have with sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, understanding texts and creative writing.

Last month's figures showed that boys are lagging behind in writing skills with 60 per cent reaching the required standard compared to 74 per cent of girls.

The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) said there was anecdotal evidence that boys prefer non-fiction texts with practical information.

It means that catch-up teaching will be geared towards encouraging a love of reading and writing using a wide variety of materials.

Every Child Counts, for six-year-olds will focus on maths skills, and is targeted at the bottom 5 per cent of pupils at Key Stage 1. It is being piloted in 21 areas from this month.

The Every Child A Reader, which focuses on five year olds, is also to be expanded so that by 2010/11 30,000 children struggling with reading will be receiving extra support.

Personal plans will be drawn up for each child, with step-by-step objectives.

Schools secretary Ed Balls said: "We cannot sit back and accept we can do no more to stop children falling behind year after year."

But parental support will be "essential" if the schemes are to succeed.

Mr Balls said: "By intervening early and using the kind of personalised tuition and support through trained teachers that parents want, we're on the verge of something truly exciting happening in our classrooms which is supported at home."

He said there needed to be a "leap forward" over the next decade to reach the "ambitious" target of at least 90 per cent of children attaining at least the expected standard in English and maths at the age of 11.

The DCSF said that the programmes are designed so that once they are all rolled out across the country, there will be a "comprehensive catch-up programme" enabling children to build up each of the core skills.

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