‘Sometimes no amount of reflection or theory helps’ – thoughts on the ‘quality’ of Literacy provision across a range of Black Country providers

Abstract

This article originates from the collaborative efforts of a group of teachers working in a range of PCE establishments across the West Midlands and Black Country, and in the ‘field’ of Literacy education. Drawing on the reflective journals kept by in‐service students as part of an Integrated Certificate in Education course, the project sought to provide an overview of the Literacy provision they were involved in. The aim was to identify whether distinctions exist between the Literacy education offered by different providers (in this case FE colleges as opposed to training providers) and if so to begin to account for these. A key finding was that there are important factors that impact on the quality of the provision offered by some training providers. Following this analysis, participants aimed to produce a set of questions that practitioners can ask of the provision they are involved in order to identify whether it facilitates effective Literacy education to best address students’ interests.

Keywords:

• literacy education
• quality
• marketisation
• training providers

Acknowledgement

The Literacy Study Group is a community/collective. Details of the authorship of individual pieces of writing are available on request via the contact email at the beginning of this article.

Notes

1. To traditionalists the Black Country identifies an area where a 30ft coal seam comes to the surface – so West Bromwich, Oldbury, Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Tipton, Wednesfield, and parts of Halesowen, Wednesbury, and Walsall. Today, the label is used to describe most of the four Metropolitan District Council areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton.

2. The ‘Texas miracle’ refers to a case cited by Goldstein (2006, 126) in which a high profile testing programme in Texas schools appeared on the surface to have resulted in very large improvements in test scores by Texas schools in the 1990s. However, the results have been challenged and reinterpreted through comparison to other national data to demonstrate that the gains were largely a product of ‘teaching to the test’ and that one ‘dysfunctional’ by‐product of this is a ‘hindering (of) all round development of mathematics and reading skills, especially for minority students’ (2006, 126).