Too many children in Stoke-on-Trent do not read or write well enough by the time they leave primary school.
Stoke-on-Trent is in the bottom fifth of local authorities in England for the proportion of children achieving the expected standard of Level 2 or above in reading and writing at Key Stage 1. Of the 23,300 children attending a primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, over 7,000 go to a school that is judged inadequate or as requires improvement.
Between January and March 2014, Ofsted inspectors undertook a small study of how reading is taught in a focused sample of 12 primary schools in Stoke-on-Trent and the extent to which these schools were prepared for the introduction of the new national curriculum programme of study for reading in September 2014.
The findings of this study reveal that reading was not taught well enough in seven of the 12 schools and that six were not well prepared for the requirements of the new national curriculum.