When the Rose report came out in favour of phonics and allowing teachers to use their professional judgement as to what was appropriate for their students, it seemed a rare dose of sanity in education. The DfES has now backtracked and decided a didactic approach would be better. So from some time next year schools will have to use only government-approved phonics programmes.

This edict emerged after the DfES wrote to phonics companies telling them that their materials may be included once they have been reviewed/ judged by a panel of experts. It will be interesting to see who is on the panel and what criteria they use, although it looks as if programmes should deliver daily structured lessons and that synthetic phonics will be an optional method rather than an essential knowledge and skill.

If a product is not approved, will this mean that teachers cannot buy or use it in schools or will this simply be another version of the problems experienced with Curriculum Online? If a company’s products don’t qualify will they have any legal remedies against the DfES and its experts? It would be cheaper, simpler and more effective to rely on the professional judgement of teachers, but with a department obsessed with the philosophy of evidence-based education this was never going to happen.
www.dfes.gov.uk