23rd April 2019 DYT's Top Story: DYT was one of 59 signatories in this letter to The Times calling on Labour not dismiss Key Stage 2 National Assessments without clearly articulating the alternative. Whilst we feel there are areas of the current system that should be reformed to better support learners with literacy difficulties, we do not support the wholesale [...]
Driver Youth Trust (DYT) has published its response to the new Ofsted framework, welcoming its focus on reading but warning that this needs to stretch beyond the early years. DYT have identified a bias toward early years and the initial development of reading in the Ofsted draft framework. We use our response to highlight to the inspectorate that for some [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 7th January 2019 Happy New Year! I hope you had an enjoyable and restful break. To see in the new year I have blogged reflecting on some of DYT's work and achievements in 2018 and take a look ahead to what we might expect from educational policy in 2019. [...]
DYT’s Policy and Public Affairs Executive, Dan Baynes looks at what’s coming up on the policy agenda and the work DYT will be doing to promote learners with literacy difficulties. Read his first blog looking back on our policy work from 2017-18. 2018 was a slow year for education policy. Brexit dominated the political discourse and the Department for Education [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 17th December 2018 Welcome to the last Week Ahead briefing of 2018. It's been a tumultuous political year as difficulties over Brexit continue to dominate the attention of Westminster. Whilst this has meant a quieter time for education policy (to the relief of many teachers!) some important policy changes [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 10th December 2018 Last week I asked if SEND provision would feature in Ofsted's Annual Report, we learnt on Tuesday that not only did it get covered but was a central tenant of Amanda Spielman's speech and the media coverage that followed. Our Director of Operations, Karen Wespieser [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 3rd December 2018 The debate over the Brexit deal continues to impact the Department for Education. Universities Minister, Sam Gyimah, resigned on Friday calling for another referendum and warning of the impact leaving the EU could have on higher education. It comes at the start of a busy week for [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 26th November 2018 With less than a month until the Christmas recess, education policy was on turbo-drive last week with six announcements from the Department for Education. There were also a number of speeches at the Academies Show, including a champagne-related gaffe from Academies Minister, Theodore Agnew and what life might be like [...]
Read DYT's education policy round up with a literacy and SEND focus. 19th November 2018 The political world was shaken by publication of the Brexit withdrawal agreement last week which led to several government resignations, including the Department for Education's Parliamentary Private Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan. Although the EU continues to be the focal point of attention, there are some important events to highlight [...]
The Department for Education has today announced around £18 million worth of funding to support early development in literacy and language at home. Education Secretary, Damian Hinds announced the policy saying that “Education begins long before children arrive in the classroom. It begins as soon as they leave the maternity ward, in the crucial early years in the home, where their [...]