Letters

16 July 2011

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Conrad Black
New York City

Friday feeling

Sir: Now that Freddy Gray (‘Thank God it’s Thursday’, 9 July) has realised that some Whitehall workers enjoy a poets culture, he might care to investigate the same culture in some local authorities. He might also like to consider ways of bringing an end to this phenomenon. Perhaps we should provide compulsory opportunities for these people to shadow workers in jobs that require five-day concentration. My own preference would be to let them spend full weeks, including Friday afternoons, preparing for and teaching classes to lively 16-year-olds. Of course, to be completely fair, I’d want them to have the same compulsory pension opportunities.

Eric Sinclair
Former head teacher, Orkney

Phonic boom

Sir: I fear it’s Rod Liddle, rather than our teachers, who has had his brains sucked out of the top of his head (9 July). In his case, it’s the UK Literacy Association rather than aliens who are responsible. Their campaign against the government’s new 6+ phonics test appears to have convinced Liddle that our kids can’t spell because they are taught about letters and sounds.

Of course, English spelling is confusing. So are algebra and trigonometry, but I’ve yet to hear a maths teacher use this as an excuse for not teaching them. If our children can’t spell, it’s only because their teachers place very little importance on the subject — one of the old mantras is ‘We don’t worry too much about spelling so long as they can get their thoughts on paper.’

Good phonics teaching is an integral part of teaching spelling, even if it is not enough in itself. In 1999, I tested the nine-year-olds at Kobi Nazrul primary school in Whitechapel — almost all of them came from homes where English was not spoken. The head, Ruth Miskin, was one of the leading pioneers in the re-introduction of synthetic phonics. On a standardised spelling test, her pupils were 22 months ahead of norms. Their spelling was only seven months behind that of the 12-year-olds at the white suburban Norwich comprehensive where I was teaching. All of our feeder schools were using the ‘mixed methods’ so enthusiastically endorsed by the UK Literacy Association.

Tom Burkard
Research Fellow, Centre for Policy Studies

Driverless streets

Sir: If the Wiki Man (18 June) wants to see self-driving cars in action he could do worse than visit La Rochelle, on the west coast of France, where a small herd of them have been trundling around the city on an experimental basis for several weeks. Since I have not heard any shock-horror stories in the media about them running amok and causing personal injury or material damage I can only assume that they, and the experiment, are proceeding in an orderly manner. In any case La Rochelle is an attractive city to visit, so Rory Sutherland would not be wasting his time.

J. Ward-Hayne
Albi, France