Primary teacher Edna Green kept hearing about advisers and teachers struggling to cope with the National Literacy Strategy, so she decided to do something about it.

She set up Easyteach, a company that produces support packs containing ready made materials that do away with the need for photocopying, laminating and cutting cards.

The Easyteach packs can be used by key stage 1 and 2 teachers for grammar for writing and developing early writing and by key stage 3 teachers to use with literacy progress units.

The packs contain cards and laminated posters in labelled, self-seal bags. Each set is printed on different coloured card, so that when more than one set is needed for group work, teachers will not need to worry about them getting mixed up.

Edna says: “I planned the packs as if I were going to teach the sessions and units myself.”

She has already sold 800 packs since January and feedback has been positive.

Because they’ve been developed by a teacher for fellow teachers, Mary Kelso, literacy adviser for Liverpool LEA, believes the Easyteach materials are eminently teacher-friendly. “The cards are bigger than in the Department for Education and Skills pack and are easy to organise during lessons,” she says. “Edna’s practical classroom management experience has been brought to bear in the design of the packs.”

The KS3 pack, for instance, is designed for fast-moving sessions that draw on thinking skills and quick feedback from teachers to make the activity pacey and stimulating.

Brigid de Rivaz, literacy advisor for Hertfordshire, thinks the Easyteach packs are “a brilliant idea”. “They let teachers get on with teaching effectively instead of having to sit down for hours making their own apparatus.”

Edna Green has worked out that the phonics unit in the KS3 literacy progress units alone needs 1,200 small cards for 18 sessions for eight children.

However, freedom from the laminating machine and photocopier is one thing, but how do schools justify spending money on materials they can get free in the NLS frameworks?

Edna says: “There is a problem when you’re at the frontline as a teacher and you know what’s needed, but don’t know how to get hold of funding. There’s a lot of crisis management going on with schools making up cards and not being aware funding is available,” she says.

Every secondary school, for instance, has been allocated pound;3,000 in the 2002-2003 budget through the Standards Fund for Transition and Transfer (Year 7 Catch Up), which could be spent on Easyteach materials to support the literacy progress units.

It would be hard to argue that the expenditure isn’t worth it in terms of time it saves teachers. In addition, the quality of the materials and the way they help teachers deliver the literacy strategy is a strong point in Easyteach’s favour.

“Easyteach encourages teachers to teach in a whole class, interactive way,” says Brigid de Rivaz. “I have recommended the packs to teachers and they’ve been very happy with them.”

www.easyteach.co.uk Email: info@easyteach.co.ukTel: 0151 706 0444