After making it clear this week that it wanted the country to be a beacon of literacy across the world, the government has not set the best example of high-quality spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) in a subsequent blog published by the Department for Education.
The blog, “Our focus on literacy and numeracy - what it means in practice”, has attracted criticism from teachers on social media over sentences that do not appear to make sense, “clunky writing” and questionable use of tenses.
The criticism comes just days after Tes revealed schools minister Robin Walker’s ambition for the country’s schools to become “world leaders in literacy”.
DfE literacy blog ‘clunky’ and ‘incomprehensible’
On Twitter, the blog was described as “incomprehensible” by Sussex primary school headteacher and Tes columnist Michael Tidd.
He highlighted one sentence in particular as being indecipherable.
It reads: “By 2030, our ambition is that 90 per cent of all primary school children in England will achieve the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by over a third.”
Mr Tidd continued his Twitter thread, describing the blog as “pretty clunky” and highlighting other examples of questionable writing within it.
The blog caused both amusement and bemusement among teachers on Twitter.
Responding to the criticism, one retired teacher, Gill Ditch, highlighted how she had used DfE publications to help her students practise proofreading.
“So many typos, spelling errors and general poor grammar…dire,” she said.
Another Twitter user said that the DfE had once again outdone itself “in standards of irony and national embarrassment”.
One primary teacher suggested that the blog had been “written and whacked out at speed - proofread by a Year 6 just before lunch”.
A primary pupil ‘could have done better’
And a headteacher asked if the DfE would like a key stage 2 pupil to assist it with its grammar.
Earlier this month, the DfE said there would be a national mission to tackle “illiteracy” and “innumeracy” as part of its announcement of the Levelling Up White Paper.
A more detailed plan on how this will be achieved is expected soon in a new schools’ White Paper.
The DfE has been approached for comment.
The SPAG mistakes that Mr Tidd highlighted on social media had not been corrected on the blog this morning when Tes contacted the department.
