August 2025 – I felt extremely honoured when Nick Gibb recently messaged me via the X platform to let me know he had mentioned me in his new book, ‘REFORMING LESSONS – Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and How This Was Achieved’ (Nick Gibb, and co-author Robert Peal).
Naturally I bought the book and noted that Nick has indeed mentioned me by name (pages 30 and 32) along with other leading phonics pioneers linked to the work of the UK Reading Reform Foundation.
I indicate some of my involvement in the reading debate in an earlier post. This has not been, and is not, a professional debate for England alone – it is a truly international debate. The UK Reading Reform Foundation message board (which sadly no longer operates) received contributions from people in many different countries and with different contexts. I therefore developed the experiences we had with sharing information via the RRF website and message forum to an international organisation: ‘The International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction‘ (IFERI) and felt very honoured that Sir Jim Rose himself agreed to be on the ‘founding committee’. The IFERI website and blog provide an extensive amount of information including developments and research and recommended reading via its Forum.
Nick Gibb’s book is very informative and important (historic) – and so I was very interested to see this piece in The New Statesman:
‘What Bridget Phillipson can learn from Conservative education policy
In a new book, the former schools minister Nick Gibb defends a strong, if controversial legacy.
By Sarah Waite‘
Sarah Waite introduces her article thus:
‘It’s fitting that the new book by former Conservative schools minister Nick Gibb reads like a textbook. Part memoir, part manual, Reforming Lessons is both a guide to implementing the policies Gibb introduced under his tenure; and a defence of those policies. For me, reading it is personal. As a new maths teacher in 2009, I watched his reforms roll through the school gates. A few years later, as a Labour education advisor, I spent my time critiquing them. Now, as a parent, I am teaching my son to read with the very literacy strategies he promoted.
If international league tables are the yardstick – and the Conservatives said they would be – it’s little wonder they view their record on schools as a success. Since 2009, England’s performance in literacy and numeracy has markedly improved. Throughout the book, Gibb repeatedly cites England’s rise in Pisa (the programme for international student assessment) and Pirls (the progress in international reading literacy study) rankings. The reform that takes much of the credit is the one most closely associated with Gibb: the drive for teaching children to read by systematic synthetic phonics.
If you work in schools, early years, or are a parent of a young child, you’ve likely encountered phonics. This highly structured method teaches reading by blending letter sounds. Though the approach has existed for centuries, it fell out of favour in the 20th century, when some derided it as too rigid or “teacher-led”. Instead, more “child-centered” strategies became popular, such as memorising “whole-words” or using picture cues to identify words.
But while these approaches gained ground in classrooms, cognitive scientists were running experiments to better understand how humans learn to read. Their findings revealed that skilled readers don’t rely on contextual cues but instead recognise words as sequences of letters. Over time, a substantial body of evidence built up pointing to phonics as the most effective method for teaching reading.
Gibb recounts how he first encountered the so-called “reading wars” in 2003 when he joined the Education Select Committee. The chapter is a case study in how to drive reform from the backbenches. The then-Labour government began embedding phonics in all primary schools in 2007. When Gibb became schools minister in 2010, he put rocket boosters under the policy, providing funding for approved programmes and accountability via the phonics reading check, which nearly 90 per cent now pass by the end of Year 2.’
[Do read the full article, link above.]
Debbie: Interestingly, a little while ago, a friend and phonics associate told me that Nick Gibb had also mentioned me by name (around the 38 minute point) in a podcast discussion with US educationalist Robert Pondiscio and US journalist Emily Hansford of ‘Sold A Story’ fame (streamed live on 24 Sept 2024):
‘What Can the US Learn from England’s Rise in Reading Scores?
American Enterprise Institute‘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5hRfvSVkW0
This is the accompanying description of the conversation:
‘In the United States, the “science of reading” movement is increasingly driving states to rethink literacy instruction to address persistent reading deficits. While researchers have advocated phonics-based literacy instruction for decades, many states are just now pivoting in this direction.
England, however, has long used a similar approach to early literacy instruction. Over the years, reading test scores in England have steadily risen, bringing the country near the top of international rankings with better-than-average post-pandemic recovery.
As the science of reading continues to gain traction in the United States, what can policymakers, researchers, and advocates gather from England’s experience? Former Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb, who played a crucial role throughout England’s literacy movement, will discuss his insights with AEI’s Robert Pondiscio.‘
Debbie: I found Nick’s story and the way he told it actually very heartwarming – but he lamented the fact he could not persuade people to make England’s statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check’ results fully ‘public’ (presumably meaning every school would have to show its phonics check results) – and he also described his puzzlement as to why the average national score of around 80% of Y1 children reaching or exceeding the benchmark had seemingly stalled.
And yet, Nick and the Department for Education, over time, did realise that the original official ‘Letters and Sounds‘ (DfES, 2007) publication – described as a ‘high quality phonics programme‘ (wrongly in my view) was being translated by schools into phonics provision in a variety of ways – some effective, and some clearly not (see page 4 of my ‘course notes’ for the ‘Simple View of Schools Phonics Provision‘ graphic, link immediately above). Nick was then persuaded against an ongoing project through the DfE ‘English Hubs’ initiative intended to equip ‘Letters and Sounds‘ with actual teaching and learning resources as a ‘revised’ version of ‘Letters and Sounds’. As an alternative, Nick was persuaded to archive the original ‘Letters and Sounds‘ after a reasonable period and to replace it with a ‘Reading Framework’ – which was guidance and NOT presented as A PROGRAMME (July 2021).
This idea to replace ‘Letters and Sounds‘ with a non-programme guidance framework was initially my idea which Nick Gibb accepted after a joint explanation/proposal put forward by Elizabeth Nonweiler, Ruth Miskin and me. The resulting ‘Reading Framework‘, is arguably too long for busy teachers, but is nevertheless generally good and a big improvement on a government providing a ‘programme’ as such.
Ironically, and in my view tragically, the programme that was originally intended to be the DfE replacement of ‘Letters and Sounds’ is ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised‘ of which I’m highly critical as people know and is now in 5,000+ infant and primary schools. I wonder what will happen next. I have let the DfE English Hubs Policy Team know my views on the LW pedagogy of ‘Strictly no worksheets or workbooks‘ which I consider to be ridiculous for foundational literacy (phonics provision), and potentially damaging in a wide scale way to professional knowledge, understanding and practice. This ‘strict’ Little Wandle pedagogy is also very undermining for any phonics programmes or resource producers of phonics ‘worksheets’ and/or ‘workbooks’ – all of which should be analysed, understood and evaluated on their own merits.
And where is the interest from researchers and universities in this issue of content-design and the daily experiences and outcomes of the learners themselves?
Update 30th August 2025: Here is a further review by HEPI Director, Nick Hillman – I was indeed curious to learn what he thought of Nick Gibb’s and Robert Peal’s book:
‘English lessons: Review of Nick Gibb’s book on educational reform after 2010 – by HEPI Director Nick Hillman’
Debbie: I found the summary of Nick Hillman very interesting and important. My suspicion is that many boys, for example, do not get off to the best literacy start with a ‘strictly no worksheets and no workbooks‘ phonics programme. With regard to the ‘current crisis in the supply of new teachers‘ (indeed, what about the percentage who leave teaching within the first few years), I myself was primary teaching, then head-teaching, during the ramping up of official diktats and expectations and so have plenty of experience of that horrendous, impractical state of affairs! The, then Department for Education and Skills (DfES) would issue some guidance, the Local Authority advisors would act as a conduit for schools to implement it but often with an inflated and highly unreasonable expectation. With the spectre of ‘what Ofsted will want to see’, this further exacerbated pressure on schools.
Nick Hillman summarised in his review:
‘Churchill is said to have remarked, ‘history will be kind to me, for I intend to write it’. I kept thinking of this as I was reading the book, so it is perhaps too much to expect a deep dive into educational areas that the Conservatives failed to fix in their 14 years in charge. For me, these are: the educational underperformance of boys relative to girls, which does not merit any specific mentions; the current crisis in the supply of new teachers, which gets less than a page of dedicated text; and post-COVID truancy rates, which gets a paragraph and a couple of other fleeting mentions. But Nick Gibb is, and will rightly remain, one of the most important Ministers of recent decades – and to think he never even made it into the Cabinet.’
UPDATE: 23rd October 2025
I’m pleased to keep hearing positive responses (internationally) to Nick Gibb’s and Robert Peal’s book, ‘Reforming Lessons’. Since retiring from politics in the UK, Nick is now being invited to countries where his reputation for reforming lessons (and raising standards in literacy and maths in England) has gone before him. Below is a link to a podcast from New Zealand between Dr Michael Johnston and Sir Nick Gibb:
Podcast: Sir Nick Gibb on what works in education reform
‘In this episode, Michael talks with Sir Nick Gibb, who served as England’s Minister for Schools for a decade, about the evidence-based reforms that transformed English education through systematic phonics, a knowledge-rich curriculum, and structured maths teaching.
They explore how progressive education ideology led to England’s earlier decline in international rankings, the cognitive science underpinning effective teaching, and New Zealand’s promising early results from adopting similar reforms.’
Debbie: What isn’t made clear in this discussion between Michael and Nick is the significant influence of Nick Gibb in political ‘cross-party’ work prior to 2010. ‘Systematic synthetic phonics’ (SSP) was already accepted and introduced following parliamentary inquiries and an independent national review commissioned in 2005 and conducted by Sir Jim Rose. I was involved in these inquiries as the representative of the UK Reading Reform Foundation – and, as mentioned above, Nick references this organisation and some of our names in his ‘Reforming Lessons’ book. Subsequent to Rose’s independent review, the (then) government published ‘Letters and Sounds‘ (DfES, 2007) as a ‘programme’ which, I argue, was a big mistake for various reasons (this guidance should not have been in the guise of a ‘programme’) – but this certainly launched the notion of ‘systematic synthetic phonics’ on the teaching profession and teacher-educators in England.
My professional opinion now is that any further ‘research’ (for early reading and writing) should be in the form of ‘close observations’ of what every child’s lived experience actually amounts to in their phonics lessons, and this should be linked to the phonics programmes and practices adopted by the schools and teachers. I recently read an article suggesting that phonics check results had gone down in one region in England, for example, and I could not help but be curious as to whether the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised‘ programme had been heavily adopted in that region considering the level of rapid growth of adoption of Little Wandle said to be 5,000+ schools (now probably in far more). The Department for Education in England may well be aware of any links between attainment and programmes but if this is the case, it is certainly not something the personnel would transparently share considering that there are now 45 ‘DfE-validated’ systematic synthetic phonics programmes in England. The DfE must (or should) take some accountability for being so specific in this rubber-stamping exercise of specific phonics programmes but will the DfE actions and liability serve to suppress the realities in the classroom? I expect so. Perhaps this will be the end to the hope for ‘professional curiosity’ for some considerable time to come in England’s context. Meanwhile, most children will fare ‘well enough’ even with ‘impoverished’ phonics provision and flawed ideas (such as ‘strictly no worksheets or workbooks’) – but, yet again, it will be the children with a range of special needs and challenges who will slip through the net and be failed.
My fear is that the ‘Little Wandle‘ programme will be adopted overseas based on the myth of its growing reputation in England – in the same way that the resource-less ‘Letters and Sounds‘ publication was adopted internationally as if it was the greatest programme available.
