SSC Marketing Comment On Evening Standard Literacy Campaign

May 31, 2012 - PRLog -- SSC Marketing agreed wholeheartedly with the head of schools watchdog Ofsted, who recently said the Evening Standard’s literacy campaign should be rolled out across the country. Sir Michael Wilshaw praised the paper for playing “a great role” in shining a spotlight on illiteracy, and said that he wanted other cities to launch their own initiatives.

In an exclusive interview, Sir Michael also rounded on critics who accuse him of “teacher-bashing” and insisted that “on the contrary, we have the best teachers we’ve had in 40 years”. The real problem, he said, “is underperforming head teachers”. “Today’s heads are extremely well paid, with a large number earning over £100,000 a year, yet more than 5,000 heads at one third of our schools are failing over one million children. When people are paid that much, they need to deliver.”
Our source at SSC Marketing said, “Literacy is one of the greatest issues in our society. Educating our youth properly can be a cure for a host of social problems. It's a more urgent issue than people give it credit for.”

The head of Ofsted added that he was “losing no sleep” over attacks in the weekend press from his predecessor, Christine Gilbert, and the biggest teaching union, NASUWT, that teacher morale had hit “rock bottom” because of stress, pressure and raised expectations.

“Real stress, real pressure, is when you leave school and you can’t get a job,” he said. “We know that education is the route out of poverty and that as a nation, we have slipped from 7th in the world league table to a lowly 25th. I see it as my role to champion children’s rights through good education.

“One of the great things about the Evening Standard campaign is that it has shown what can be achieved by passionate heads like Jared Brading at St Mary’s [the Get London Reading flagship school in Battersea]. Mr Brading does not accept poverty as an excuse for poor performance. We need more heads like him.”

Our source at SSC Marketing said, “It would be fantastic to see campaigns like this started by other papers. If we tackled this at a local level, and really started to get behind it as communities, we could make a real difference as a nation.”