ABSTRACT
Schools, and how and what they teach, are subject to frequent scrutiny at both the informal and the formal level. In the constant efforts to foreground good practice, improve standards, initiate change, adopt new ideas, conform to government directives and provide the best education they can for our pupils, teachers are often on the receiving end of reports which offer them advice and point them towards areas of concerns with the curriculum. This is an inevitable part of the process of being involved in teaching in an open and publicly funded system and, as literacy is central to education, there is no shortage of research, statistics, surveys and reports on the current position of literacy in the primary school.
