Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 February 2019 to Question 222633 on Pre-School Education: Closures, what is involved in the network of English hubs in which there will be a £26 million investment.

The Department has so far appointed 32 primary schools across England to become English Hubs, backed by £26.3 million in funding. These schools, all with a background of excellent systematic synthetic phonics, are distributed across the country to benefit the areas that most need support. Each hub will identify specialist literacy teachers who will receive additional training as experts in teaching in early language and reading from reception year to key stage 1. Each hub is already holding events with local primary schools and over time each will work with up to 170 of them and build a network of excellent phonics teaching in every region.

Through this work, the network of English Hubs will increase reading standards across the country and improve educational outcomes, including for the most disadvantaged children, particularly in underperforming schools.