As a sceptical and cynical curmudgeon of a head teacher of the old school, I have rejected, dismissed and binned more so-called panaceas for raising educational achievement over the past 28 years than I have had hot dinners.

Now I have to eat my words because Success for All really works and we have got the quantifiable data to prove it.

Our school is a multi-ethnic inner city school, serving the second most materially disadvantaged community in the UK. More than 90% of our 450 children are EAL, with almost half at the early stages of bilingual competence. Over 70% qualify for free school meals, pupils speak more than 40 different languages and we turn over more than 40% of pupils each school year.

Since we introduced Success for All our KS2 level 4 plus writing results have gone up by 46% and in 2006 94% of our year 6 cohort achieved level 4 plus in reading. More than a quarter of our children gained level 5.
We are now above both local authority and national averages in reading and writing and our school’s value added score of 202.2 means we the top school in Leicester and in the top 5% of schools in England.

The staff training provided by Success for All is the best I have ever experienced and the long term support is just as good.
Success for All gets our unqualified approval simply because it works for all the children, and we have a set of remarkable results, after just one year, that shows just how well it works.

Chris Hassall, Head Teacher
Taylor Road Primary School, Leicester
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Dear Success for All 

Great news! This is our first year that the children taking the KS1 SAT's have been taught the SFA programme from Reception. The results are very encouraging. Last year we achieved our highest results so far for Reading and Writing at KS1. This year we have achieved 89% in Reading, an increase of 17% over last year and 82% in Writing, a 13% increase.

Barrie O'Shea, Head Teacher
Duncombe Primary School, London
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We are an inner city school with the children entering on a fairly low base line. We didn't feel the literacy hour was meeting their needs so we jumped at the chance of introducing
Success For All. The children learn co-operatively at their own level so they can become a lot more articulate and confident. As they can all access the curriculum we have no behavioural problems at all in SFA classes.
Pupils have been taking part in Success For All sessions since 2001, when just 40 per cent of children aged seven were gaining the expected level 2 or above in their Key Stage 1 tests.
This year, 100 per cent of pupils gained level 2 or above.

Denise Maruszczak, SFA Facititator
Ebor Gardens Primary School, Leeds
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It does what it says on the packet. Thank you so much.

Kath Tait, Head Teacher
Adelaide Primary School, Hull
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The SFA reading programme, which was implemented four years ago, continues to give Adelaide's children a superb grounding in all aspects of phonics, comprehension, discussion and writing. Parents have been invited into school to watch their children during SFA lessons. We are very pleased that the feedback has been so positive.

Brian Roberts, Head Teahcer
Adelaide Primary School, Hull
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It really does seem to work. All children are grouped for literacy lessons according to
ability, regardless of age. They are assessed every eight weeks so no one is put in a group and left there all year.
We also have intensive tutoring and a co-operative learning strategy. This strategy involves a lot of discussion. Our kids answer us in structured sentences, not one-word answers. Children are not allowed to be passive, we get them to talk and everyone has to be involved.
It encourages all the children - boys as well as girls.

Barrie O'Shea, Head Teacher
Duncombe Primary School, London
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Why did we choose Success for All? Certainly, its underpinning element of co-operative
learning (based on the research that shows children learn 95% of what they teach to someone else) was a crucial influencing factor. There are many phonics schemes out there but this presented a major difference. In addition, the programme’s holistic approach gave a structure that resulted in a consistency of teaching from Nursery all the way through to Year Six. We were already aware that many children were arriving in Year Three deficient in the strategies that they needed to become successful readers in Key Stage Two and we were hopeful that this would provide a structure that allowed all children to assimilate the basic ‘building blocks’ of reading as, and when, they were ready to cope with them. A clear system of continual assessment, analysis and diagnosis of children’s needs also gave us confidence that we would be planning appropriately for every child.

Paul Prest, Head Teacher
Shaw Wood Primary School, Doncaster
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So, what is it about Success for All that has made the difference? We feel that the activities in Nursery and Reception now catch all the children rather than just some of them. None of the activities on its own is significantly different from anything that was offered before; however, the daily input ensures a consistency of teaching and a rigorous intensity that was previously lacking. A confidence that all letter sounds are constantly revisited and a set of very clear outcomes and expectations empowers the staff that deliver it. The opportunity for able children to be ‘promoted’ into a group working a higher level also gives these children a real chance to fly.

Head of the Foundation Stage
Shaw Wood Primary School, Doncaster
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I think SFA helps all children, not just boys. It encourages them to listen and speak and negotiate, and it helps their confidence. It is a fantastic way to teach literacy, though I can't pretend it wasn't hard work at the beginning. It takes huge commitment from the staff.

Sue Clough, Head Teacher
Dorchester Primary School, Hull
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We hope with Success for All the children will achieve standards we wouldn't have thought possible. We want this to be one of the best - if not the best - inner city school in Leeds for standards.

David Shipley, Head Teacher
Hillcrest PRimary School, Leeds
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This programme is the best thing since sliced bread. At last there is joined up thinking regarding the teaching of literacy.
The children love it. The staff are motivated through seeing the success the children are having.

Jack Harrison, Head Teacher
Biggin Hill Primary School, Hull
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We found learning behaviour inside schools had improved. Children were learning how to problem solve and work in groups and were able to transfer these skills to other curriculum areas.
One result, which has excited researchers, is that boys were making as much progress as girls, despite conventional research and national trends, which branded boys slower.

Professor David Hopkins, Nottingham University
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SFA is the most effective and successful teaching programme I have used in 30 years as an educator. SFA has not only dramatically improved our pupils' skills, fluency and confidence in all aspects of literacy, it has also raised self-esteem, developed social skills and established a culture of co-operative learning. The planning, content and pace of lessons are, like the teacher and pupil materials, excellent and easy to use. SFA has been a success with pupils, teachers, learning support assistants and parents!!

The Head Teacher,
St Mary's RC Primary School, Tilbury
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SFA has reduced our special needs register by over 20% as every child is working and achieving exactly at their own level every day.

SFA Facilitator,
Bankside Primary School, Leeds
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SFA has transformed the way we teach literacy. We can now describe the progress made by every individual child in detail. This alone has made a tremendous difference. Our teaching has become so much more focussed.

SFA Facilitator,
Lansdowne Primary School, Tilbury
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The KinderCorner and Curiosity Corner programmes encompass every part of the Early Years curriculum in such a clear and developmental way that we have been able to enhance the accuracy of our teaching like never before.

Foundation Stage Co-ordinator, Leeds