In 1992 Jim Rose, who has died aged 83, was one of three educationists to produce a discussion paper on raising primary school standards in England and implementing the national curriculum. The education secretary, Kenneth Clarke, had commissioned Jim, a chief inspector for primary education, along with Professor Robin Alexander, then of Leeds University, and Chris Woodhead, then head of the National Curriculum Council, to draw on evidence from research and inspection. They laid down themes that still resonate today, placing quality teaching at the centre of school improvement.
Although the report was controversial in some quarters, it was welcomed by the Conservative government, and its ideas re-emerged in Labour’s national primary strategy and Jim’s review of the primary curriculum, whose report in 2009 was accepted by Labour – with Ed Balls then as education secretary – but rejected by its coalition successor.
As director of inspection at Ofsted (1994-99), Jim was responsible for a survey (1996) on the teaching of reading in 45 London primary schools. It drew attention to the lack of direct teaching of the subject and the insufficient attention to the teaching of phonics – matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. He was therefore the obvious choice to conduct what would become a landmark review of the teaching of early reading (2006), to interrogate the research, and critically appraise it in the light of classroom feasibility.
The Rose review adopted what was called the Simple View of Reading, now familiar to all those who teach in the primary years. According to this model, reading with understanding is the product of two underlying skills: decoding and language comprehension. Jim argued that both are needed and instruction should be provided so that children do not have to “discover how to read for themselves”.
A key recommendation was the introduction of systematic synthetic phonics – for instance learning the word “sat” by first learning the individual sounds that represent the letters “s”, “a” and “t” and then blending these sounds together to make the complete word. With this came the rider that phonics should be implemented within a curriculum rich in language.
Jim knew that guidance alone would be insufficient to bring about a radical change in teaching methodology. Therefore the review produced a phonics curriculum – Letters and Sounds, consisting of six phases, each of which ended with an assessment of the child’s progress. While Letters and Sounds has now been replaced by a list of recommended phonics programmes (except in Australia, where it is widely used), the essentials of the guidance remain the same in the current primary reading framework. Moreover, phonic progression is assessed with the phonics screening check, undertaken by all children in England at the end of year 1.
The next step was to consider how best to support learners with dyslexia – a condition whose nature, causes, treatments and even its name are debated. As a member of Jim’s advisory group I witnessed at first hand and with admiration his ability to gain the confidence of diverse “experts” and to balance their views with evidence from practitioners, families and others with “lived experience”. In consequence the review group agreed a working definition of dyslexia, recommended intervention without waiting for “diagnosis” and tiered levels of support and monitoring.
Jim leveraged significant government funding to train specialist literacy teachers and set up the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust as an umbrella to bring together stakeholder organisations. According to the British Dyslexia Association, Jim’s recommendations in his report on the subject, his second in 2009, continue to hold sway: early identification, the development of core, advanced and specialist skills, accountability for adhering to the SEN (special educational needs) Code of Practice, parental engagement and the auditing of provision.
In Jim’s view early education provided the foundation for later success and “for helping less-well-off children scale the rock face of disadvantage”. He held teachers in high regard and was keenly aware of the key role they play in improving children’s prospects. He argued that governmental appetite for systemic reform of education should be curbed and more attention paid to the professional development of teachers and those who support them in the classroom.
Born and brought up in Leicester, Jim was the son of Kathleen (nee Crookes), a cutter in the hosiery industry, and Arthur Rose, a gas surveyor. For most of the second world war, Arthur, an army bandsman, was a PoW, and Jim spent much of his formative years with his mother, grandfather and a maternal aunt, who would read to him during air raids. While in the bomb shelter he would also write on the walls with the blackened ends of candles, frustrated when the raid was over. He attended Shaftesbury junior school in Leicester (later becoming its headteacher) before going on to grammar school and Kesteven College of Education in Lincolnshire.
School reports indicated that Jim needed to try harder – his take on this was that teaching needed to change to be more engaging. It seems these early experiences, together with the poverty he witnessed during the war, underpinned his passion and firm belief in how education can empower children and make a difference to their lives.
Following headships of two inner-city schools, Jim proceeded to become a chief inspector in 1986 and went to Ofsted in 1992, serving as deputy director of inspection and then director. Through retirement he continued as a government adviser, president of the National Foundation for Educational Research from 2008 and patron of the National Handwriting Association. He was the archetypal Mr Fixit, respected by the profession and politicians alike, speaking truth unto power but in a pragmatic way that made the powerful listen.
He was appointed CBE in 1996 and knighted in 2007.
In 1960 he married Pauline Russell; she died in 2021. He is survived by his daughter, Alison, and two grandchildren, Ben and Daisy.
• Jim (Arthur James) Rose, teacher, inspector and educationist, born 15 June 1939; died 9 February 2023
