I have enjoyed the recent “fonix” correspondence - I have even pinned some of it to my staffroom wall. But I do feel there are serious issues at stake here. If it is true that the new curriculum will put into statute that children must be taught to read through phonics, I can see no option but to leave the profession I have lived and loved for 30 years because it goes against my principles and flies in the face of all my experience. I believe that the phonics test is flawed and is the result of people with their own agenda somehow having the government’s ear.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who feels as I do - that there are as many ways to teach reading as there are children, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all teaching method. Please contact me on head@stcatherines.surrey.sch.uk if you would like to help with a campaign against death by phonics. For the record, I have always taught synthetic phonics in a systematic and structured way, but I have never taught children to use it as their main strategy for reading.

Stephanie Gibson, Headteacher, St Catherine’s Primary School, Surrey.