WATCH: Schools Minister Nick Gibb visits North Yorkshire

During a visit to the ‘Outstanding’ school, the Minister of State for Schools and Families visited a number of classes and was impressed with the level of teaching and the children’s engagement during their lessons.

Mr Gibb first visited a Maths class and quizzed the students on their eleven times tables before observing students in a Geography lesson and said he was impressed with their general knowledge.

He said: “Alec Shelbrooke suggested I come to Crossley Street because it’s an ‘outstanding’ school and Alec is very passionate about education. I have to say, after looking around the school, it clearly is outstanding.

“The children are engaged, they know their tables fluently and they have very good general knowledge so I was very impressed with what I saw today.”

Teaching phonics in primary school is something Mr Gibb has advocated for a number of years and has stressed its importance in helping primary school students read fluently and effortlessly.

Mr Gibb said: “It’s crucial that they are taught their phonics very early on in primary school so they can get the mechanics of reading sorted out early.

“They can then spend four or five years in primary school, developing their reading ability, becoming faster readers and developing a love of reading books.

“We saw today children going to collect their library books and they’ve only been here four weeks. We saw in Year 5 a real passion for books.

“I have those conversations with Year 6’s and Year 5’s in lots of schools that I visit and what you can tell from that is, when you ask them about what their reading and you suggest the name of an author and you see hands go up enthusiastically, you know this is a school that encourages reading and that children are reading a lot.”