What the title says, basically. I know there are problems and challenges in the education system in England, but these results are so encouraging, and are (I believe) testament to the big improvements in reading instruction among England's teachers that we've seen in England in the past decade or so, not to mention lots of hard work.
I live overseas and have to teach my child English literacy at home, as do most of my fellow English-speaking parents who comes from countries ranging from Australia to South Africa. I get to see a lot of reading programs from various English speaking countries. England has far better reading and phonics programs than Oz, the US, Canada or most other English-speaking countries. Programs like Sounds-Write, RWI and the new ORT are just great.
I've also seen a lot of families back in England putting their kids though English state schools, and one thing that has come up again and again is "My younger son/daughter seems to have cracked reading and spelling quicker and with less stress than my eldest. Maybe having a role model helps, but it seems like the instruction methods are better now, too."
I really hope that this will continue, and that some of the improvements in the English teaching methods will also be picked up by other countries around the world.
So, anyway---there have been a few negative posts about "teachers in general" recently, so I thought a positive one was in order, for a change!