I despair of the education system.

Haylescom

@TheSaint I'd say your judgement on your daughter's old school is correct as it's a requirement for children to know their times tables and a certain set of spellings.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I believe it's a move away from traditional grammar to functional grammar which is, I assume, similar to the move from traditional to "new" maths.

If you've learned one system and younger people have learned another, it doesn't mean that they know more than those who learned the earlier system.

I'll withold judgement on it until I see whether the generation that's learning this way can write decent grammatical English when they leave school - I certainly hope so.

Perhaps its because I have been helping with homework for almost 40 years but I don't know what was different about that grammar test. I got one question wrong, I can't remember what it was now, but when I looked at it I realised I hadn't read the question properly. It seemed very familiar to me and I think we were at grammar school at roughly the same time.

My sons who are in their 40s had very similar grammar and spelling tests to the ones I had 20 years earlier. My two younger ones, in their early to mid 20s, didn't seem to have such rigorous maths and English lessons but my key stage 2 grandchildren seem to have very good English lessons, spelling and grammar, but I am not impressed with new maths. I suppose no two schools are going to be exactly the same.

pollypenny

bylromarha wrote: »

You'll be pleased to know there will be national times tables tests from next year

Another stick to beat schools with.

I learnt mine by rote, lots of time was devoted to it in class. Schools these days have far far more in the maths curriculum by the end of primary school than I did in the 80s. I know my 11 yr old son was learning things in year 6 which I learnt in Year 9.

Add that in to the english requirements for year 6, and we're setting even more kids up to fail.

Good luck with this test
Friends who are doing/have done english MAs are reporting scores of 7,8,9. Not yet seen anyone claim 10/10.

Yes, 70% for me, too, after all these years of teaching English.

Not only have many terms changed, but recognising these various aspects in a mechanical way is unlikely to improve anyone's one writing.

I always refused to treat English as a service subject for those doing other languages.

missbiggles1

pollypenny wrote: »

Yes, 70% for me, too, after all these years of teaching English.

Not only have many terms changed, but recognising these various aspects in a mechanical way is unlikely to improve anyone's one writing.

I always refused to treat English as a service subject for those doing other languages.

I was one of the sad people who enjoyed parsing - I was disappointed when it went off the syllabus and I think it helped me to write better structured English. I wouldn't've wanted to do nothing but that in English Language but, IIRC, parsing and formal grammar took no more than a quarter of our lessons, which seems a reasonable proportion.

daytona0

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I was in a certain bargain store earlier, and was being served by a young woman. I'd estimate late teens.

One of the items was a tray of 12 cans. She started counting them, so I said "There's 12. Four by Three".

Her reply was "I'm not very good at maths".

When she'd rung up all the items, she told me it was £19-01.

I gave her a £20 note, and a penny.

She tried to give me 1p in change.

Just curious but did you either:

1. Stop to ask her what her talents/interests are? Dangerous to judge a book by its cover!

2. Go away and volunteer your time to a local school to provide mathematics support for teens who are struggling with maths?

Because, if you didn't do either of them, then I despair about you

(and yes, I've volunteered in a secondary school maths department for several months in the past and I'm also looking into it in the near future for the upcoming GCSE exams).

missbiggles1

daytona0 wrote: »

Just curious but did you either:

1. Stop to ask her what her talents/interests are? Dangerous to judge a book by its cover!

2. Go away and volunteer your time to a local school to provide mathematics support for teens who are struggling with maths?

Because, if you didn't do either of them, then I despair about you

(and yes, I've volunteered in a secondary school maths department for several months in the past and I'm also looking into it in the near future for the upcoming GCSE exams).

I think I'd despair of our education system even more than the OP does if I thought it needed to rely on the assistance of unqualified (albeit well meaning) people to teach maths to secondary level students.

daytona0

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I think I'd despair of our education system even more than the OP does if I thought it needed to rely on the assistance of unqualified (albeit well meaning) people to teach maths to secondary level students.

I'm hardly unqualified, but that is another matter...

As long as the OP knows some maths (and, quite frankly, scraping a C does not involve knowing anything which a moderately intelligent adult can't handle) then they would be welcome in a good number of classrooms!

It is more likely that the girl in question thinks in a different way to the OP. I wouldn't necessarily rule out some mathematics potential, but sometimes it is all about visualising problems. In fairness but counting 12 items individually is an acceptable way of solving that 3x4 problem. Similar with the money issue. I would be hopeful that this girl got a C in maths, because she may otherwise be extremely intelligent in another subject!!

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I was one of the sad people who enjoyed parsing - I was disappointed when it went off the syllabus and I think it helped me to write better structured English. I wouldn't've wanted to do nothing but that in English Language but, IIRC, parsing and formal grammar took no more than a quarter of our lessons, which seems a reasonable proportion.

When my son started grammar school in 1973 he had an old English teacher, think Goodbye Mr Chips. He was about to retire and was the last teacher at the school who had been there when it was evacuated in WWII. His teaching of grammar and parsing was second to none. I swear if my son had done his GCSE at the end of year 7 he would have got a better mark than he did in year 11.

He was terrifying and spent the first lesson making them move their chairs silently until he was happy they could do it and then moved on to the need for a handkerchief. Only when he was happy with this did he actually start the English lesson. When they got their first piece of work back there was more red ink that blue, I have never seen homework marked like it. Heaven only knows how long he must have spent doing it. By the end of the year they could all write an essay and just have a tick or VG at the end. It truly was the end of an era when he retired.

bod1467

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I was one of the sad people who enjoyed parsing - I was disappointed when it went off the syllabus and I think it helped me to write better structured English. I wouldn't've wanted to do nothing but that in English Language but, IIRC, parsing and formal grammar took no more than a quarter of our lessons, which seems a reasonable proportion.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic that a thread about English and grammar has such a grammatical error?

(As far as I am concerned, "nothing" should be "anything" to be grammatically correct).

daytona0

bod1467 wrote: »

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic that a thread about English and grammar has such a grammatical error?

(As far as I am concerned, "nothing" should be "anything" to be grammatically correct).

Well in fairness but the thread was actually about mathematics and it seems to have been hijacked....


That aside, it is quite sad to pull someone up on a grammatical mistake on a forum.

(As far as I am [we not doing contractions today?] concerned, you shouldn't be assed about one little mistake)