The Politics of Grammar Schools

Portico I am dismayed that you continue to believe Peter & Jane was in any way appropriate. I'm almost beginning to think that you're making it all up.

That and the fact that your own 9 yr old was doing extra school work beyond 9pm.

FFS.

Amber. Hak

The poor performing readers did not know many words beyond the normal five to six letters. The idea was to build word recognition as a precursor to fluid word decoding. Comprehension came a little later in the journey.

Prepping my kids takes a lot of time in finding good resources. Dc1 and dc2 have had mostly different resources, in order to meet their different learning styles and abilitiltes. Surely, my dc are my priority. It is meritocratic system, because come the exam my children will be ready to face the competition for a finite number of places.

In between talking to you lot on here, I am actively engaged in online education forums in other countries, too. That is where I pick up good practices and also reciprocate them back.

I have just noticed I don't know how to spell "have" so will start reading Peter and Jane books tomorrow .

Am I right in thinking the supposed reading age for " Peter and Jane" books is 3- 5 Years old in which case expecting 11 year old's to read them is stupid. .
It would of been better if you had got the pupils who were struggling to read, to bring in a Football magazine or an article about hobby or interest they have.

And if prepping your kids for grammar school takes so much parental effort and involvement that you can't be a school governor at the same time, how on earth can you argue that it's a fair and meritocratic system?!

we had to start somewhere I'm intrigued as to how the decision was made to start with Peter and Jane. What made you think that was the best form of intervention to use?

"Hak = the swearing was a natural reaction by the kids who felt an ego bruise at using such books. But, we had to start somewhere, and it did work."

So you think bruising an already bruised ego is a good idea? I have never been sworn at. Well, not over the choice of books, anyway! Do have a look at the books in the link I posted- it might save you being sworn at again.

portico I seriously can't believe that 'prepping' for grammar is so exhausting that it precludes being a functioning governor. Some governors at our school hold full time positions on national bodies, have kids and outside interests, and still make a major contribution. Your justification for an extended sabbatical is ridiculous. Along with Peter and Jane.

Of course they swore. They were being patronised. No matter what a child's reading ability, they deserve age-appropriate reading material.

Perhaps, in 2015, you could volunteer at your DS's school rather than with children who you clearly feel are so far beneath you.

Hak = the swearing was a natural reaction by the kids who felt an ego bruise at using such books. But, we had to start somewhere, and it did work.

Also, Portico, you'd have been much better off looking at modern books which use phonics.

I expect you thought you were doing a service to the poor remedial children though and left with a warm glow. Well done.

Molio

I have not been a community governor since 2012. DC1's grammar prep then took priority. Now it is the turn of DC2.

Like I said, I will revert back to the fold in 2015. Until then DC2 is my priority.

Portico- I hesitate to look as if I'm advertising, but www.barringtonstoke.co.uk have lots of books at a similar level to Peter and Jane, which are more age appropriate and don't have the associated issues and won't get you sworn at. More flies with honey than vinegar, as thy say.

Portico I don't give two hoots about the demographic of the intake. Peter and Jane is a ridiculous choice - no wonder you were sworn at! There is a wealth of appropriate literature for all ages and abilities.

Which you would know if you weren't so busy not caring.

Our volunteer readers are very popular- although the SMT were a bit wary at first. A lot of our poorer readers are also kids who don't get a lot of positive one to one adult attention for various reasons-40 minutes a week of reading and a game and a chat has lots of benefits. And a blind eye is turned to the occasional chocolate.........

Evil

Easy to mock. Comp had one lower middle class catchment and two socially disadvantaged catchments. My work helped the remedial students. We did not use Peter and Jane isolation. Other work, as indicated above, was undertaken.

Granted Peter and Jane are based on an 1950s idyll, however, the words and sentences encourage decoding and comprehension for those Y7s who possessed a lower primary reading age.

I'm mesmerised at how you could be a community governor portico and yet not care about the wider issues and also at how you seem so utterly absorbed by your own DC that you have to have an interregnum while your DC preps for the 11 plus .

Me too Hak - I bet our Head of English will be well up for a bit of Peter and Jane. We might hit some SMSC targets too - particularly in the realm of looking at gender

Our 6th formers do toe by toe with Yr 7s who need it - that's worked well. KS3 do 30 mins of AR every day within the curriculum. It's lovely spending half an hour reading with them - though it only falls in my lesson once per week. It's made such a difference not just to reading ages but to the level of engagement. Everyone does it, even those with reading ages well above their chronological age.

I forgot to say this. Aesops Fables are a great way to engage reluctant readers. Short stories and a great spread of unfamiliar words.

Me finally giving in and letting DS read game of thrones was what finally kicked his reading to an acceptable level. I realise that won't work for every child. ]

Yes, we are having great success with Accelerated Reader too- particularly now we're building up a solid core of volunteer readers to read with individual students on a weekly basis alongside the work the specially trained TAs are doing. I'm looking forward to taking Portico's idea to the next meeting, though- we're always looking for new ideas.

Hak, unless you are taking the p###, here goes

1. I built up word repetition by starting and taking the children through the Ladybird Peter and Jane Books. Books 1, 1b, 1c, 2 a, 2b, 2c...etc up to 12c. Books "c" are cloze based, and require the child to demonstrate understanding. I was sworn at by some of the children when we tried to broach these books at them. Very quickly the results improved. Kids moved onto Horrid Henry, and the simple Dahl books. Dead Poets Society it wasn't.

1. In reading to comprehend, I worked with the literacy governor and a Y7 teacher to work with children to identify difficult words and find their meanings. They also looked out for important words and meanings.

1. I also introduced exercises where children were supplied with a jumbled sentences from a paragraph. There was also a superfluous sentence. The idea was to divine the correct flow of a paragraph, and to be able to identify the redundant sentence.

1. In tandem vocab exercises were undertaken. Hadyn Richards 1000 vocab words, and 1000 harder word exercises were used.

1. One a week comprehension book exercises were used to sustain intensive reading levels.

I realise you want Portico's idea, Hak (I'd be interested too...) but in case you want other ideas too, my school uses Accelerated Reader which has had a huge amount of success in developing reading skills across the age and ability ranges.

"I had an idea on how to improve reading levels and it worked"

I am involved in an initiative to do the same at my ds's school- please could you share your idea?

It's after 9pm! My children (same age) are in bed...

Sleep is important for brain development, you know.