To think literacy standards are not falling in way reports state? Did anyone see Sky TV interview earlier?

[Cortina]

Saw a report earlier that literacy standards in the UK are too low. We are continuing to fall behind in terms of the international league table.

Will come back and link to the report. I was struck by the TV row between the presenter and a teacher spokesperson. Did anyone see the interview? There was also a head of a UK based Chinese school who said she believed that part of the problem lay with parents who were not spending sufficient time helping children learn at home. She said good study habits needed to be laid down by the age of seven.

My thoughts are not that we are doing increasingly badly but other countries are doing better. More countries are involved in the international league table than previously too.

I'm not sure learning at home is the right solution. To me it seems like parents having to pick up the slack for teachers not doing their jobs properly, and of course children with parents who can't or won't do it are penalised.

I was at primary school in the 60s (old gimmer) and parents were actively discouraged from getting involved in teaching their children anything. No reading books were ever sent home, we learned spellings because we were terrified not to, ditto table tests (and pre-metric we had to be able to reel off how many hundredweight in a ton, how many bushels in a gallon and how many feet in a mile at the drop of a hat).

All my parents were ever expected to do was say "that's nice dear" when I brought work home, and turn up for parents' evenings.

I agree with Debsbear. My children have had a lovely time at Primary school (the youngest is now in year six) and have done lots of creative and fun things there.

Then they came home each day and I taught them how to read, how to spell, how to work out percentages and so on.

It all seems the wrong way around. I am pleased that at secondary school the teachers do seem to actually teach.

ClothesOfSand Just doing as we're told .

If you're not happy with your children's curriculum, complain to the management, not us

well i believe as someone mentioned that it really doesnt matter as long as someone can understand what you are saying. The only times spelling and grammar have ever mattered were in school and when writing something professionally.

i have never seen people whinge on about how people speak and how their speech isn't correct and our language is full of errors when we speak.

If someone was in the public eye there would soon be complaints about speech if they were making grammatical mistakes.