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AIBU?

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Original poster

This is a test for 6 year olds. How would you score? DD (aged 6) got a D.

160 replies

Greythorne · 09/02/2014 22:42

This is the question:

  1. Rewrite the correct sentences.

a) Mum goes to work on the train.
b) what lovely weather!
c) We're singing in the rain

OP posts:
FunkyBoldRibena · 09/02/2014 23:20

I'd ask her to justifying the D, where is the rubric for this piece of homework? I'd want to see it.

Maryz · 09/02/2014 23:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mimishimi · 09/02/2014 23:23

Oh. I see. Well, phooey to that! Grin. I suppose it's a) then but I can completely understand why your daughter misunderstood the question. I hope the teacher feels superior lording her subtleties over six year olds! Hmm

waterlego6064 · 09/02/2014 23:24

It's a really badly worded question, I agree. I didn't understand the instruction, and I'm a 36 year-old with an English degree, and former secondary English teacher. As PP said, 'circle the sentence with the correct punctuation' would have been much better.

As for the grading...Hmm I've never heard of 6 year-olds receiving grades for their work. Did you say there were only two questions on the test, or did I misunderstand that? If that is the case, then giving a grade based on two questions is ridiculous, IMO.

I'd love it if you showed the teacher this thread!

Herroyal Call me overly sentimental, but I actually got a massive lump in my throat when I read your post. I think your DS's response to the question was lovely and I feel sad for him re. the teacher's response. A question asking how a story made you feel may sound simple but it is surprisingly difficult for many children to answer. I have taught a fair few 14 year-olds who struggled to give their own personal response to a text, so I'm not surprised it's difficult for a 6 year-old. Your son may not have actually named any emotions in his answer, but he's had a very good go at giving a personal response.

Jinsei · 09/02/2014 23:25

I'd give the teacher a D for her crap teaching and poorly worded instructions.

ravenAK · 09/02/2014 23:25

what on earth does a D even mean in this context?

  1. The question is so confusingly worded it simply doesn't make sense.
  2. what the chuff is the point of copying out the correct sentence? Correcting the incorrect ones would actually demonstrate some sort of thinking going on. If you just want the kids to identify the correct sentence, get them to underline it.
  3. No-one uses letter grades before GCSE. In fact, even then we talk about numerical bands so that AQA can massage the figures! Meaningless at KS1. what you're wanting is numerical NC levels, not that you're going to generate anything coherent from this nonsense.

Tis total bollocks. I would be unhappy.

Original poster
Greythorne · 09/02/2014 23:26

It feels very demoralizing for DD. I try to keep up a positive front, never criticize the teacher openly but I find it frustrating.

It's basic things like sending home photocopied sheets that look like they were first photocopied in 1987 and have been knocking around ever since, getting darker and more difficult to read with every copy taken. They are 6 and shouldn't we be making it clear and simple for them?

OP posts:
Maryz · 09/02/2014 23:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Paintyfingers · 09/02/2014 23:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LoveSewingBee · 09/02/2014 23:31

Very poor instructions and IMO they are all three incorrect.

  1. Should be 'by train'.
  2. 'a' is missing
  3. Needs exclamation mark

And marking work like that is outrageous and totally undermining the child.

chocoluvva · 09/02/2014 23:36

Hopefully lots of parents will complain about this test.

Caitlin17 · 09/02/2014 23:38

In my office once when completing a tender as part of the process we had to give written advice on a number of theoretical situations. One of these concerned a very specialised area of law and we found the question almost impossible to answer. Not because we didn't know the law but because the question setter had either fundamentally not understood the applicable law or it was a trick question. The question we were asked to answer could not be answered as the situation posited could not happen.

We didn't know if this was some one being fiendishly clever and we were supposed to point that out;or if we should try to apply the law as best we could make it fit.

I think we hedged our bets and did both. We didn't get the contract but given who did we almost certainly lost on price rather than content and we still don't know which was the correct answer. This reminded me of it.

SpinDoctorofAethelred · 10/02/2014 00:16

Well, I 'got' what we were supposed to do. I think. But that is at the age of adulthood, having become very skilled in exam technique and guessing what the examiners want after more than one disaster along the way.

This is supposed to be a little test on punctuation for six year olds, at the beginning of their school career, not a obstacle course in English comprehension for A-level students. Frankly, the teacher mucked up when she was designing it, and like many people before her, only saw the instructions that she had intended to communicate, not what she had actually written.

SpinDoctorofAethelred · 10/02/2014 00:16

P.S. ---> I'd ask her to justifying the D, where is the rubric for this piece of homework? I'd want to see it.

Brilliant suggestion! Do it, do it!

Wingdingdong · 10/02/2014 00:26

I'd be complaining about the teacher's poor use of English. 'Rewrite' means to write something again so as to alter or improve, something your DD clearly understood better than the teacher. I'd suggest she rewrites her question, and also the grade...

I'm not normally anti-teachers (I'm a university lecturer - in English) but that was the teacher's cock-up, not your DD's, and the teacher should be taking responsibility for it.

Misspixietrix · 10/02/2014 00:29

Then I'd be right piss arsey over this and pull the Teacher up on it too. 'Write the correct sentences (Plural) makes me infer I have to do all. I'm 21 yrs older than your Dd and that's confused the fuck out of me for the past few minutes! Grin.

HanSolo · 10/02/2014 00:32

Goodness- that test is like something out of Alice in Wonderland!

Mimishimi · 10/02/2014 00:34

Or Dame Snap ....

Dubjackeen · 10/02/2014 00:39

Agree, this is complete nonsense for 6 year olds to be expected to understand, and as others have pointed out 'Rewrite' is not the correct instruction anyway.
I would certainly be discussing this further with the teacher, and I wouldn't be at all happy with grades for little children. Sounds like the teacher needs to cop on, a lot.

JennyCalendar · 10/02/2014 00:47

What a bad question!

I'm an English teacher and if I was given that question I would respond:

  1. Mum goes on the train to work.
  2. Not a sentence.
  3. We're in the rain, singing.

I'd send the teacher an email, or catch her for a chat, about how badly worded it was and how the D grading is demoralising for your DD.

ComposHat · 10/02/2014 01:10

Yeah it all hinges on the interpretation of re-write, if you take the words literately or in the way it is actually used (to revise and correct.) Mildly diverting if you like playing around with semantics, but not the basis of a test for six year olds.

She seems to have woefully misjudged the appropriateness of this as an exercise. If this had been a one-off I'd be tempted to let it slide, this won't determine their life futures, but if it is emblematic of her wider crapness, bring it up as one of many examples of inappropriate teaching, not as the entire basis of the complaint.

On a related note, I know someone who works in a school where a supply teacher with a strong black country accent was covering a maths test. One of the questions which the teacher read out loud was to 'draw a line 6cm long' Several of the kids drew 6cm Lions.

Caitlin17 · 10/02/2014 01:15

Re answers to exam questions I laughed and laughed at this.

NoodleOodle · 10/02/2014 01:57

The question is misleading. I would ask the teacher why they had allowed it to be part of the children's test, and question why they hadn't noticed the ambiguity.

Pixieonline · 10/02/2014 03:08

The instructions are incorrect for this exercise.

Rewrite the correct sentence means that the student should write nothing at all as none of them are correct.

In my opinion sentence a) is misleading and setting most children up for failure. If it had been included as an exercise instructing them to use the correct preposition / collocation (not sure how it's taught in uk) the most children would have relished the correct answer AND it would have re-inforced the correct use of "by train" vs on the train.

b) and c) are fine as it is testing their punctuation knowledge, but again, at this level punctuation and prepositions / collocations should have been seperate questions.

FlatCapAndAWhippet · 10/02/2014 03:26

Well my 6 year old wouldn't have known what on earth she was supposed to do.

They're 6 FGS!

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