Educational fads of the moment

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Ex-teacher here and the changes to assessment and streaming at DD's school 'to ensure the school is following the latest research' have brought back memories of the numerous new initiatives I had to adapt to using over the years.

AIBU to ask you to tell me about your favourite and least favourite teaching fads? Which ones were a waste of time and which have proved their worth.

Did anyone do 'self-service' learning? Or was it just my school?
Kids hated it. "Miss, can we just have a normal lesson tomorrow where you teach us please?"
Not a fan of flipped learning. Why? We are supposed to have different entry points to the lesson depending on how much preparation had taken place, and different tasks throughout, to accommodate different levels of understanding and different levels of confidence. No text books, so all resources created by the teacher. You could spend 4-5 hours planning a one hour lesson. Madness, I tell you.
Also totally agree with the constant pratting around with schemes of work / learning. We once spent months adapting all ours so they reflected the attitude, skills and knowledge necessary for learning to take place. They were so complicated, no-one could use them.
Also hate the 'off timetable' days. God help you if you are with Year 9 on sex Ed for a whole day.
Thinking hats were shit.
As for marking, I actually do see a lot of value in 'triple' marking or whatever your school may call it, but it is seriously way too time-consuming.

The amount of spag they do is ridiculous. I think it's useful to know the correct term for groups of words and so on, but I've seen adults get confused identifying articles, determiners and fronted adverbials. I feel it takes up a disproportionate amount of time, for very little gain. It's dry to teach, and it takes all the joy out of writing.

I do fully support differentiation by the way, just at sensible levels.

And being sent on all these courses to teach children to read when I'd been doing it successfully for 30 odd years and I'd supposedly been doing it wrong and the new method was the only one that worked? And the new way to teach maths? So glad I got out when I did.

I could read before I went to school. Nobody taught me and I don't know how I did it.

We had always taught spelling by phonics in Scotland and the children used letter sounds only in P1 & 2, then used names from P3 onwards.

An English friend complained that he didn't like all this new c-a-t stuff when his son went to school. I tried to explain that that was normal in my experience but he'd already taught his son ABC before he went to school and how to write his name in capital letters . He was most put out when the teacher made the boy "unlearn" this.

toconclude It is very unlikely that you just learned every word and committed it to memory. Far more likely that you memorised some taught words when you began reading and then started to unconsciously decode for yourself, using this knowledge when you came across new words which you would then memorise. Otherwise you would only ever be able to read words that had been taught to you by someone else. How else would you have read a word the first time you came across it?

Many children are able to learn like this, and for those of us with a good memory it is quick and painless. Like you, I could read fluently before school and can't remember the process of learning. It doesn't mean that we did not use decoding skills though, just that we were fortunate enough to "unlock" the code easily for ourselves and didn't need to be specifically taught it. Unfortunately, I have seen far too many children who were never able to sort out decoding for themselves, which is why 1 in 5 children never learned to read and never had any reading strategies. The other 80% of children would be able to learn as you and I did no problem. However, using phonics can speed up the process for them and is also very valuable for spelling.

Well-taught phonics has been a real bonus to education, as has been proven by study after study, and it's sad and frustrating that so many people (including many within schools) still do not see the benefit of it. It definitely shouldn't be a fad like many of the other pointless things I have seen during my time in education.

Rainy April - as far as I can recall (it's been a long time!) I started with co-reading with a parent and picked it up that way (finger under the words - as did no 1 son from me. It was definitely pre-phonics anyway.

As Rivers said previous:-
No love, never in my working life will I have to work with a whole group of stupid lazy unmotivated and people and have to do the work of 6 people

Is there a way to sift out un-motivated kids who don't want to be at school? Let's not be too socialist please. I understand state education is free and everyone has a right to be educated but really, it does not suit those who don't want to learn Algebra or Trig or Aristotle. There are kids that don't want to be there. We all know many kids like that. Surely, there must be better options for them isn't there?

The day I Ieft Secondary school was the last day I ever got to be within working promixity with lazy unmotivated people. I can honestly say, my whole career I have have worked with peers on my 'level'. And a whole lot of peers far more clever, talented and ambitious than me. FAR MORE. Both men and women. That's because interviews and testing screen out very early on. Maybe because of the industry that I am in (high velocity tech driven) but honestly to god, I don't think I got ANYTHING out of being lumped in a classroom with demotivated disruptive individuals who tried their best for 5 years to make mine and our teacher's life hell. Our lives have gone in completely different directions - since. Rant over.

Am not at the point of second hand phonics experience (not an educator, no kids in school) but am continually fascinated by the description of phonics in discussion on here as I was also an early reader and I just can't remember how I learnt, or imagine needing to decipher words. I remember copying out the words in a much loved Mog book and how intense it felt, like I was making a spell or something. This would have been reception age. I just 'see' them now. Did I sound out? If you ask me how to spell a word, I don't sound it out, I 'see' a picture of it in my head. I had some excellent mispronunciations caused by reading a word before hearing it said so maybe I did sound it out? Really intrigued by it!

BowlingShoes - and that's a fine and probably correct explanation. My point was that you said no-one learns 'look and say'. Some people do/have.

I'm not suggesting other methods are useless, not at all. Horses for courses.

If you think you learned by recognising words, then the only way you could POSSIBLY have ever read a new unfamilar word would be by reverse-engineering the phonic code from the words that you knew, then re-assembling them into the new word in front of you.

I saw my DS do this, pre-school. It was fascinating.

Still doesn't mean that actually directly teaching the phonic code and not relying on the child being able to reverse engineer it from words isn't MUCH better and more direct.

However, much phonics teaching is DREADFUL - so should we have a new thread for 'educational initiatives that are genuinely excellent if done properly, but fairly useless if done badly'?

Speaking of phonics does anyone else remember ITA (Initial Teaching Alphabet)?

My least favourite fad is the complete immersion of all life into an educational 'conversation' once your children start school. Teachers, whilst equipped to teach, are not suddenly equipped with some greater 'knowledge' of life. Whether or not this task is given without asking, or automatically taken, it's not best placed.

I quite like the new fad for GCSEs by exams (like O-levels) - it's a target that can be aimed for and doesn't rely on 'nepotism'/''teacher's view' to get a good Coursework mark. See point above,teachers are just human, they are not conferred special powers simply because they choose teaching as a job.

Phonics are so confusing 😂 I swear my daughter knew her alphabet before, and now she looks at an “a” and doesn’t know whether it says aye or ah etc. Plus I get confused and use letter names instead of phonic sounds 🙄

Cursive handwriting boils my blood. DS y5 (9) will fail his SATS next year because he just cannot do it. He’ll then go up to secondary where the vast majority of his work etc will be typed. Then he’ll be an adult and, realistically, like most of us he’ll write the odd list/card and type everything else. Who gives a shit if his writing is joined up?!

Do they get marked in their SATs on their handwriting? If so, I’d have thought that Y7 wouldn’t be so dire!

And the word ‘learners’ instead of pupils/students makes me want to actually stab somebody. I did PTTLS last year and by the end of the repetitive and mind numbing coursework I never wanted to see that word again.

Yes, I’ve been told that if they can’t join up by y6 they ‘can’t’ reach the prescribed level they’re supposed to. Ergo, he won’t achieve ‘expected’ SATS levels based on his handwriting alone, never mind the content. Utterly mental.

Secondary teacher here. I literally give zero fucus about handwriting. As long as it's legible and done, I don't care.
It'll be obsolete in 10 years or so anyway I reckon.

That’s mad, mom! I wonder how my Y4 DS will get on. His handwriting is appalling but at least it’s joined up!

Definitely agree about "British Values" they are just values for every human being on the planet!! Nothing British about them!

However I am going to dare to say (and don't eat me alive too quickly) but I actually like the growth mindset approach. Not in the way of giving children a false sense of hope but giving a child the confidence to try and if you fail then that's okay, it's not the end of the world. It's great for confidence building - not great if you use it as a "you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it" that's nonsense. It should be used in a way to encourage children to do the best that they can do - not the best in the class!

Also hate hate hate useless time wasting worksheet homework! Reading at home yes, spellings and times tables great. But sit down and do a worksheet? No - pointless box ticking exercises!

Final bug! Children who are whizzes on IPads, computer games etc but can't hold a conversation, lack in social skills and never see the light of day! All in moderation!

Oh my lot love worksheets. In a pupil voice survey (another fad!), it was their preferred homework style as you didn't have to make anything or be create, and once it's done, it's done. There's a clear end to it.

Why do they still learn cursive at school? What is the actual reason for this? Is it all about exams?

MomtoWed, in order to be classed as 'age related' for their year group children need only achieve above a certain % of the objectives. Not using joined up handwriting won't prevent them from achieving the Y6 expectations in SATs.

Tess, there are numerous studies into the neurological benefits of handwriting over typing, and these benefits are compounded by cursive writing rather than printing.