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.

Further to growth mindset: The best advice on mental attitude to mini perfectionists ime has been : if you never got anything wrong in school what would be the point in going? Like a mental cold shower of logic this has stopped the wailing as they pondered the question. Unpacked further to the more encouraging : you can learn from your mistakes and corrections. Keep on going.

And in my childhood someone would have brought up Robert the Bruce and his spider friend!

The links between letters aren't really contrived if you're adept at it though.

Yes, I agree, one could get used to it. And with modern electronic typesetting, books could be printed like this.

But they're not, because separate letters are easier to read.

I suppose again it's like typing. It takes a while for touch typing to be faster than one or two fingered typing, just as it does to write legible script with much speed versus printing, but the end result is absolutely worth it.

GoodMorning my DS2 would love to work with Lego WeDo, or anything else Lego-related, really!

The trouble with the phonics test in Y1 is that good competent readers have been known to ''fail' as they want to read for meaning and don't get why it doesn't make sense!!!

Rainy for the last year I’ve been told they have to meet absolutely everything in order to be regarded as ‘meeting expectations.’ This meant my son also failed to do so for maths, as he can’t do Roman numerals. Who exactly gives a fuck about that either? Maybe it’s just the way his particular school are interpreting it? Either way he’s having intensive handwriting support based on the inability to meet expectations without it!

you can learn from your mistakes and corrections. Keep on going.

For several years, I devoted two whole 1-hour lessons (and five minutes of the previous one) teaching my Y9 class something that was completely untrue. None of them questioned the false information. They then drew graphs, practised their interpolation and extrapolation skills, made predictions, planned and carried out an experiment to test their hypothesis.

When their results were nothing like their predictions, I challenged them to explain. Even then, most were unwilling to accept what was staring them in the face and thought they must have done something wrong.

But there was always one girl (fortunately, because I was relying on this) who would tentatively raise her hand and question the validity of the original data.

I heaped praise on her (partly in the hope of encouraging anyone else who might have been thinking along the same lines but was too shy to say so) and came clean. They were astonished that a teacher would do that to them.

But then I pointed out that a whole class of intelligent people had believed something which was blatantly untrue (I then demonstrated how it ought to have been obvious) and that if they hadn't done the experiment, and actually thought about it, they might have continued to believe, indefinitely.
(See my post upthread regarding the effectiveness of lecturing as a teaching method.)

So yeah. Thinking.

You could be right, RainyApril, but I've read the y5 curriculum and DD already knows all of it inside out. I wouldn't mind if her teacher was prepared to set her more difficult work. I'm glad that he's given her the opportunity to do this Saturday morning class, but why can't he just set her more difficult work during the week?

iBiscuit

I suppose again it's like typing. It takes a while for touch typing to be faster than one or two fingered typing, just as it does to write legible script with much speed versus printing, but the end result is absolutely worth it.

In what way is it worth it? There was a post upthread about beautiful Victorian copperplate. I've seen it in museums (which is where it belongs, imho).
Perhaps it was legible to the Victorians, but it isn't to me. And I have absolutely no incentive to learn to decode it because nowadays we have better methods. Beautiful as an art form, maybe, but as a means of communication?

The new 9-1 GCSE system. I'm really annoyed that my eldest child is a guinea pig for it. Although I'm not sure it is a 'fad'.

I think any rigid system has kids that fall through the gaps at lower, middle and at the bottom and atm that is my son.

At the top that should read. Sorry, I’m tired and fed up.

I'm more interested in the practical benefits of being able to write quickly and legibly than the aesthetics.

Children (and adults) are held back if they can't take notes, answer exam papers or express their thoughts as quickly as their minds work. Printing each letter one by one is stilted compared with writing script.

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. I find it frustrating that people can't accept that it doesn't work for some children. My own children are older and look say was the accepted method at the time. Of course they did learn phonics but they were already reading by then. They built up a body of words and as an example at the school they went to the children learned the first 20 or so words on flash cards. They were then given a book with only those words in it. Success, their first reading book and they could read it, no problem. Gradually as they worked through the books phonics was also introduced. For children like my GS the phonics made no sense, pointless for people who can read to say it is the best way as it really wasn't. After 4 years he still couldn't read anything. One year of look say and he was almost at the expected level for his age, another six months and he was there. He gets phonics now but he gets it as part of being able to read words, I think phonics just seemed like an abstract idea that had no meaning for him.

The most frustrating thing was that the schools answer to a child not getting phonics is to make them do more phonics, phonics with a TA, phonics one to one. It didn't work. We did reading after school with him, I did , his parents did, his siblings did, at school the teacher did, the TA did, the SENCO did. It didn't work. I can't believe he is a one off. Even if you believe phonics is generally the best method why wouldn't you try something else if it isn't working?

As an adult I use phonics only when I come across a word I don't know, the vast majority of words I recognise why wouldn't that work for some children.

LadyHonoriaDedlock
Mindfulness! All well and good but at my Ds school if they don't do it 'properly' they get detention

I think you mean that if they don't sit quietly and not disturb other children they get a detention.

Expecting children to sit quietly, listen and not interfere with others is a normal expectation in school.

I remember seeing the ITA books in the local library when I was little and thinking they were in a foreign language - which ITA effectively was. The poor buggers who had that foisted on them had to learn to read from scratch after it fell out of fashion.

Luckily I went to a school that was behind the times, but the "trendy" new one that opened nearby was fully into ITA and choosing what to learn yourself etc. In my year not one child from that school (and it was roughly the same catchment area) passed the 11+.

I remember a teacher I knew telling me of the wonders of real books. I thought all books were real but apparently this meant not using a reading scheme but exposing the children to real books and they would learn to read. Don't know if that was just her idea or was a fad or if she doesn't explain it very well. It sounded a bit like when people used to have a chickenpox party so all the kids caught it except these kids caught reading. I am sure it would work for some but again I don't think it would work for all.

I'm more interested in the practical benefits of being able to write quickly and legibly than the aesthetics.

I absolutely agree with you. But we clearly disagree about the method.

Children (and adults) are held back if they can't take notes

Did you read my post upthread about notes? About how I didn't take notes at school if I could avoid it, and how my DS also didn't?
Hasn't held us back as far as I can see. Notes are unnecessary because textbooks exist. People who take notes while someone is talking are not listening (in the sense of thinking deeply about the subject matter).

Printing each letter one by one is stilted compared with writing script.

That what I thought - but I've done some reading this morning and it appears there isn’t much evidence to support this.

nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-other-education-myths

I realised after reading that article, one of the better ones, I do a mix of printing letters and joining up - mainly for legiblity reasons and speed,

Eldest got to year 2 and we noticed at home, doing some extra support for spelling, that a large number of letters weren't being formed properly - b d being done like 6 - we picked it up earlier with younger children with different letters but teachers weren't concerned or particularly interested.

Only joined up handwriting advice eldest got was being off for looping in first primary – joining up long letters is via the base on the line which seemed time consuming. No teaching of joined up handwriting across two primaries and three children.

There are concerns about their speed, neatness and spellings but the proposed solution is tying/word processing.

It’s yet another thing I’m trying to cover at home - not least to build up their writting stamina and speed else I can see them struggling with exams.

Granny, I don't doubt your experience, because mine is much the same, but 'look say' is out of favour because it is incredibly inefficient.

The child that learns ten words by sight has learnt ten words, while the child who learns ten phonemes can read hundreds.

Leonard. If you google 'benefits of cursive writing' you will find a lot of information, but I quite like this article by the New York Times <a class="break-all" href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing?referer=www.google.co.uk/&nytmobile=0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">heree*

Psychology Today article <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.ukwww.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing?referer=www.google.co.uk/&nytmobile=0/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psychology-benefits-learning-cursive%3Famp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">heree*

A lot of research in the US where they did away with it in many states I think.

Leonard. If you google 'benefits of cursive writing' you will find a lot of information, but I quite like this article by the New York Times <a class="break-all" href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing?referer=www.google.co.uk/&nytmobile=0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">heree*

Psychology Today article <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.ukwww.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing?referer=www.google.co.uk/&nytmobile=0/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psychology-benefits-learning-cursive%3Famp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">heree*

A lot of research in the US where they did away with it in many states I think.

I wish they'd bring back NC levels. I knew exactly where DD1 was in terms of her peers, herself and nationally. It's much harder to know where DD2 is in the grand scheme of things and she's in Y4. Next year we'll have to decide whether to put her down for the 11+ at the beginning of Y6. With DD1 it was clear that she was suited to a grammar school education but with DD2 and the new system it's much harder to know.

Notes are unnecessary because textbooks exist.

Don’t know about other schools but my school can’t afford textbooks. We don’t have any for the new GCSE and the KS3 ones we have are crap.