To question the way English is taught/learnt in primary schools?

[Blowfishmalibu]

I've been homeschooling my DC - years 3 and 4 - and going through the worksheets sent by school. So far, the maths/topic work is generally engaging, fun and seems to be conveyed in the most interesting way possible (considering homeschool limitations).

On the other hand the English/SPAG is really dull and formulaic, and often seems to make little sense to the children! Often long grammatical concepts, lots of re-writing texts. I think it's a shame that things that could be picked up naturally through a love of reading/writing are drilled in this narrow way.

I'm not blaming the teachers for this in any way - I'm aware it's the national curriculum that must be followed, but AIBU to think that this curriculum could be (much) more creative and stimulating?

That's good to know @GrammarTeacher. Was a bit horrified at the thought that this uninspiring stuff carries on for that long...

One of my DC isn't very into reading/books but I am hoping this changes, and it would be such a shame if secondary English is as dull as primary English.

I disagree with people's opinions about phonics though. I was a sceptic at first until I personally saw the real difference it made to the sort of kids who previously never learned to read properly. It needs to be well-taught to be effective though and well-resourced in terms of appropriate reading books.

On the other hand the English/SPAG is really dull and formulaic, and often seems to I think it's a shame that things that could be picked up naturally through a love of reading/writing are drilled in this narrow way.

Yep. Many teachers and professional writers wholeheartedly agree - but they had no input on the curriculum. I think you’re completely right OP, a lot of these concepts make little real sense, especially to children who are essentially still learning new vocabulary everyday. We now spend years teaching this stuff throughout primary when actually teenagers with a more confident grasp of language and sentence structure would pick it up fairly quickly.

@thecatsthecats
There's also a HUGE importance in linguistic fluency that is missed by some grammararians. I know a few language Nazis who are fanatically precise about their use of language but who are nonetheless woefully poor communicators. My number one rule is that unless you're exercising deliberate linguistic trickery, if you rely upon a precise understanding of grammar to understand a sentence correctly, then it needs chucking in the bin and starting again
I think we may have had this debate before - but can you give a couple of examples? I have been accused of this crime and want to understand how to communicate better.

I think many would agree that learning SPAG in this detail has its value and its uses - it just seems bonkers to be so focused on it primary school when it could be taught much more efficiently and easily to older teenagers in secondary.

And bare in mind that some of it is covered again in secondary. There is no real consistency or follow on between primary and secondary - they completely overhauled the primary curriculum and then got bored and left the rest as it was.

@pinkblueberry yes, that’s a good point. It might well be better to leave some of the technicalities to secondary.

Unfortunately every subject in the NC is narrow, because teachers have so much to get through.
Home education doesn't have the same problems and you can make any subject as in depth and engaging as you want to.
Maybe you could H.ed rather than sending dc back to school.

Although my sister is a secondary school teacher and despairs at the few students she has who have not acquired basic literary in primary school. According to her it is very difficult to catch them up. So I very much support emphasis on literary at a primary level. But some grammatical analysis might wait til later.

*literacy

One of my dc's was a fantastic storyteller and would come out with brilliant original ideas.

All of which came to an immediate halt in about the middle of Y3.

Every creative bone in her body was totally stifled by the Roolz.

@ginsparkles

The likes of alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphors etc are not what we are discussing here. They aren't gramatical terms, they are authorial techniques used in writing composition. They definitely have a place in literacy.

It is modal verbs, subordinate clauses, fronted adverbials, relative clauses etc.

Goodness no. Secondary English isnt boring. Lots of texts, contexts, language devices etc. There is not much need to be able to describe and label grammatical in great detail until A Level Language.

Secondary English is rigorous but not boring, with the right teachers.

People aren’t going to discriminate against people who can’t use formal grammatical terms, but they might well discriminate against someone who makes grammatical errors (and some errors do arise as a result of not being taught, eg when the subjunctive is used as I said upthread).

People already do both, quite obviously. I think they shouldn't, and it is unpleasant, but they do.

I also genuinely don’t understand why you think that extending education that has traditionally been available only to the elite to everyone is a way of keeping the plebs in check.

I don't, and I never said I did?

I said, and I believe, that Gove pushes this type of teaching because he believes (rightly) that it will sound good to a particular type of voter: one who thinks learning grammar is pretty much the same thing as learning good British values. This goes right back to the earliest teaching of English grammar. It's not something he's invented. But it is the reason why he likes the idea, I believe.

I don't think there is anything wrong with learning fancy terms for grammar. If you like it, knock yourself out. Indeed, if you're one of those people who finds it easiest to learn a set of rules (like grammar) by learning names for each of them, it's probably a good idea.

But don't forget to think about why this someone with this particular political stance is so invested in this kind of teaching.

Goodness no. Secondary English isnt boring

My year 7 would beg to differ unfortunately. But then she’s been studying Jayne Eyre and some Shakespeare this year. Both great, but mean nothing to an 11 year old.

There is no real consistency or follow on between primary and secondary - they completely overhauled the primary curriculum and then got bored and left the rest as it was.

It's worse than that - there was supposed to be a secondary grammar curriculum but the working party who wrote the primary one ran out of time. Yes, seriously!

Secondary English isnt boring

Not sure about boring, but it's ineffective. I'm a university lecturer in English and I've seen a steady decline in standard English expression over the past few years. A' level English literature and language too seem to be taught in a fairly uninspiring format.

The point of Higher Education is that it builds on something, yet these days when students arrive at university critical thinking is a real stretch. We are struggling with standards in the HE sector because nowadays we have to spend the whole of the first year trying to undo the damage done in the pre-16 sector.

I'm very glad I learned to read before phonics was around. I'm poorly coordinated and couldn't have managed the actions. My mum taught me reading when I was two years old, using fridge magnet letters. If I'd had some schoolteacher's garbled explanation of some convoluted gimmicky system which demands gross motor skills I didn't possess, then I would probably never have learned to read at all.

@charlottejbt

In fairness, there are a range of strategies employed to teach reading not just phonics. Phonics as a skill is useful and largely transferrable for most words. However, it's not for everyone and that's ok. My main gripe with it is the screening that young kids get for nonsense words. What a load of utter dung.

YY, @MarieIVanArkleStinks. A lot of teachers I know (who clearly manage to be inspiring and to get their students enjoying English) say they're fed up with the way they're required to teach.

I find it really upsetting when I get students who think they've 'failed' because they don't understand the fancy terms other students in the class come to university already knowing. I understand why some people might imagine that it would 'level the playing field' to teach them all the same fancy terms, so they could all identify a split infinitive for me.

But it's not actually particularly useful knowledge. I'd rather they were able to think, or at least question what's handed down from on high. We seem to be moving the wrong way.

TBH I'm not bothering with a lot of the literacy stuff. DS (8) is a keen reader, in process of ADHD diagnosis, and all Lit work is such a slog with him. Plus I'm of a generation that wasn't taught a lot of detail about grammar terminology etc, but I still know how a sentence works, and it didn't stop me getting a degree in literature and being a professional editor! So no, I will not spend my extremely limited time on comprehensions and 'find the fronted adverbial' type stuff.

I used to teach primary (and my degree is in Linguistics and Rhetoric) and I completely agree. The vast majority of children find English boring - and they're right to, when grammar is constantly shoved down their throats. The whole concept of "magpie-ing" texts is so full for them and zaps out any creativity in the subject.

While I do understand the need to teach parts of speech and such, it really shouldn't be done in such an inflexible, formulaic manner. I also think reading and writing should be taught separately so that writing assignments aren't based on texts used in reading assignments. Creativity exercises the brain and allows for independent thought; something that I found very lacking in English primary schools.

Not sure about boring, but it's ineffective. I'm a university lecturer in English and I've seen a steady decline in standard English expression over the past few years. A' level English literature and language too seem to be taught in a fairly uninspiring format.

The point of Higher Education is that it builds on something, yet these days when students arrive at university critical thinking is a real stretch. We are struggling with standards in the HE sector because nowadays we have to spend the whole of the first year trying to undo the damage done in the pre-16 sector.

This is fascinating and also depressing @MarieIVanArkleStinks!

@MarielVanArkleStinks Do you think autodidacts fare better than pupils who have been spoonfed a low-quality curriculum? Eng Lit does seem like the sort of subject where you can kind of wing it without really having learned anything before. It was like that at A Level anyway. I was apparently the best in the year in my new, fancy school and one of their best pupils ever, yet easily the least educated and with overall GCSEs so bad they nearly didn't let me in. I'm thinking that the sort of (unintentionally) benign neglect I'd had elsewhere pre-16 - a pretty much complete lack of teaching or encouragement - actually benefited my writing and thinking abilities, whereas my sixth form contemporaries seemed hobbled by some kind of cack-handed interventionist teaching they had been subjected to at GCSE level or earlier.

I'm very glad I learned to read before phonics was around.

I do know what you mean, but FWIW, teaching children to read by using phonics is a centuries-old method. Far older than the 'look and say' method you (and I) probably had. And it works pretty well when it's not taken as the be-all and end-all.

Most people pick up phonics automatically, without even knowing they've done it; there is a sizeable minority that really struggles, and phonics seems to help them a lot, and help everyone else a little.

But I don't think it should be taught in such a rigid way. Children ought to encounter nonsense words in things like Jabberwocky (or Julia Donaldson's 'Smeds and Smoos'!), not as a test. And I tink they shouldn't invariably be ticked off for looking at the pictures to help them figure out the words - it can be a useful way to gain confidence.