To agree with this article re. curriculum whilst home schooling maths and english

[fabulousspider]

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/feb/20/im-a-maths-lecturer-and-i-had-to-get-my-children-to-teach-me

Just read this, and have to say I agree with the maths and english sentiments from the experts.

Having been teaching my kid (age 8) english which involves "fronted adverbials" and all that malarkey whilst trying to encourage their creative writing seems backwards to me. Overcomplicating what should be an enjoyable experiment in creativity. Making the kids stressed out! Kids will learn appropriate language usage by default as they write. They don't need to know what a fronted adverbial is whilst they are trying to grapple with the creative side of writing. I believe that they will pick up the appropriate language by a process of osmosis whilst carrying out the creative writing.

And the number of times I've noticed that frequently the maths work set and the answers seem plain wrong! Like the maths teacher says, you teach them one thing when younger and then change this as they get older. I see that some concepts need altering for younger kids but I am honestly suprised at some of the ways the methods are put across. They don't always seem intuitive.

Do others feel the same?

The maths is fair enough. The English is boring as fuck and I pity the teachers stuck with this curriculum. Nothing inspiring about it at all and a good way of turning kids off writing completely. Luckily for us our school has had a online story reading session every afternoon this term, which is probably doing more good than the whole years worth of grammar yawning.

Imo the grammar would be better taught in the context of reading comprehension than as an exercise in how to write well. I fully agree that encouraging kids to take a formulaic, tick-box, shoehorn-a-fronted-adverbial-in attitude to writing is stultifying. Looking at a piece of writing and understanding how it fits together grammatically would be better.

I’m a long time home educator, and what I’ve found helps with English is separating out the skills.. so if we’re doing creative writing, we focus on the content of the story, but we also do specific work on SPAG. I’ve had one child who did learn a lot of English by osmosis, but one who really did need that explicit teaching of the mechanics.

@Notanotherhun

A square is not a type of rectangle. Both are types of quadrilaterals which are shapes with 4 sides. A square is a regular quadrilateral whereas a rectangle/oblong is long and thin. So your little one is correct.

A square IS a rectangle, it is just a regular rectangle with a special name. It meets the definition of a rectangle therefore is a rectangle. A rectangle is not a square as it doesn’t meet the definition. An oblong is a rectangle but a rectangle may or may not be an oblong.

The big problem with this article is precisely that it's written by people who are very good at their subjects. Able readers and writers do learn language by osmosis (and quickly grasp the technical terms when they are formally taught them because they recognise what's being described). Gifted mathematicians don't need to be taught different techniques for mental calculation because they use them instinctively. Unfortunately, many, many children are neither, and the choice is between teaching these things explicitly or leaving them to muddle through and become adults who cannot write a clear sentence and avoid doing maths because they believe that they are no good at it.

Mumsnet being Mumsnet, you won't find many of these people on here, but you only need to look at the rest of the internet to see how many of them are out there!

@LittleMissnotLittleMrs What is the difference between a rectangle and an oblong? I thought they were the same thing.

Full disclosure, secondary maths teacher.

@PenguinP

The big problem with this article is precisely that it's written by people who are very good at their subjects. Able readers and writers do learn language by osmosis (and quickly grasp the technical terms when they are formally taught them because they recognise what's being described). Gifted mathematicians don't need to be taught different techniques for mental calculation because they use them instinctively. Unfortunately, many, many children are neither, and the choice is between teaching these things explicitly or leaving them to muddle through and become adults who cannot write a clear sentence and avoid doing maths because they believe that they are no good at it.

Mumsnet being Mumsnet, you won't find many of these people on here, but you only need to look at the rest of the internet to see how many of them are out there!

I agree there may be a problem with academics commenting on teaching as they'll see from their rather odd perspective.

But it's not true that gifted mathematicians don't need to be taught different techniques. My brother's a professor of maths, and he definitely struggled with maths at various points at school. I'm a (much, much more junior) academic in English Lit; I'm also dyslexic and I struggled hugely to learn to read and spell and understand grammar.

Often, people become academics precisely because they weren't the most successful at school or the brightest in the class, and they remember the experience of struggling and then understanding something.

All down to Gove. All the joy sucked out of writing stories now.

Haven't read it all And I went to school in the 80's and a square wasn't a rectangle then , agree with the knowing adverbials etc as we just learnt how to write and grammar and spelling was learnt at same time and or corrected.
I use to have issue when my ds were little and had spellings of words they had no idea of the meaning and were not at the stage of using them in a sentence, they were good at spellings in a test as had photographic memories, using them in sentences was often different.

Well front adverbials put mine off english , they hated it from then on in.
The biggest issue is a one size doesn't fit all.
My kids also had to do the reading where you take a test to answer after , that put them ofd reading as well as instead of getting engrossed in a book they were too busy trying to remember a colour of front door incase it came up in the questions.

[quote HercwasanEnemyofEducation]@LittleMissnotLittleMrs What is the difference between a rectangle and an oblong? I thought they were the same thing.

Full disclosure, secondary maths teacher.[/quote]
Well

UK
a flat shape with four sides and four angles of 90° and opposite sides of equal length

US
an object or shape that is longer than it is wide

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/oblong

Meanwhile

Word forms: plural oblongs
countable noun [oft NOUN noun]
An oblong is a shape which has two long sides and two short sides and in which all the angles are right angles.

www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/oblong

Or

Definition of oblong

(Entry 1 of 2)
: deviating from a square, circular, or spherical form by elongation in one dimension an oblong piece of paper an oblong melon

[[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oblong[[

Looks like in the UK oblong and rectangle are interchangeable. We never use oblong at secondary, didn't realise it was a thing at primary! A square has always been a type of rectangle.

A rectangle is a parallelogram with 4 sides and 4 right angles.
A square is a rectangle with equal sides
An oblong is a rectangle with one pair of elongated sides.

But in common use, we tend to call oblongs rectangles!

How is elongated defined? A parallelogram with 4 right angles is already an oblong isn't it?

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

How is elongated defined? A parallelogram with 4 right angles is already an oblong isn't it?

Unless it identifies as a square?

A parallelogram with 4 sides and 4 right angles is a rectangle. You then need to decide what type of rectangle, either a square one if all the sides are of equal length or an oblong one if one pair of sides is longer than the other pair.

Teaching 'this is a square' and 'this is a rectangle' and 'this is not a rectangle, it is a square' is teaching them that a square is not a rectangle.

That's not necessarily how it's taught though.

We teach 'this is a square' and 'this is a rectangle' - yes

But we don't say a square 'is not a rectangle.' Simply as that isn't correct.

If asked we would tell children it is a special type of rectangle and we call it a square. It's not often we get asked in reception but we do answer questions correctly if asked, we just don't go into the properties in as much details, so as to not confuse children who may still be learning the basics.

However, come key stage 1 we do say a square is a special rectangle and talk about properties.

Just to add some more shapes

Ahh OK so rectangle is the group with square and oblong inside it. Thank you both for clearing that up. Every day is a school day!

At GCSE students get the mark for "rectangle" if asked to name an oblong.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation
In KS1, if asked to name an oblong, the usual answer would be Fred!

Ahh OK so rectangle is the group with square and oblong inside it. Thank you both for clearing that up. Every day is a school day

Unless someone has an oblong face...........

A rectangle isn't a group, though.

@Notanotherhun

A rectangle isn't a group, though.

I wonder what would happen on MN if people were asked to draw a rectangle that wasn't a square?

Or a rectangle that wasn't an oblong?

@Notanotherhun What do you mean?

Inside the group of rectangles is an oblong and a square.
Just as inside the group of quadrilaterals are all 4 sided shapes.

Haha at Fred, I've seen a Sally the cylinder!