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?

I appreciate that understanding it is just as important as doing it. However I'm not sure splitting numbers into dots in tables helps with understanding either. A table with 20 dots and 4 dots doesn't help explain why 24 divided by 6 is 4 does it? Although perhaps we were doing it wrong

It can do - if you draw 6 rectangles (or maybe oblongs), you can make 6 groups of 4

Or 4 groups of 6.

It gets more fun with bigger numbers.

You have 160 fish and 7 hungry dolphins. How many can you give each dolphin and will there be any spare?

Is there a quick way of handing them out?

10 to each dolphin ?

That is some great diagrams...

(Btw I feel as if I sound bitter about DD's nursery and I'm so entirely not! They are wonderful.)

You could of course use blocks for that problem.

But drawing dolphins is much more fun...

But do you really think a three year old who didn't know the word 'rectangle' would suggest a linguistically impoverished home?

It's not just the lack of the word rectangle though. It would be a home where no shape names are used or discussed. One child not knowing the word rectangle isn't an issue, but there are lots of children who come to pre school without the language and understanding to access the world around them. We'd be doing them a disservice to leave the basics of shapes and colours until school.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

But do you really think a three year old who didn't know the word 'rectangle' would suggest a linguistically impoverished home?

It's not just the lack of the word rectangle though. It would be a home where no shape names are used or discussed. One child not knowing the word rectangle isn't an issue, but there are lots of children who come to pre school without the language and understanding to access the world around them. We'd be doing them a disservice to leave the basics of shapes and colours until school.

Right, so you agree with me.

Let's teach children the basics of shapes and colours, and do away with a ridiculous curriculum where we drill them on the word rectangle.

Right?

I agree that the basics need to be taught. I don't think drilling is particularly bad. I think being told a rectangle isn't a square is bad.

I can't believe you can have read my posts in good faith and imagined I was suggesting the wholesale abolition of basic teaching of shapes and colours.

Square isn't a rectangle*

Sorry, cross post, I'm being too easily irritated!

I think we really are just saying the same things.

I really did think that's what you meant. Sorry. Tired teacher and anxious about tomorrow. I've re read and now see what you're saying!

No, don't be sorry! Let's blame generalised covid exhaustion. Honestly, I am in awe of what teachers do, and especially at the moment. I hope tomorrow goes well for you (or as well as possible in the circs).

I'm glad children learn these grammatical terms and sentence structure. I went to school in the 90s which I believe was the dark ages of GPS education. This is evident in the writing of many of my former schoolmates when you see what they come out with on social media, they can barely string a legible sentence together. My dc have been lucky to attend much better schools than I did and their English is miles ahead of what mine was at their age.

When I was in primary school, I had to come up to the board and show how I did a subtraction with borrowing/carrying. For the first part, I needed to do say, 15 minus 7. So I explained, I do 15 minus 10 then plus 3. The teacher made a massive deal of this and said I was wrong and I simply mustn't do this as I would never be able to do complex maths or mental arithmetic. Funnily enough, I still do it like this and my nickname among friends is 'the rainman' as I do mental arithmetic quicker than anyone can even open the calculator app. Fast forward to having a child in KS1, she was being taught to do the maths this way (among several other ways). So I think it's good when a new concept is introduced they get several ways to do it and can then see which one resonates. As they go on they get encouraged to use the method that works for them.

Similarly in English, its probably for the best they learn grammar. I'm shocked when I see the way some (even educated) people write. They seem to do the same amount of creative writing and poetry that we did anyway. I went to primary school in the late 80s.

The teacher made a massive deal of this and said I was wrong and I simply mustn't do this as I would never be able to do complex maths or mental arithmetic

As long as a child can find a way of doing a calculation that works for them should be good enough.

There may be more efficient ways, quicker, neater ways - but if a method works for them, that's good.

Saying that - it can be a bit painful to see a calculation such as 24 x 9 written down as 9 lots of 24 in a column and repeatedly added together - although that will give you the correct answer.

I think that any way of representing complex word problems - especially the 5 mark GCSE ones is good for some students - and I do think there is way too much emphasis on maths that most pupils won't need - and this turns pupils off maths.

Yes I was impressed when I read that - properly teaching the idea that history isn’t just fixed facts but the ability to look at and evaluate sources effectively and determine whether they can support a particular position.

If they were evaluating sources so they could discuss it in that way, it would be impressive. Instead it's being given an exam style question, being given the answers into lists so they can fill in the blanks which I can understand the modeling but there no modeling of pulling it from sources yet, them practicing answering those questions, and much beyond that is limited with quite a bit polarized into good-bad.

My Y9 is doing how much did the Enlightenment affect the American War of Independence. She has had me sitting in with her since they came back home because I'm American and she thinks it's funny for me to give extra American trivia. I've been pretty shocked that no sources are being used at her age and just how much it's fallen into 'the Brits were tyrannical assholes, Americans were hard done by', like way more than even I was raised with in the American Midwest, and that's saying a lot.

They covered how the Intolerable Acts upset the Americans, but nothing about how it passed in Parliament based on things like the colonists tarring and feathering people viewed as loyalists, burning British merchant ships, and refusing to recognize treaties that prevent them expanding territories. The main cause was taught as 'no taxation without representation'/Brits were assholes without the obvious issue that most couldn't vote then anyways being wrestled with.

It feels like they've taken the idea of what historians should be doing, and giving a watered down version to the point that I've one DD who seems to think that's all history is and struggles to discuss it outside the format of those lists which may just be her development stage and another who has a feeling I had a child of feeling like none of the history she's being taught in school is real or matters. Seeing her tune out out of something she really enjoys, and knowing how many history teachers would love to be able to dig more into things than what's being dictated at them (and the general sad state of affairs the humanities are in) saddens me.

I totally agree. I have an English a level, a degree and a post graduate degree and I have no idea what most of these grammar terms are and I can't ever remember having to know them

I agree with almost everything you've said. As an adult, if you gave me a picture of a beach and asked me to describe it, I probably could do an alright job. If you asked me to describe it and include three fronted adverbials, my writing would become stifled and not as good. Many many times I've experienced marking an excellent piece of creative writing, but when I've came to tick off the criteria found that it was technically quite poor. I was a fan of the structure of Big Write back when it was in favour I thought it gave children enough freedom to write creatively within their writing time. I agree with a pp about talk for writing, although I know it makes some heads a bit nervous due to lack of evidence in books!

One area though I do take issue with is the learning by osmosis. I have a huge/geeky interest in vocabulary and in the outcomes of those who enter school with a poor vocabulary. It's very interesting although also slightly depressing reading but essentially it's nigh on impossible to catch a child up who enters school with poor vocab; they'd effectively have to be taught 35 new words a day. And vocab at the age of 8 is a fairly good indicator of employment, salary and even mental health outcomes in adulthood. Anyway what the things I've learned here tell me is that learning by osmosis is what happens to bright children in non-chaotic households with people around them who talk to them and listen to them and who use language well themselves, read to them and give them access to books and have a positive view of education. If we rely on learning by osmosis we just push those who most need our help further down the pile.

In a nutshell, I agree with you about the problems in the new curriculum, but I've no idea what the solution is!

[quote SarahAndQuack]@kolo, as I said, I'm a junior academic. Your pedagogy experience will be much better than mine, and I am always in awe of what teachers do. But I was reading your own post when I pointed out teachers aren't pedagogy experts. You said:

There are university school of education research departments and global research projects which aim to further our understanding of teaching and learning and inform practice.

I absolutely agreed with that, and just wanted to make the point that neither the lecturers in the article, nor the vast majority of school teachers, fall into the category of experts you're describing here.[/quote]
Thank you for clarifying and for explaining your background - I was interested in it in terms of how to frame my response. I've been dipping in and out of this thread all evening because I've been trying to plan home learning for next week, so was getting posters mixed up, apologies if you've repeated yourself for my benefit.

I can see I wasn't clear enough in my response. Teachers are definitely not experts at pedagogy compared to academics in Ed theory. I agree with you. But I think I was saying that in response to what @Sausagessizzling had said, comparing homeschooling parents to teachers. And teachers do have much more expertise in pedagogical methods than the average homeschooling parent, I'd say. Teachers have some education in it, as well as access to training throughout their career (CPD, LA training (does that still exist? I used to go to termly meetings with LA maths team to improve pedagogy)), as well as access to universities through ITT (direct liaison with university staff and observing student/nqts teaching with new methods/resources), access to research teams through links with universities (so for example I was one of the teachers who trialled shell centre resources on students I taught). And I don't think my experience was unique.

So, no, not an expert compared to research academics. But compared to the average parent trying to homeschool, yes. I should have been clearer in my post.

No, it's fine. I'm sorry, I was snippy to say 'as I said' and I shouldn't have.

I do notice on this thread there's a bit of an assumption that if someone disagrees with the current curriculum and/or the way it's delivered, they must be non-teachers or people with no knowledge of teaching, and that's part of what bugged me. IME a lot of teachers are the same people who're bothered by the curriculum. I know plenty of teachers who are tearing their hair out about home educating their own children. It's not a neat division.

But I do have issues with the way the article rather implies that a maths lecturer is more of an expert in teaching maths to school-age children than a maths teacher. It's wrong and a confused way to look at it IMO.

I was a secondary teacher in a foundation subject... last taught at the point that the post-Gove GCSE curriculum was coming in across all subjects. At the point of leaving, our assessement cycle took up a third of teaching time by the time there was preparation, writing the essay, and responding to feedback. More got dropped from the topics to fit the assessments in. The focus on higher level skills often left little time to cover "low level" factual/ contextual knowledge which was often scantily covered in many primary schools in the efforts to teach to SATs (or plain forgotten).

With home learning, the KS2 maths I've seen seems to be good at developing understanding of concepts, although has the potential to be bewildering. Unfortunately for my two with the present set up, they see the sum, work it out and spend the next 15 minutes bored rigid, not engaging while the teacher (on screen) goes through multiple methods of working out what (my children think) is bleeding obvious (obviously not to the majority of the class)

English is horrendous. One might be dyslexic, the other is along with dyspraxia and ASD (which affects a lot of perception when working with texts). The write to the checklist method is very overwhelming to them. It's not that understanding grammar is a bad thing (my understanding is decent from A-level MFL) but the emphisis in the curriculum and the ultimate goal of SATs is heavy handed and leaves little space for just enjoying literature and language and inspiring creativity. Obviously teaching normally in the classroom is far more condusive to a creative and balanced approach than the remote methods parents are left to battle with.
I can not get my two to engage with English at all, which is somewhat awkward missing two sigmificant chunks of two school years in their weakest subject

Space to just enjoy a text as it is without being analysed to death has value too. While my two are lucky to be in a house with abundant books of interest to them and to be read to, and with, so many children don't have that opportunity to enjoy reading and learning much beyond school.

@fabulousspider

I think people are misunderstanding my point. I should have clarified from the get go. I don't disagree with learning sentence structure nor correction of mistakes, but I do think that the over-scientification (if that's a word!) takes the joy out of it for a lot of creative children, even puts them off it! As per the experts.

Definitely, sentence structure, correct grammar is really important. But maybe there's a better way of teaching it that's less dry and miserable than learning about fronted adverbials and what have you, rather just focussing on the correct language and words, than painstakingly explaning what a fronted adverbial is and boring the kids or even putting them off.

I think your projecting your live of creative writing onto the children here.

As I remember school wirting a story in English was one of the most pointless busy work assessments.

I'm not sure I understand, Sapho47.

You think creative writing is pointless? If so I have to strongly disagree.

I'm not a creative writer myself by profession, nor even leisure, but the skills I picked up through creative writing and reading have served me extremely well in my professional and personal life.

Creative writing expands the vocabulary, gives you a good grasp of grammar, spelling, sentence structure (as I said I do believe this should be part of the process just not in the "fronted adverbials" format) and how to write.

[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]
So am I and spent ages falling down the black hole of the internet last night! An elongated circle is also oblong, but that’s not an oval. An oval isn’t oblong as its pointier at one end than the other. Really, after last night, I think we should be calling the shape “square” as actually a square rectangle in the same way we say equilateral triangle, not just equilateral. So a rectangle is an oblong but a square isn’t but a square is a rectangle. Flow diagrams now don’t seem to work so I’ve been think of it in vent diagrams.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

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.

No because apparently you can get oblong circles!

I do notice on this thread there's a bit of an assumption that if someone disagrees with the current curriculum and/or the way it's delivered, they must be non-teachers or people with no knowledge of teaching, and that's part of what bugged me. IME a lot of teachers are the same people who're bothered by the curriculum. I know plenty of teachers who are tearing their hair out about home educating their own children. It's not a neat division.

Oh I completely agree with this. My andecdata would suggest most teachers think the curriculum (esp primary) is awful. I can only really talk about the maths curriculum, but I felt that some of the methods used were based on proper research into pedagogy (rather than Gove's dream of public school in Victorian times). Although the maths curriculum as a whole is a complete mess - statutory times table tests at end of year 4??? - I can see that my own primary kids have far more concrete understanding of the methods now used. A move away from teaching 'tricks' in maths that are often forgotten.

But I do have issues with the way the article rather implies that a maths lecturer is more of an expert in teaching maths to school-age children than a maths teacher. It's wrong and a confused way to look at it IMO.

Also agree with this. The maths part of the article annoyed me. I don't think they knew much about how maths is taught at primary and EYFS at all.