To find some Primary School teaching a bit pointless?

[Schooll]

Every other day my child brings home homework asking her to identify a new type of pronoun, adjective etc.

My friend is over today too and we both work in fields that require a good standard of English. We cannot understand why we are still stressing children out with things like ‘identify the relative pronoun’, what use is this information?

Genuinely, when will my child ever need to know this and why is she spending so much time stressing over the different types when it’s unlikely to ever be needed again, unless she becomes a primary school teacher?

Am I missing something where this sort of information is actually really useful and we should still be using it to judge children’s intelligence in exams etc?

Algebra I do actually use a lot!

Don't get me started on phonics though, and even worse the phonics testing so that if your child doesn't pass they have to devote even more time to it. Some kids just don't learn to read that way!

you lose all credibility when you say that persuasive speech and algebra are not needed. They are core job skills for many people.

Not really because you can identify nouns and adjectives in spoken language - a thing or a description basically.

Knowing the difference between a noun and an adjective has always been part of the English curriculum, but that's not what the OP is saying. She's talking about 'frontal adverbials' relative pronouns, modal verbs - all these are a total waste of time. No-one ever needs them. It's enough to be able to read and understand what you are reading.

To be fair, I learned calculus at school and that's never been a bit of use either. As I remember, it's something to do with the shape of cornflake packets.

It’s important to learn basic grammar in primary school. The key word is basic.

It's what insufferable Tory bores like Gove think is the mark of intelligence. It has just become technical gobbledegook.

She's talking about 'frontal adverbials' relative pronouns, modal verbs

Are those more eco friendly verbs that wash well?

Some of it is definitely useful if you're (formally) studying a foreign language - I did a 4y foreign language degree and lots of my classmates struggled in the beginning because they didn't have a technical grasp of grammar (no language A-level prerequisite). If nothing else, the taxonomy of grammar can be helpful.

Gove had at least one daughter who went to a state school, not sure if they all did.
It's still a nonsense idea, all this grammar.
It disadvantages struggling learners further as able kids pick it up quickly (SATS grammar results just correlate with maths ones), but struggling learners need more curriculum time for Spag, depriving them of teaching time in other (possibly useful) subjects.

Grammar is the logical and structural basis of communication. By learning grammatical rules, it's quite possible to become a highly competent writer with necessarily needing any "creative flair". It's the maths behind English and can be incredibly helpful for both adults and children if it's taught in the write way. Unfortunately, because many teachers didn't learn about grammar themselves, many of the lessons focusing on it end up becoming dry and boring. The issue is more to do with how it's taught rather than the content itself.

There are reasons that primaries have a grammar curriculum and secondaries don't. The group working on the grammar curriculum lost funding before creating a secondary one. However, it wasn't seen as a big deal because, if a child has fully understood the writing curriculum at primary, they have already reached the standard of written communication necessary for all of their time at secondary school. That's why secondaries focus more on content and the analysis of literature rather than how to write. Unfortunately, that's not how it's worked in practice and, for many children, the quality of their writing drops during Y7 and Y8, taking until Y9 to reach the same level of quality they'd already attained in Y6.

For those saying they never use algebra, you're totally wrong. It's impossible to get through a day without using it at least once. You won't, however, be aware of your use because you were taught algebra was all about xs and ys rather than what it actually is.

Completely agree OP! Fair enough them learning what nouns and adjectives are but the level of emphasis on it, and the more obscure stuff is, I have found, utterly bizarre.

My daughter is 6 and this is the sort of stuff that regularly comes home as homework. It's particularly ridiculous because she is struggling in reading compared to her peers - but instead of the school being able to work on that, they are forced to give her lessons on 'spot the fronted adverbial'

People who say 'these are basic things and we need to know them' are totally missing the point (and invariably are decades out of date on what's actually going on in primary schools). On a practical level, the emphasis on this stuff is taking AWAY from kids having enough time and space to learn the REAL basics - of reading, writing and maths, because of a stupid bit of political posturing/ meddling in the curriculum.

These lessons also, in my view, risk creating a very reductive mindset about language. We need children to develop a love of reading and pleasure in using language - that's what will ACTUALLY enhance their learning in the long term. Teachers invariably know this but their hands are tied. It's utterly depressing.

They wash quite well but you can't put them in a tumble dryer.

Adverbials are words or phrases that give more information to the sentence.

"I discovered fronted adverbials earlier today." 'Earlier today' is the adverbial.

A fronted adverbial is when the adverbial word or phrase is moved to the front of the sentence, before the verb.

"Earlier today, I discovered fronted adverbials." So here, 'earlier today' is a fronted adverbial.

I don't see why 10 year olds particularly need to know about this - I'm 38 and write letters and emails for a job, I wouldn't have been able to tell you what they are!

Latin grammar is complex but doesn't go down into the fronted adverbial hole! I learned all of my grammar from Latin which made French / Italian grammar easy in comparison (and then I got to Ancient Greek and its grammar, lets just leave that there), but the point is that Latin (and Greek) grammar was all fundamental to translating the language, as so much translation depended on the word endings.

For primary school pupils so long as they are working at a level where they can recognise the difference between nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs etc, that's fine for a y6!

I think some grammar has its uses because it does help children to write well. If you can tell that that sentence doesn't work because, for instance, it hasn't got a verb in it, it can be quite helpful.

But all the fronted adverbial bollocks is, well, bollocks, and I find the way children are taught to write currently incredibly stilted. It happens because they have to demonstrate that they know how to use various grammatical constructions in everything they write, no matter how inappropriate it might be to the work in question. It amazes me that no-one looks at the results and realises that, grammatically splendid it might be, it reads as utter garbage and they are not teaching good writing at all.

@NoCloudsAllowed yep same here. German teacher was German an horrified we had no idea what a subordinate clause was…. still not entirely sure but I almost certainly use them. I write a fair bit for my job role and am on year 2 of a masters so I’m not stupid, just don’t retain unnecessary info.

A lot of maths is taught because it develops logic and following mathematical process. Does the average person use algebra everyday, perhaps not. But the logic and mathematical reasoning learned is used constantly

It’s very useful when learning other languages. It’s about learning how language is structured and made up… it could be useful when writing poetry. I think it’s useful.

YANBU. It’s completely useless. Gove ruined the primary curriculum. A year 1 child does not need to know what a split vowel digraph is. I didn’t know what a split vowel digraph was until I had a year 1 child - I managed perfectly well in academia before that.

I'm heartened to hear that the past perfect tense has not been forgotten. American English misses a lot of nuance in not using past perfect; it would be a shame if British English ditched it too.

I am an English teacher and I couldn't agree more!

It wasn't taught when I was at school. But obviously you pick up what a noun or adjective is. But what they learn in school is not nouns or verbs. It's complicated 3 worded things. My DD can write really well. But could never hold these random words in her head.

Is your DC in Y6? They learn them for the SATs.

I find it fascinating how much of this seems to be down to: "I didn't learn it and I'm fine so kids don't need to learn it."

There are plenty of things that children learn in school that weren't taught to their parents. That's not a bad thing.

YANBU.
But so much of what they learn at school is like this now.

The Tories and Gove ruined it for kids when they redesigned the primary curriculum in 2014.

All is serves to do is put children off English.