Will all the grammar for SATs be used in Secondary?

[bicyclebell]

A question for teachers, both primary and secondary.

I'm appalled at all this obsessive grammar learning children are being made to do in primary for the SATS - under the new curriculum.

Its the labeling I can't stand. I'm sure its useful to learn some grammar - although I didn't in the 80s. And I still went to university to study English.

Its worrying me so much that I'm thinking of taking my children out in Year 6 to home school them and so miss the stress and boredom of that SATS year. I'll keep them learning - but not bother with all the grammar labeling.

Will that cause problems in secondary school do you think?

My current understanding / thinking is that the only 'use' is for learning MFLs, and as such:

Useful
Understanding nouns, verbs, adverbs etc
Understanding past present future tenses

Potentially useful
Understanding different past tenses
Understanding 'modal' verbs

Not useful
Differentiating types conjunctions
Differentiating types of phrases and clauses

My DD is in y6 and struggling even with the stuff on the 'useful' list. The 'not useful' will be ignored in this house.

Yr 2 daughter told to write a poem with "1 noun, 2 adjectives, 3 verbs and 4 adverbs."
Exactly...

I think it's very easy to think grammar is scary and complicated if you've never learned it yourself.

I taught myself, and have no idea how it would be tackled in the classroom. But it's really straightforward.

It's very helpful for MFLs and coding and is a transferable skill for anything that involves systems analysis.

I'm an MFL teacher. This new grammar requirement is what I've always wished pupils would learn. The reason parents and primary teachers are freaked out by it is that they never learnt it themselves, so it is therefore Scary and Difficult. Foreign students I have taught are bewildered that pupils in the UK don't know this stuff. They seem to manage to learn it without cracking under the strain. I've always thought that the lack of this knowledge is the reason why we as a nation are so utterly crap at learning languages.

Can you speak and write ok English without knowing how it all works? Yes, absolutely. Is it easier to acquire a better mastery of the language if you know how it works and actually know the proper names of things? Definitely. I have never understood why it's apparently fine to expect kids to learn proper mathematical and scientific terminology, learn about such complex (and rarely used in normal everyday life) things as algebra and photosynthesis, and yet apparently knowing what all the components of an English sentence are, and what they are called, is preposterous and unnecessary.

The trouble is, it has been introduced hastily and without proper preparation. I seriously doubt that the (wonderful and inspiring) head teacher at my dc's primary is well-versed in this kind of stuff. He sent home a new-style spag test as homework before they had really covered any of it and even I was quite surprised at how hard it was. But they learn equally complex stuff in other areas of the curriculum. People shouldn't be scared by grammatical names. They are only words.

My current understanding / thinking is that the only 'use' is for learning MFLs
You don't think people who need or want to do extended pieces of writing in English might find it useful to know how the English language works?

I put a message up on this very subject yesterday, I am really concerned about the effects of this obsession with terminology. I agree, done grammar needs to be taught and understood, but this is just going way too far. Teachers have been shouting about this for some time, but parents need to shout too. This is not what I want for my children. The following is quite interesting if you are interested www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/one-primary-teachers-open-letter-government-standards-expected-are

What do you mean, 'obsession with terminology'? Is talking about addition, subtraction, lines of symmetry, perimeter, long multiplication, vertices etc an 'obsession with terminology'? Calling things by their right names is generally a useful thing to do. Is it the sound of the names themselves that bothers people? Because children are usually quite happy with words like Pachycephalosaurus and long, convoluted names of the Transformers or Pokemon that they are interested in. It's all a question of how it's presented.

merciful an interesting post but surely "surprised at how difficult it was rather than hard - the table is hard! Sorry couldn't resist that.

Can someone tell me what a SPAG test is please?

I mean that somewhere there is a happy medium, that perhaps the level of knowledge of grammatical terminology is not necessarily going to make the children any more able to understand what they are reading, process information, express themselves through their writing or achieve good grades in exams. I want my kids to enjoy reading, understand what they read and to be able to write, spell and have a sound working knowledge of the grammar which will enable them to do so without everything they read and write becoming an exercise purely to learn grammatical rules . I genuinely question how useful or necessary some of it is at this age level. I am not saying that I think grammar is unimportant because it unquestionably is, but I think they need to understand and learn the stuff which helps them to read, comprehend and write to the best of their individual ability. I agree that calling things by their right names is useful, am I am not in the least concerned about the names themselves, like lots of other people on her I have studied English and other languages and I understand the terms. I just didn't need to know them all when I was 10. Some kids are going to struggle with this however it is presented and it is concerning.

Harriet You don't think people who need or want to do extended pieces of writing in English might find it useful to know how the English language works?

I believe that I am able to write coherent, well written English. However, I do not know all the terminology my 11 yo is expected to know for SATs. In particular, all the different types of phrases, and subordinating versus co-ordinating conjunctions.

So, to answer your question, I do not believe the complexity requested from y6s is necessary at all, and even if it were necessary, I do not believe it is needed by 11 year olds.

(Stands back waiting for someone to pick my written language to pieces. )

Nana A SPaG test is a test of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar. The year 6 SATs SPaG test this year is much harder than previous years.

Oh, and my understanding is that quality of writing is now to be judged based on complexity of grammar, correctness of spelling, and use of less basic punctuation. However, not judged on ability to engage the reader, build to a climax etc.

Harriet I agree completely. It is really concerning that kids are being tested on this; they level required for the test has been raised much much higher this year and lots of kids will do badly through no fault of their own.

NanaNina Definitions of 'hard' according to the O.E.D. www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hard

It is a great deal easier to refer to grammar points and explain why a sentence is correct or incorrect if you know the names of things. Nobody would expect a science teacher to be referring to 'that kind of bluey-green chemical. You know.. the one that goes a bit funny when you add thingy to it'. There is no reason a child would be more confused or alarmed by the term 'possessive adjective' than 'copper sulphate' or 'tectonic plates'.

I'm still not convinced of the necessity to learn all the grammar in primary though.

My DD would be better served by more time on spelling, basic punctuation, and basic grammar than trying to learn the more complex structures.

Are the Secondary English and MFL teachers really going to use all the terminology taught in primary regularly and consistently from y7 onwards? If not then the majority of the children will forget it anyway.

Surely the point of primary education is to teach children the building blocks they need for future education and life? Not teach them stuff (that is tested) which will not be touched on again before it has been forgotten?

Covering the basics is very useful. Anything more simply isn't necessary at Primary level. I expect there are a great number of excellent published authors who wouldn't be able to do all the grammar in the test.

I'm not saying that learning more complex grammar isn't ever useful, Just that it is probably more useful later on and that learning it under pressure just to be tested is probably not that conducive to learning it in a meaningful way. I don't think anyone can actually agree that the first set of kids to take this test are getting a fair deal.

merciful,

I think you are looking at this from a mathematical/science point of view, which is a different way of learning, in my opinion, to creative subjects like English.

I studied English for A Level and at University. I have always worked in the creative arts and labeling everything is stifling. Children are not going to be able to learn to express themselves freely and creatively if they are being judged mostly on their ability to label every component of their writing correctly.

I wonder if any of the teachers have had extra training to enable them to teach this stuff correctly. At the moment it all feels like a massive muddle. It's all being rushed through.

As TeenandTween says, my biggest concern is that they are learning all this stuff now that will be forgotten in Secondary. What a total waste of time. It's only going to be useful, and will only be remembered, if all of this will be built on after the Year 6 SATS.

merciful,

This was posted just now on the TES forum - but is applicable to the point you are trying to make:

If you want to make a comparison with maths it's like making primary children learn the definition of terms like logarithm, tangent, calculus, differentiation etc. and testing them on whether they can recognise examples of these things (not solve or use, just identify examples) rather than teaching them arithmetic.

And this - being lazy and letting others articulate it for me ...

"You don't need to know the names of grammatical features in order to understand language. You can even analyse language perfectly well without the raft of jargon these tests are looking for.

Yes, teaching English employs grammar. You can use grammar (and we all do) without knowing the names assigned to different structures. We learn language by recognising patterns. It is important to spot the patterns. It is not important to be able to match up a fairly arbitrary set of patterns to the names some grammar "experts" impose on them.

A little knowledge of grammatical terms can help discuss and make those patterns clear. I'm not saying we shouldn't teach grammar. I am saying that the rather bizarre way the government is insisting it is taught and tested is not very efficient and perhaps even a barrier to real understanding."

Calling it 'jargon' is just being petulant. And no, it's not the same as asking primary school children to learn the names 'logarithm' and 'calculus', because they don't use those things. Whereas they absolutely do use possessive adjectives and subordinating conjunctions. They just don't know they are using them (until you tell them).

bicyclebell I totally disagree with everything you said. Treating the language as though it is only for creative expression is how we got in this mess in the first place. Knowing how to use the language properly does not stifle creativity. I can't imagine my 10 yo saying 'No sorry - I can't write a funny poem or do any drama - my head is too full of grammar 'labels'.

As far as I know, teaching people how to read and understand music does not stop them from being creative. As for my looking at this 'from a maths/science point of view '... I am a linguist. My degree was largely literary. I don't think the literary greats of the past were hindered in their creativity by their knowledge of grammar, do you? And what about all those children in countries where they never stopped teaching grammar thoroughly? Do you imagine they are all woefully lacking in imagination and freedom of thought, just because they know how to conjugate verbs properly?

TeenAndTween just reading back and realised I said I agreed with you but I called you Harriet by mistake. Sorry, I'm totally new to this!

Merciful, I am German, an MFL teacher and in total agreement with you. There has been a long thread on this before where I tried to argue the point but got nowhere. I am amazed at the hostility towards grammar in the UK. As you say, children in Germany for example learn all this as well but still manage to be creative - and really it's not all that difficult anyway.

Teenand Tween, knowing different types of conjunctions is useful for MFL because it might have implications for word order.

The changes to the requirements for the SATS have been made very recently. So recently that teachers have been given no time to prepare properly and the kids in Y6 are suddenly having to learn things that have not been given adequate introduction to. However you feel about grammar and its importance I don't think this is the way to introduce change. People are concerned because it is causing genuine stress to their kids and their kids are going to be tested unfairly.

Changes to SATS being introduced on a difficult schedule, with insufficient time for new content isn't what the OP is on about, or at least not how a I read it.

It was a straight questioning of the utility of grammar (based on a a assumption, which I do not share, if secveral decades ago, something was not on the curriculum in UK it should never be introduced here).

Grammar has always been on the curriculum in other countries. It's not strange (other than to those who have never learnt it themselves) nor particularly difficult (though it will be unfamiliar to those who have never learned it).

Good grammar is good for coding and for MFL. The former is going to be of increasing importance.

Phew. Thanks Dorothy and Unmentioned. Sometimes I feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness .

Obviously the new curriculum needs to be introduced carefully and steadily, with the relevant training available for teachers. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be introduced at all.

I have been banging on for decades years that this is what's missing from our education (well, one of the things). I can't believe it's finally coming (until another government comes in and chucks it all out again ).