Have a first from Oxford. Can't do ks2 sats

[TheNext]

In particular the spag. I have never heard of a subordinating conjunction before. It has literally not been a thing that has touched my life. When I googled it, I recognised the thing in the description but I have never had to know the name. I have straight As all the way through secondary education and a good career and this is something I have never needed.

And they are making 10yos memorise this? And adverbials (also had to google). Ye Gods! Why?

I knew someone would pick me up on that.

I'm sloppy when I type on-line, good at writing about grammar.

My basic thought on all this is that introducing an emphasis on grammar is quite a big deal when it just hasn't been taught for a generation. A graduated, low-stakes introduction of a changed focus would have been better.

I think it's very Govian to have inflicted a big, high-stakes, overly-stress-inducing mess-in-waiting like this.

our not are 😱

By 'they' I mean whichever shadowy think tank came up with this plan in the first place.

It was Gove. I was at a panel discussion recently where one of the maths bods who was consulted on the primary curriculum said that Gove asked a bunch of groups for their thoughts, filtered them to the ones he agreed with, set them to work and strong-armed them when it looked like they might deviate from his plan. Roman numerals in maths were heavily resisted, but he insisted.

I always say that learning French at secondary school was the way I learned about English grammar! (1976 -1983)!

I have always prided myself on my grasp of grammar, but we didn't know the names for a lot of these ( eg fronted adverbials).

I've moved from being a TA in year 2 to Year 6, and I am having to learn these things along with the rest of the class! It really is ridiculous how they have to show-horn particular grammar into their writing! I see no purpose to knowing all these finer details at this age.

“Primary education is all geared towards sats so children in school spend most mornings on maths and english. “ my primary school days pre date SATs by many decades and mornings focused on English and Arithmetic ... basically if you can’t read and write accessing other curriculum subjects is almost impossible so they’ve always been a priority (not the fault of SATs).

I also really don't understand why people harp on about a proper knowledge of grammar being pointless or of no relevance. Nobody would claim that you are going to need to use words like 'relative pronoun' often in daily life, but that is also true of huge numbers of things learnt in school, like the majority of the maths syllabus for starters. Well, most of any school subject really.

Whereas on MN alone there are remarkably frequent threads along the following lines: people querying whether a sentence is correct, people bemoaning the poor grammar of young people/job applicants/employeed, people talking about how hard their dc are finding MFL, peopke being irritated by incorrect language usage on social media. Your grasp of language (or lack of it) is apparent as soon as you open your mouth or touch your keyboard. Yes we can communicate without being taught the theory, but why wouldn't we teach it? It's just as interesting and relevant as most things taught in schools and no more technical or difficult than maths, science etc.

Reading MN, to me, only people who are making it a big deal is some parents.
I think children are doing fine.
I don't think it's pointless. My ds never mentioned it was pointless to learn those grammar. I don't feel any negative vibe from teachers.
He only have very occasional grammar homework from school, which he can complete with ease.
From what I see, he isn't drilled anything that is beyond his capacity.

I've read over my posts on this thread and I know I haven't expressed myself well. I was very distracted last night - ds leaving home (in a good way) and I was a bit all over the place.

I sound a bit smug, which really wasn't my intention. I think the point I was trying to get across - and failing to - was that I'm very interested in grammar, am happy to put in lots of self-study, don't mind acknowledging the gaps in my knowledge.

However , this is not, really, enough. I'm supposed to teach grammar for a test .

However, good my present knowledge of grammar is, there is something a bit bonkers about just instituting a new regime, with a test, from standing, without ensuring: a. there has been training put in place for those that teach the subject, mark the papers, set the papers, b. there is consensus about the subject-content, c. there are resources in place to aid the teaching.

Surely, surely you should roll these things out in stages?

I have so much more to say about this but discretion and loyalty tell me I mustn't post my experiences on an on-line forum.

noblegiraffe , as always, has pretty much reached the nub of what I might say. I have a great anecdote that would either make you despair or laugh, noble - but I don't know that I can share it.

I'm genuinely alarmed to hear that this is a component of the new English GCSE. I'm furious that my own dc is going to be a guinea pig.

PS - I've already spotted grammar errors in my post, eg. that comma after 'however'. Please don't jump on them BUT if there are any linguists about who would like to pick out some interesting grammar issues in it - and share their knowledge in an enlightening way - please, please do. It would be absolutely lovely to hear from you.

“My basic thought on all this is that introducing an emphasis on grammar is quite a big deal when it just hasn't been taught for a generation. A graduated, low-stakes introduction of a changed focus would have been better.^*”

“^I just don't really understand why schools ever stopped teaching grammar in the first place.”*

Why hasn’t it been taught for a generation ...grammar was always a part of the National Curriculum. It was part of the National Literacy Strategy and included in the National Literacy Framework. In 2000 the Department for Children Schools and Families published Grammar for Writing so teaching grammar isn’t new (or shouldn’t be). What’s new is national testing at the end of the Key Stage.

<a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100604044942/nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/64613?uc=force_uj" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100604044942/nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/64613?uc=force_ujuj*^

I have a degree in languages, and I still have no idea what on Earth a fronted adverbial is. So I googled it. Came up with a worksheet from a school that shall remain nameless, which asked the child to make sentences using examples from a list of fronted adverbials. There were two grammatical errors in the opening instructions...

I would prefer that my dcs devote most of the time they currently spend on SPAG learning how to code instead or explicitly developing leadership or teamwork skills. Pretty sure that these would be more useful for them later on.

I agree that it's all a recipe - they are often given a tick sheet

Have you got

Capital letters
Full stops
A noun
Similarly:matapor
Time connective
Etc

But school do work on coding/building leadership/team work.
Teaching grammar is only a small part of school.
If the school teach to SATs, it's individual school's problem.
At least my ds's school do all sorts of things, including coding/cooking/art.

OP, there is a fabulous blog post by Michael Rosen on the evils of the fronted adverbial. You might want to look it up just for enjoyment.

“In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.”

I have no school aged children yet, but I do teach at a RG university (healthcare/biomedical courses- mix of UG and PG). Many essays submitted by UK born students are very difficult to read. Poor spelling, sentence structure and non-existent paragraphs. I've referred many of them to student support for writing classes. While I don't think small children should spend hours each week on grammar, young adults should not start university without the ability to structure a short essay!

Essay structure is a completely different skill. One taught at secondary.

Maybe true, but if the child does not have basic skill to write, how can they learn to write essay in secondary suddenly?
I thought learning is a build up of skills to basics to advanced.

Spudlet There is a huge issue with the availability of resources to teach KS2 grammar - and behind that, a lack of a really clear paradigm against which to check those resources. There is a (woeful, laughably basic,) glossary attached to the National Curriculum which is utterly inadequate.

‘Grammar is what gives sense to language ... Sentences make words yield up their meanings. Sentences actively create sense in language and the business of the study of sentences is the study of grammar.’ Prof David Crystal.

Frightening that teachers don’t realise that when teaching writing structure they are teaching grammar.

They aren't learning to write, they're learning to deconstruct a sentence. To jump hoops for multiple choice questions part of what consists of made up terminology.

No! When they are tested they are expected to be able to identify the parts of a sentence but testing isn’t teaching as I’m sure you know.

I loathe the term 'fronted adverbial'. It makes me think of 'front bottom' in all is prurient glory.

As I'm sure you know, 'fronted adverbial' just refers to a sentence in which a clause acting adverbially is placed at the opening of the sentence. As someone who loves in English, I'd always hope that there would be an attendant discussion as to why a writer might choose to construct their sentence that way and what it adds to a piece of writing. What we are in danger of getting is a generation raised with a list of grammatical features they are encouraged to shoe-horn into their writing and tick off.

And, yes, I am completely aware that some know-it-all will say: "Well, it's up to the individual teacher to make sure they don't teach that way."

*'fronted adverbial' refers to the part of the sentence that is acting as an adverbial clause, opening the sentence.