Spellings at home

[MargeryB]

My dd has come help with spellings to learn. We are also on year 2 of a new head. A number of years ago they had spellings and they were stopped, on the basis that evidence showed practice at home didn't work, and teaching techniques in class worked better. I was skeptical but did a bit of googling and there was evidence that backed this up and my eldest DC is great at spellings. Is there a change in research does anyone know? Which headteacher is right?

I'm quite about a lot of changes this headteacher has made so I can't tell if I'm unreasonably cross. I feel the school is changing into a sats factory instead of a place for learning and growing as a person.

Well if the in-class is enough surely she'll just fly through them no problem, just a brief recap

I'm worried that they are going to drop the in class teaching and will spend the allocated class time doing tests hailsaturn.

They test either way. .. it doesn't take up more time

What kind of spelling homework? At our school, spelling homework from yr2 onwards focus on actually writing a sentence/using the word.
I thought it was good way to practice spelling and use of words.

Seems like a backwards step to me. Not aware of any new research that would support that move.

It does seem like a backwards step but not unusual. My DS has spellings to learn in Y2. He finds it fairly easy to memorise them and gets full marks each time. A week later he only remembers the ones he happened to know before learning them anyway. Doesn't go into long term memory at all. He learns far better by absorbing them over time with writing and reading.

We have "spellings" in year 1. they arecreally, really easy, but they are more meant as handwriting practice and getting used to do homework. takes about 20 minutes per week.

Annoying (and I doubt the evidence has changed, it’ll be new broom syndrome), but I wouldn’t think worth making a fuss over. What else has the new Head done that you don’t like? I’d keep my powder dry for a bigger issue, personally.