My son is in year 5 and since year 3 the school haven't given him spellings to learn...i am a teacher myself (secondary) and apparantly its because of some directive or other but was chatting to a primary teacher friend today and she says her school still does it and thought it was crazy.
Sure i could set him spellings at home but he would be more likely to do them if they came from teacher and had a test etc....
his spelling is awful and i am increasingly pissed off with the school (a very good high flying state school-alledgedly- in very affluent area-which we don't live in!)