The broom cupboard 2 - just for when we get briefly stranded without a staffroom

[TheHoneyBadger]

I'll pop a link in the old one so you know where to find safe haven. I have tried to clear out some space by getting rid of the ohp and vcr trolley and gin is hidden behind the sick sand bucket.

but children do seem to be worse and worse at spelling and other basics year on year. I have no idea why.

I think some of it stems from an over reliance on tech. How many of us have to battle Year 7s and older, who just blindly copy and paste (or just hand write word for word what they see on their first Google search) or write ‘ur’ or similar?!

We also have the ‘we did this in primary school’ in lessons of course, so I say, for example, ‘great, could you tell me where we would use an IF statement?’ (Computing) and they never can. And that’s ok. I don’t mind or apportion blame if they can’t.
In a previous school, I also taught maths and I concur with noble’s experience and this was in a grammar school as well. I found that the age appropriate repetition and building on those skills and knowledge as they progressed to Year 8 and then onwards, really meant they were well prepared, by and large, by GCSE. I’ve followed this principle in Computer Science in my current school and has served my pupils well.
I’m just sorry to say I have had battles with those children with illegible cursive handwriting that is nigh on impossible to read, let alone when scanned in to a GCSE/A Level paper for an Examiner to mark, so often have to suggest a thinner nibbed pen or writing that is not cursive.

Surely it's only the children scoring the higher marks at ks2 that can do that, though...

My ds, 10 years ago, was a high old school level 5 and, yes, that equated to about a gcse grade c/d and, yes, he got A* at the end year 11 so expected progress was made. His whole primary cohort wasn't at GCSE grade D level, though.

piggy I can’t remember - or anyone else but I don’t think anyone in here has mentioned this structure - do you have experience of 3 tier? Do middle schools make the problem worse or better?

I'm trying from my end, I really am. However, I am only a little primary school teacher so obviously not very clever as otherwise I'd be teaching secondary children like the really proper Teachers With Brains do...

Woah. I never thought these threads would be like this.

I think you've hit one nail on the head with tech, ChloeDecker.

cant I don't know why schools do that. Ours doesn't. We do some number work mainly to check the students have retained those skills, particularly subtraction with decimals and division. This year has been difficult as we haven't set them and went mixed ability with little notice. There have been bored kids at times.

On average most of our bottom two sets out of four, cannot accurately subtract with carrying/decimals and divide using either long or short division by the September they get to us. This is why we reteach it. Top sets have it as a starter and move on.

Chloe I think/ hope cant was expressing a view which can feel common in society rather than one held on this thread....
? I sincerely hope I’m right.

@ChloeDecker

I'm trying from my end, I really am. However, I am only a little primary school teacher so obviously not very clever as otherwise I'd be teaching secondary children like the really proper Teachers With Brains do...

Woah. I never thought these threads would be like this.

Apologies. I absolutely did not mean that comment to be taken personally by ANYONE on this thread.

It is, however, how I am treated by the secondary school we mainly feed into, and yes, that makes me bitter and angry.

I'm trying from my end, I really am. However, I am only a little primary school teacher so obviously not very clever as otherwise I'd be teaching secondary children like the really proper Teachers With Brains do...

This is very snippy. It sounds like a bad experience with one maths dept has possibly clouded your judgement cant. We really aren't all like that I promise!

Visiting primary schools to discuss maths was such a useful experience for me. Post covid it's something I want to do again and see what impact covid has had on y4/5/6 and how we can help those years as they arrive in Y7.

Herc, apologies again. I can have my comment deleted if that would help?

Herc
You're right in that the vast majority of secondary school staff aren't like that at all. Most, as you can see from this thread, recognise the value in primary and what can result when things go wrong.

However, I can see exactly where cant is coming from because I've also experienced talking to several teachers/HODs/etc. who were of the opinion that we babysit the kids for 7 years before handing them over for a proper education. It's demeaning and insulting.

Ah I’d only we were f2f, there’d be many fewer (is that gram correct??) nuance misunderstandings.....

I'd be teaching secondary children like the really proper Teachers With Brains do...

Sad to say some of my colleagues really do think this way. They also think it of our support staff... which was amusing when a maths teacher tried it on an LSA. She's actually a qualified maths teacher with more experience than him.

I don't have the skills to teach reading and writing. In theory I know how, but doing it is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Also I wonder if there are fewer problems in all through schools (3-18)

In the last schools I've worked in, 100%/100%/80% of the LSAs have degrees. No talking down to or about here.

Worse jan but popular with parents.

@DanglingMod

In the last schools I've worked in, 100%/100%/80% of the LSAs have degrees. No talking down to or about here.

Our TAs were pissed at the "mum's army" comment a few years back. We've got qualified teachers, lawyers, nurses, highly-successful businesswomen etc. amongst ours.

Because of two transition points, do you think, Piggy?

I don't have the skills to teach reading and writing. In theory I know how, but doing it is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Same here. I definitely think I have it easier than our primary colleagues who work so so hard with such formative years. As a child of the 80s, I never did phonics for example and was definitely a fish out of water with my Reception then Year 1 child this pandemic.

Primary colleagues, you rock and are very very much respected by me.

Cross Post cant. No don't get it deleted, it's clear now that it was aimed at the experience you sadly had with the secondary school.

iamthe I can believe people think that. I've been lucky so far to never meet any of them or at least have them voice that opinion. Primary teachers are miracle workers. I don't know how to go far enough back to fill the gaps some of my students have. Yet if I asked you lot, you'd tell me in seconds.

One of ours used to be county advisor for EAL, having worked in Tower Hamlets.
I loved her (we don't have many EAL students but she helped out one of my A level students looking into EAL last year. I miss her)

I think as much as secondary could benefiting from seeing what is achieved at primary, primary could benefit from coming and experiencing the sheer logistical nightmare of secondary and how many kids we teach and how little time with them we have and what shared groups are like when you might only see a class once a fortnight etc.

If you are a eg. history or science teacher you have so much curriculum to cover and so many students that you just don't have time or space or capacity to be drilling and reminding them of basic skills let alone worrying about their handwriting and you have to hope that some of what they did in primary 'stuck' and is properly embedded.

Again I'm not criticising teachers but the way the curriculum has been driven.

Any English teachers on here seen the call for POS for The Kite Runner for KS3? Am I alone in being wtf?? This is when Stretch and Challenge gets muddled with adult literature.

Fucking hell! That's totally inappropriate... doesn't it have male rape???

Does anyone work in a through school? I'd love to know if they were better. Locally through schools are all private so I guess they'd be naturally smaller classes which may help.

The logistics of secondary overwhelm the year 7 students. Moving rooms, changing subjects daily, new lunch processes etc leads to a lot of cognitive overload in those first few weeks. Our current year 7 have been primary schooled to some extent by staying in the same room all day with the same group of people. Year 8 will be a bit of a shock.