They/them pronouns in KS1 book

[AnneGarland444]

I have just been reading a Twinkl book aimed at KS1 children, when I came across the sentence 'Robin got bird poo in their hair and on their boots!' My 7 year old pupil found this very confusing. I have emailed Twinkl about it.
Am I over-reacting, or is this completely unnecessary for a book aimed at such young children? English grammar is tricky enough, without complications like this!

It may not have been an attempt at gender ideology indoctrination, as there are places for a singular "they" in English (usually when a person is unknown).

If it wasn't deliberate then it's pretty lazy drafting, and agree it's confusing for KS1 students who are just learning how pronouns interact with other parts of a sentence, especially as the singular "they" might be considered "non-standard".

If it was deliberate indoctrination then it definitely doesn't belong in a KS1 teaching aid.

Either way, it's definitely worth raising with Twinkl.

I've emailed Twinkl - will be interesting to see if they respond.

They've responded with a 'nothing' email - they'll pass it on to the relevant people and let me know.
Not expecting any more but will see what happens.

If anyone is interested - I finally received a reply this week, saying inclusivity is more important than grammar!

I sent back a really snotty reply saying that I just wanted to teach children to read, not to brainwash them with a misogynistic ideology and I have been escalated to the senior leadership team!

I think I was just supposed to say 'oh right inclusivity ' but it's not at all my place to explain non-binary to 7 year olds!

OP you might consider sending this to Miriam Cates and Tim Loughton. Loughton did a series of questions in Parliament - including of DfE - and has an interest in this stuff. Cates obviously too, but he's another one who might be worth contacting.

Thank you I will - would I email her parliament email even if I'm not a constituent?

I have read that people do send her things (which I now can't find but I'm sure I read this!) even though they're not constituents. I'm not sure she can respond, or how she would if you don't live in her constituency. Maybe she could only note it, but she did gather a lot of evidence for her report. That must've come from all over the place.

And perhaps you could send it to Safe Schools Alliance

This is from another thread OP but you could write here.

If you are on twitter please share and tag your MP, Gillian Keegan and the Children's Commissioner. (need the @ symbol before) Rachel_deSouza, GillianKeegan, ofstednews

www.writetothem.com/
[email protected]
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Not to derail but I just enrolled my 4 year old for school here in Canada and the form had the gender options male, female and non binary. For a 4 year old!

I was wondering about Twinkl, as it never comes up as a resource on the Gender/ sex threads when talking about resources for RSE or PSHE even though it is really popular for teachers to get resources from.
I have tried searching to get an idea but the items I found were for Ultimate Downloads only and I’m not prepared to pay to look.

I have an Ultimate subscription (not quite sure how I'm going to manage without it 😭) so I'll have a look at their resources.

inclusivity is more important than grammar

Adding Twinkl to my list of boycotts right.... now

@AnneGarland444 , if it helps navigate the resources (Twinkl search is so hard to navigate, a google search of Twinkl + xxx makes searching for resources easier), Twinkl is mentioned in the report commissioned by Miriam Cates MP.
Miriam Cates RSE Report

Placemarking.

I just did a Twitter search and there are a few examples on there of problems with Twinkl. Seems they have worked with Stonewall

https://mobile.twitter.com/HomoLittlest/status/1471776894903373826

I’ll be interested to hear what their next response is OP, well done for writing in.

Isn’t the most important thing that the child understands what he/she is reading? What’s the point of causing confusion for children starting to read, for the sake of “inclusivity”?

I meant to say - yes, agree with you, @Birdsweepsin

As a parent twinkl is the bane of my life. It’s mostly terrible and get teachers rely on it heavily. My y4 child has his spellings from twinkl and sometimes the works are bonkers.

I agree Twinkl is rubbish. The sad fact is I don't think there's a single major school resource provider that hasn't been Stonewalled.

The sentence "I spoke to the Headteacher and they said they would look into it"
Is just as correct as
"I spoke to the Headteacher and she said she would look into it" or
"I spoke to the Headteacher and he said he would look into it"
All of which are examples of ... well... English.
But of course that wouldn't let you become purple with the RAGE now, would it?

It's correct only if the headteacher is unknown and you're talking in a generic sense. If you know the person it would be correct to use he or she. The singular "they" has always been a clumsy fudge for these situations.

I despise they/them, it's so clunky, and, as with 'woman' etc the words are in use already. If traditional pronouns are really unacceptable to someone then completely new words such as xe/xim or whatever strike me as very strongly preferable.

Did you read the OP? She’s talking about her young child who is learning to read. The example sentence she gave is indeed confusing.

OMG, these poor children…they just need to learn to read. Can you imagine chucking in a load of meaningless little words in the place of recognisable pronouns?

And now imagine you're a KS1 pupil, learning to read and grappling with phonics...