- - - I'd have my child removed and send them to a school that wanted to teach.
For those who just want the gist - this is what the school reckons "You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week and then be tested in class.
"We have taken the decision to stop spellings as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work.
"Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing."
Don't these tree-hugging (insert swear word) realise that students are being marked down in University exams for poor English? If they won't teach basic English (and basic Maths) then what can they expect the children to do with the other subjects? Finger-paint their answers? Do a darling little play showing how it feels to be a tree? That'll look good on the job/Uni application form. (insert icon)
I know many people struggle with spelling, and I'm not criticising them in any way - but for a school to choose NOT to teach it is appalling. Will they choose not to teach adding up next?
I know this sounds screwy foxylady but as a teacher I used to give my children spelling words to learn weekly and tested them on Friday. It did cause the children a lot of stress mainly from parents who used to compete with each other. Then on the other end of the scale there were the children whose parents didn't help them at home and those children always felt bad getting poor marks. What it says in the statement is quite correct. The children could spell a word perfectly in their spelling test, but 10 minutes later when writing they would come up and ask for that exact word or spell it incorrectly in their story. Therefore they are not using the skill they have learnt in their general work. I would think that what the school intends to do is teach spelling in a different way which will be less stressful for the children and also help with the transference skills.
My daughters school gives her daily spelling homework. This has been the position since she was much younger. She is nine now.
She has regular testing, broad-based teaching and even learns another language.
Her report when she was 8 indicated, upon testing, that she had a reading age (then) of 14.
I think they do things the right way where she is taught...I had no idea of the gaps that exist in education nowadays in this country.. I thought things were pretty much standardised.
I have often wondered why they give spelling without the children being taught the comprehension. It is a bit like little Billy for instance can read any book but you then get him to explain it, he doesn’t have a clue. I would rather my children be able to use what spellings they know within the work they produce.
Plus if parents want, they can teach their children at home with spelling.
Why do they need them as homework?
We teach a spelling rule and give examples of spellings to learn, which use that rule. The spellings are differentiated so that less academically able children still have spellings to learn.
Oh and DeeCee, they all have to learn a language from year three onward now. I teach French in our school from year one to year six (ages five to eleven).
They SHOULD be taught to spell. The amount of CV applications I discount on a daily basis because the CV's have spelling and grammar errors is unreal. It's getting worse too every year.
It is so unbelievable that children in this day & age can be allowed to leave school without basic spelling & grammar. If they can't do it by school leaving age, they should be kept behind until they damn well can! They'd soon learn then. It's like everything these days - it's not can't, it's WON'T.
*Her*
I've read the posts (unusual for me LOL) and I agree with many of the points made. I would say, it was quite late and I was tetchy already when I read the article. I certainly didn't pick up that the school was actively using any other opportunities to teach spelling - but that could well have been selective reporting.
I was at infant/junior school from 1968 to 1976 and it was during the whole flower power / being creative stuff. I was put in detention for something (no doubt I deserved it) and had to write an essay about why I was being punished. Which was a very enlightened punishment I reckon. Anyway, I sat in the hall, with my paper on one of those long wooden benches with the knobs on the ends, and wrote a whole page of A4 on why I had done whatever it was and how unreasonable it was that I was being punished. It had no punctuation, no capitals and ran together with almost no gaps between words - I was so furious with the punishment.
They gave me an A.
Is that right? Shouldn't it have been an F?
I don't think many people can get the best out of their work life without some pretty solid English skills, and I am certain that their choices become limited. But with imagination and support, people can develop the skills they need.
But any piece of work that uses English, must surely lose a lot of status and influence if it is poorly written. And I feel that all children - and adults if they want it - should be taught to the best of their ability to GCSE or even A level. And to omit to provide each child with the strongest basis in English and Maths is to omit the two most basic rungs of the educational ladder.
I certainly agree that no teaching should make a child feel useless or thick. But that wouldn't mean avoiding tasks that the children find hard/distressing, it means offering a varied and individual package of teaching methods.
well wen i waz at skool i ad a rite good teecher ou tught me ta shpel reel good lik, i waz good at maffs two. i is a hi coort judge now.
Echoes
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