Keep politicians out of education.

Gradgrind lives! I notice that my 7 and 8 year old GSs are expected to study the teachings of Confucius. How many of us have done this?

The facts curriculum

Looking at the subjects proposed to be covered in Years 1 & 2 I'm wondering how my DGDs (aged 6) and others of a similar age are going to get their heads round the idea that the Magna Carta limited the power of the monarch, never mind studying the Roman Invastion of Britain in 43AD!

Couldn't agree more, Mamie. My younger GD (9) seems to be forging ahead with all kinds of writing, though she excels at the creative kind.
The article is most interesting. I couldn't believe that any genuine educationalist (which Gove is not) would approve of this rigid regime which is, I think, modelled on the system under which he himself was educated however many years ago it was. It does sound familiar to me though I don't think there was an official list of spellings. We had a thing called the 'Spell Well Word Book' in my Scottish primary school.

Well isn't that interesting...
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/17/michael-gove-national-curriculum

BTW Annobel, there is lots about writing in different registers already in place in the curriculum.
I think one of the problems is that some people see the teaching of writing as the teaching of grammar, punctuation and spelling in a series of decontextualized chunks, which you then put together. I believe that the systematic teaching of those things is very important, but that writing is a craft and you learn to write by writing.
It is a bit like learning to drive, you can't do the theory first and then do it all smoothly first time, you have to practise, make mistakes and have someone to help you learn from your mistakes. When you write for different audiences you learn the genre. There is a strong tradition of this in the teaching of writing, dating back at least to the National Writing Project in the eighties.

Well, we can blame them anyway if we feel so inclined because they can't answer back

I don't think children nowadays are being taught that you don't necessarily write as you speak. The principle of there being different registers - written and various spoken ones - seems to be going out of the window. Are the social media to blame?

Yes, I agree, it's fine as colloquial English, and if a passage in a book etc. is written in that idiom, but I don't find it acceptable when it just seems to be bad grammar on the part of the author.

If you write "I was stood" it does look (and 'sound') all wrong, but with a Yorks or Lancs or Cumbrian accent and written "Ah wu stood theer, laak chaise a' fourpence" it's just fine and dandy.

In the Southern Hemisphere they watch it.

You mean they actually watch Coronation Street down south?

I believe that is/was stood or sat is dialect and I haven't come across it except in the North of England - until recently when it seems to have spread, perhaps by way of Coronation Street.

mishap, I agree with you - 'She was stood' etc. is ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed! I continue to be amazed by the spelling and/or grammar errors in printed matter these days - don't publishers employ proof-readers any more, or can't they get decent staff?

mishap agree that language is a living thing and does change and evolve.. but funny how different people can tolerate some changes and others find them really grating!

It is interesting how tempted we are to get irritated by incorrect grammar - see Pedants' Corner! But I also wonder if we should not just accept that language develops and changes - as for the subjunctive, it would be pretty low on my list if I were a teacher (?a subjunctive!) and would only feature with very bright children who might benefit from the analytical exercise of grammar in that detail.

Bit of a turn-off for those whose skills lie with their hands.

I am reading a book at the moment where the author uses the phrase "He was sat..." or "She was stood..." and it is getting under my skin - I have to remind myself that this is rapidly becoming standard parlance and I should not be such an old fuddy-duddy!

Classical scholars of the world unite!
I remember Keith Joseph, who was minister for education and science at the time, if I remember rightly, saying that he had never had a science lesson in his life, because he had had "a classical education". But even he never stuck his nose in and told teachers the details of what they should be teaching, fortunately.
His dad owned Porthcawl funfair . So keith got his public school ed on funfair money.

I think the earlier the better..pre-school maybe?

What I want to know is when does he expect children to learn about the gerund, gerundive and verbal noun?

General analysis - noun clauses and adjective clauses - lovely!

I remember doing it at junior school along with parsing sentences! Does anyone do that now?

I must have learned about the subjunctive in English as well as in Latin and French, but we all use it without being able to define it, so why is Gove obsessing about it? The reason I suspect many teachers would find it difficult is that most of them are of a generation that didn't learn grammar at school, whereas mine certainly did. I loved grammar because my style of language learning is to look at patterns. Other people learn languages equally well in other ways.

My English language lessons did include it! Mrs B my English teacher was extremely fixated on grammar and precis!

I don't think the subjunctive was ever part of any English o level syllabus was it?
I only ever came across it in latin and spanish - where it matters because the words change!

mamie did subjunctive at school..secondary aged about 15 but would be hard pressed to recall technicalities today.. got a 'b' for my English O level..was all about clauses, punctuation etc but v little retained..only stuff I needed to use regularly! If I can use the subjunctive correctly without knowing I am is that OK? I drive a car without full understanding of how it works!

Another subjunctive (courtesy of Twitter): So help you, Gove.
Also on Twitter:
If I were you
Be that as it may
Learn a subjunctive every day.

Hey! That covers the subjunctive and learning poetry.

OMG. Gove getting increasingly batty. Does even 1% of the UK popn know what the subjunctive is, let alone care. I did Latin o level. And i got an A* in Spanish GCSE quite recently - and I am with the don't' know, don't care camp.