Whatever happened to grammar and spelling?

Level 4 is not an average, MiceElf; it is an expectation for pupils leaving primary school. Having said that it was not set in a very scientific way and wasn't norm referenced. Here is Level 4 for writing.
"Level 4
Pupils' writing in a range of forms is lively and thoughtful. Ideas are often sustained and developed in interesting ways and organised appropriately for the purpose of the reader. Vocabulary choices are often adventurous and words are used for effect. Pupils are beginning to use grammatically complex sentences, extending meaning. Spelling, including that of polysyllabic words that conform to regular patterns, is generally accurate. Full stops, capital letters and question marks are used correctly, and pupils are beginning to use punctuation within the sentence. Handwriting style is fluent, joined and legible."
As you can see it is not just a minimum standard and would challenge quite a lot of writers. If you look at the higher levels, you will see lots about purpose and audience. I think it was about 85% of pupils who got Level 4 this year (haven't got the data to hand.) Girls have always outperformed boys by quite a lot, but the gap closed this year. The Level 5s were also much higher than last year.

Thanks for making that point, Mice. I have always wondered about the mathematical awareness of politicians (and journalists) who get in a lather about x% of children not reaching the average level for their age group.

I've just found out that Bags is a maths teacher. So if this comment is off the wall, I'm sure she'll put me right!

If Level 4 is the average standard, and that includes the broad middle range of pupils, perhaps 50%, presumably there will always be 25% who achieve a higher level than this and 25% who do not achieve this level. It's the normal curve of distribution. If you have an average, then some will be above and some below.

Or is this too simple and I'm missing the point?

Another time when space was at a premium, I think, gadabout. In Jane Austen's time people used to write one way across a sheet of paper for a letter and then write across the writing so as to get as much as possible on one sheet of paper.

When I taught in the Bristol area in the 70's, the children of the real locals used to write the extra 'l' commonly added in the spoken dialiect - windowl, ideal, 'our Glorial's got diarrhoeal in Africal'. Some also wrote 'I bist'.

I recently realised that textspeak is nothing new. I was given some letters written by a distant relative who was an eminent Victorian explorer and botanist. Every letter was full of abbreviated words.

It never will be zero, and I think it's unreasonable to expect that it ever would be, if anyone does expect that.

The percentage still not doing well varies but it's never zero and it always seems to be centred on the same groups in society. No, schools can't remedy the ills of society singlehanded and I hope my comments aren't seen as teacher-knocking. It's the stupid short-term interference of politicians and their lackeys that is at the root of the problem. I did some comparative research, years ago, on the teaching of reading and came to the conclusion that there is no magic bullet. If a child (or adult) is having problems they have to be offered a variety of ways in. Phonics works very well for a lot of children but so did 'look and say' and the ita.

Bags - plus ca change.... when I was at school, we heard 'I done' in the playground but never in the classroom. Mind you, this was sixty years ago.

Is the teaching profession the sole agent of social change or should successive governments, and all other agencies accept responsibility for poor achievement and alienation from school of some pupils?

It's very easy for privately and expensively educated journalists and ministers to heap opprobrium on teachers, but I doubt if any of them have every even dared enter an inner city classroom with thirty children who may not have had a breakfast or sufficient sleep and who certainly haven't been given even one twentieth of the experiences or privileges that they have benefited from.

Have you seen that pilot test that they gave six-year-olds this year, Lilygran? My GD who is a fluent reader of "chapter" books still got one of the nonsense words wrong because she applied the "wrong" phonic rule. I think they need to work on it a bit more, before they make any judgements from it.
The reporting of the Key Stage stuff in the DT is interesting. Despite the fact that standards have gone up at both key stages in primary, we still get the fact that 20,000 boys are below Level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2 as a key point. If we include pupils with special needs, I think that is not surprising given the size of the cohort and I can't think that is a fair summary of the test data as a whole. Level 4 is not basic, it is challenging. Yes, there is still too much of a gap between boys and girls, but this year it closed significantly. Yes, groups at risk of social exclusion performed badly. Not good enough, but very hard to put right. Why can't we applaud what teachers and children have achieved? Why are so many people so negative about children and young people all the time?

'I done it' is heard in western Scotland too. I correct it when I hear DD say it (I haven't heard her say it for a while now). Most people don't notice.

I think kids learn standard English from parents and other close relatives, or not as the case may be. Not at school because by the time they go to school they've already absorbed "homespeak" and will stick with that (except when they need to do peerspeak ).

I don't think non-standard English is 'taught' anywhere, is it? It may not be always commented upon by teachers, though at DD's primary school they were very hot on distinguishing between the spoken word and the written. DD learned the difference. Some of the other kids may not have, perhaps because the distinction wasn't reinforced at home and perhaps because they didn't read as much as she did. There lies the rub — not all learning happens at school. In fact a great deal of what people learn is not learned in school, including attitudes to learning. Teachers can't be blamed for everything.

Exactly, anno. www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9570432/Four-in-10-children-struggle-to-read-basic-words.html Respecting the children's culture and offering no alternative sounds egalitarian but it's actually very patronising and further disadvantages the already disadvantaged.

Absent, I didn't say there was a London accent. I said that there was a non standard regional variation in everyday grammatical usage. Accents differ across the classes. But 'I done it' is frequently heard amongst non standard speakers from Plumstead to Pimlico and Brockley to Bermondsey.

MiceElf The is no such thing as a London accent or standard usage in London. Whitechapel is different from Wandsworth and Kensington is different from Kennington – not to mention the traditional Fulham whine.

Doesn't children's speech follow the patterns that they hear at home? If the parents don't care about changes in register between the various forms of spoken and written language, if follows that the children won't bother either.

OK, so I am a crabby old woman! And, Mamie I started teaching in the 1960s so perhaps I am the author of my own misfortunes. [guilty emoticon]. I just think we are doing children a disservice if we don't get it across that there is formal and informal language. My DGSs can switch registers at the drop of an an aitch as their father could but many children can't. We don't teach non-standard English to children whose first language isn't English and I think we should offer the same to all children in school.

Living in Norfolk, I used to work with lads (sometimes the odd girl) on Youth Opportunities Scheme, allegedly teaching them social skills. The dialect they used in the Marshlands was interestingly free of inflexions. For example. 'Ee goo Norch' could mean either 'he is going to Norwich', 'he will go to Norwich' or 'he went to Norwich', depending on the context. Wish I could use phonetic symbols on this keyboard!

Good thinking, Mamie!

Or perhaps - he could have rowed round the island?

I think we're probably more laid back about a lot of things in this country.

As for regional phrases such as 'I were going', that is fine when spoken with the genuine regional accent, but I don't think anyone would deliberately write in that way. Though if they did, I wouldn't knock it.

I was listening to From our Correspondent on Radio 4 yesterday. A contributer was talking about the island Alexander Selkirk [Robinson Crusoe] lived for a while. Apparently it is a small island and the contributer said ' he could have rode around the island' instead of 'he could have ridden around the island'. He'll be saying 'he dove into the water' [as they say in the US] instead of 'he dived into the water' . !!!

My daughter used to say "soz" when she was a teenager. I think she's grown out of it now! (32)

I finId text speak tedious to read and uninspiring. Had no idea that Soz meant sorry. I think it is aprivate language best kept by the young for the young rather like yhe brontes did. Plus ca change.....

I agree too but I think we're onto a lost cause.