For those who say that children don't learn grammar any more.....

Dear 'bear', your comment, " What is now being taught in schools is Oxford English grammar, which is different again and is formulated in Latin grammar, which is why so much of it doesn't make sense" struck home as my daughter who studied Latin explained the split infinitive rule to me and it made perfect sense - in Latin!

railman the compiler of the test is implementing Government policy. Perhaps people have not realised the extent to which the Government micro-manages the curriculum now?
MaizieD I read the article, but it is obviously written from a completely American point of view. Does the US have a centrally controlled curriculum like the English one?
Schools in England really don't have the freedom to teach non-standard English, in the way that you suggested earlier in the thread.

Wow, this was difficult. I got 80% but Heaven knows how! Terminology has changed since I was taught, (1950s and 60s). I'll never again say, 'Grammar isn't taught any more'.

Micromanagement indeed - to a farcical degree generated by ministers who know not a jot about education.

Talking to a teaching assistant in a primary school last year I discovered that he was instructed not to let a child out to play until she had grasped the meaning of "imperative verb." This wee lass will be lucky if she gets an unskilled job as an adult - she is on the borderline for special needs. Why would any teacher issue such an instruction I ask? Is this for the child's benefit, or is it to make sure that their data looks good?

It has all gone crazy - it is quite frightening.

The point one poster made about how soon children might become disenchanted with English I think refers to education as a whole, not just English. How is that a help to them or the rest of us?

Did grammar when I was at primary school and even more at high school with foreign languages, but had to learn some terms e.g. determiner in order to teach them. There was a big government thing saying that making children correct spellings or worry about punctuation stunted their creativity. If spelling those words correctly wasn't the Aim, Learning Objective, Learning Outcome etc. of the lesson, we shouldn't make the child correct it. ( Lots of us did anyway, but it had to be out of sight of those in charge.) Teachers had to stand by and watch children repeat mistakes until they were ingrained because new rules and strategies brought in wishy washy ideas. The reason for all the new terminology comes under management of change. When you get a new role, if nothing looks different then you aren't doing a good job. Grrr

I got 3 out of 10. Most of the grammar vocabulary used was new to me. Yet I got English Language at Ordinary Level. Interesting.

Formal grammar lessons stopped when the English Language O level format changed. My school took part in the pilot study for the new exam which, as I recall, relied on comprehension and essay writing. The analytical grammar questions were dropped. We were lucky that we'd had grammar lessons up to Y9. I still only scored 8/10 for the seats test just now but, as someone else pointed out, the terminology has changed. I forgive myself because of that and because it's fifty years since I studied grammar! I may not know the terminology but I can string a coherent sentence together thanks to the importance of good grammar fifty years ago (as long as I anticipate the unhelpful substitutions made by my writing app!) It's very hard for teachers these days. Many didn't have effective grammar teaching themselves and have to learn on the job.

SATs not seats! Now that really is 'hoist by my own petard.'

Just done this test and achieved 7/10. I didn't recognize a lot of the terminology used, but as previous posters have said, in real life you just KNOW when something is wrong, or at least, I think I do?

I am afraid to say that I gave up because I could not understand the terminology used.

I was a 1960s grammar school girl and had English grammar lessons. I have an instinctive grasp of good grammar but scored badly in the test because of the terminology. It's unnecessary to burden primary school children with such complex terms. Teach the grammar, not definitions.

Teacher11 - I get your point, and agree, from what I've read since earlier today. Maybe we should start teaching children Italian, alongside English, to help understand the Latin roots of some of the idiotic contortions of the Oxford English approach.

I think if going through these questions has taught me one thing about the current curriculum, it doesn't really help communication, but it certainly starts conversations!!

I think overall, I've come to the conclusion - probably obvious to everyone else - that like IQ tests, all these tests do is measure who can do best at tests.

Just done the test and only got 60%. Grammar and spelling were emphasised so strongly when I was at school and in later years I went on to do an English degree. I have obviously forgotten all the grammatical names and just rely on whether something feels or sounds right. I wish the test told you where you had gone wrong!

I wouldn't call it an IQ test railman, it is a test of applied knowledge. All of the grammatical terms and how to recognise them in context will have been systematically taught to the children. My GD2 is in Year 5 and has already done a lot of this. She is good at English and she manages to produce a lot of imaginative writing at the same time.
Anyone else with GC in Year 5 and 6 who knows how it is working in practice?

I did not recognize any of the titles. They have all changed since I was at school. In any case, I think some of the sentences were in bad grammar.

.... and I had a distinction in English Language when I was there!

They might take tests in it but they certainly don't speak it!
"How was your day" ?
"So, it was, like, awful because we had a grammar test"

Well! You could have knocked me down with the proverbial, " wet lettuce leaf" when it was revealed that I had scraped through my SATS
with a score of 60%.
I left our Secondary Modern School two weeks before my 15th birthday, having learned very little about punctuation or grammar.
Most of the questions meant very little to me; especially, determinators,(who sound like entities from Harry Potter).
My result makes me slightly suspicious of the, 'box-ticking' craze so popular for modern examinations.

Trisha- the NLS (National Literacy Strategy) was wound down in 2010 and was not in place when the new grammar and spelling tests were introduced. They were Mr Gove's idea. Some teaching of grammar was included in the NLS, mainly in later primary, to enable children to have the vocabulary needed to discuss what makes sentences effective or ineffective. This helps children's understanding of what they read - why passages are exciting/ moving/ scary etc, - but is especially useful when helping them to improve their own writing I.e. writing with clarity and purpose. Simply naming different parts of speech is really missing the point.

A bright little six year old, sitting on the cafe table next to ours, completing a spelling puzzle. "Look Daddy, that's a split digraph." Dad gets out his phone to look up what she means...

Just to point out to those who are talking about secondary school or 'O' levels, these are Key Stage 2 SATs, taken at end of primary school, in Y6. That means by 10 - 11 year olds.

but I expect everybody knows that

But the NLS started the idea that children must be taught certain things at certain stages with very little allowance for the stage they might really be at. The one-size fits all strategy that continues to blight education.

MazieD I didn't read the article as condemning the teaching of grammar only as an assertion that we should take into account when reading something the effort that the writer might have put into it, and that marking and pointing out errors is sometimes not appropriate. Something I completely agree with.