How do you score in a test aimed at 10-11 yr olds?

I got 45% - How awful. I was educated in a private convent and we were never taught any of this! Nevertheless, I have a BA in Philosophy, a distinction Master's and an MBA. I have a couple of post grad diplomas and Chartered professional status. I have lectured in 2 different Universities and now hold 2 company directorships. I also read about 200 books a year (not all of them Enud Blyton). Am I a fraud? Or is this just so much unnecessary 'learning' at this age? I use the term 'learning' as opposed to 'education' intentionally.

Enid ....

Like a lot of people on here, English was my best and favourite subject when I was at school, but I have never heard of any of the terminology used in these tests.

80%. We did lots about subordinate clauses etc in primary school but I think most of my class were completely bewildered by it.
I had no idea children were being taught this sort of stuff nowadays.
I think the sloppy attitude to grammar in recent years needed to be improved but they've gone a bit over the top with this.

After a year in a large class at a city primary (46 children, one teacher, no help) we moved house and I went to a lovely old fashioned village school (2 years in one class and still only 22 children). I just failed the 11+ so went to a super new sec mod with young enthusiastic teachers. I never learnt most of this stuff. My English teacher believed the best way to learn was example, so we read a lot, absorbed a lot wrote a lot and he corrected our grammar without fuss. I passed English O Level with flying colours so there couldn't have been many questions on grammar!

I think Roxburghrose is correct. There's a difference between learning and education.

I think primary pupils across England are being subjected to this nonsense because it was the sort of stuff that Michael Gove learned as a child in his prep school, so he thought that this was relevant to all children. There is a lot of this going on; ministers with an axe to grind who go their own sweet way without reference to the professionals on the ground.

It begs the question, when talking about raising standards, "What standards?" If we are discussing the ability to pass this sort of test, then it is probable that standards have risen. If we are talking about whether children are better at expressing themselves, enjoying reading, being able to write a job application, then I doubt that much has been achieved and much has been lost. As to the detrimental effects on their mental health, we are now seeing children suffering from stress in numbers never before witnessed, and the services to help them are withering on the vine. This is a potent cocktail for a lot of unhappy young adults.

60%. We called them different things in my day, when grammar was my best subject! Excuses, excuses!

My score will stay with me (and I must try harder!)... however if children really are being taught to this level why does it not translate to a more literate workforce?

At the risk of being a GOW (grumpy old woman) we are often floored by the poor use of grammar and punctuation in correspondence. It is often necessary to read letters several times over to glean an accurate understanding of the text; a comma in an incorrect place can have us scratching our heads as to the true meaning.

Candelle, The changes have only been introduced recently, so any effects won't show in the current workforce.

I agree with you about basic grammar, but this isn't 'basic' grammar. Much of terminology seems to have been take from the language of teaching English as a Second Language. For example, like others on here, I had never seen the word 'determiner' until I looked it up a few months ago. As far as I'm concerned 'the' is the definite article and 'a(n)' is the indefinite article, but nobody needs to know that, unless they're learning a foreign language, when the terminology becomes a useful shortcut.

Another example is 'conjunction'. Until recently, primary school pupils were taught that these words are 'connectives'. I don't know why the terminology changed, but the point is that most people can use 'and', 'but', 'when', 'because' etc correctly without knowing the grammatical terminology. I most certainly did not learn about subordinate clauses when I was at primary school. I bet the majority of people still don't know what a subordinate clause is.

The fact that posters on here write accurately, but are still achieving low scores, should say something.

I would like to know who was in the team which came up with this nonsense.

I scored 50 %
I remember doing some of this but with different terms. But surely that was in senior school after the 11+

We all manage without it in life. This is only needed for,those who are going to study languages including English.

I scored 50% in the English - some grammatical descriptions were beyond me and I, too, guessed. It was tough! However, I went on to do the Maths one and got 100%, thank goodness!

Will it have any lasting effect on our children's ability to communicate in writing?
More likely most of them will revert to text-speak and never write longhand again, or even send a properly written email.
Or am I over-cynical?

No, it won't, because most of it will go way over their heads.

No, you're not over-cynical. You're realistic.

Hopefully, people will support primary teachers who try to teach their pupils this stuff and give up in despair.

I don't think anyone ever learnt to write by stringing a lot of grammatical exercises together. You learn to write by writing. Remember the National Writing Project, anyone?
However I am pleased to report that my Year 5 DGD is coping fine with all this stuff and getting plenty of opportunities to do lots of lovely imaginative writing too.

Well I got a horrific 30% in spite of my grade 1 for English Language at O Level in 1962. Can't imagine trying to get primary school children enthusiastic about this stuff

I confessed to GS1's teacher that I had been a total failure at this and she said that the whole thing was a ridiculous waste of time and inappropriate for primary school children. She seems to have a strange desire to teach children interesting stuff..

I agree that you learn to write by writing - and, of course, reading.

I was never taught grammar but I believe I can communicate and write reasonably well. However, I can see that having specific terms for parts of a sentence or for the different tenses makes it easier for a teacher to distinguish them and show how they are used. I think it's probably more important when learning a foreign language. I found having no formal terminology for different tenses made it more difficult to learn French.

I do think, though, that the sort of knowledge that the test requires would be difficult for younger children to absorb. I wonder how much real sense it would make and I suspect that using such a technical approach at a young age could stunt spontaneity and creativity - and make English lessons a chore rather than the enjoyable and exciting activity that it should be.

I just tried the maths test and got 62.5%! This was the one O Level I failed. It worries me slightly that these tests show me being bad at my strong subjects but good at my weak ones

I did embarrassingly poorly in the English test, only 50%, and some of those were guesses. I did not understand many of the questions.
The maths, I understood all the questions and managed 100%, but that always was my strong subject.

I got 60% on the English, but again my 'O' level score was a 2, so the questions are very different. What concerned me was that I have a Maths degree and loved arithmetic, but still only got 56%+ - just shows how things have changed!

Like Daphnedill I scored 100%, and like her I have a degree in languages and have studied linguistics. I don't think there's any contradiction between encouaging pupils to express themselves and to take pleasure in language, and teaching them terms for parts of speech. The technical terms have indeed changed over the last few decades, as the old ones didn't always capture the sense that certain sets of words (e.g. determiners) have the same function, and can occupy the same slot in the sentence. Knowing these terms doesn't of itself improve writing, but neither does it inhibit it. And it can make it easier to explain some difficulties that pupils have. How would you set out to explain why 'I couldn't of done it' is incorrect to a pupil who doesn't know what an auxilairy verb (i.e. the 'have' in 'I couldn't have done it) is? Being able to analyze the language that you're using can be highly enjoyable, and I find it a bit irritating that some people (I'm not necessarily referring to Michael Rosen as I've not read his article) who themselves benefited from being taught parts of speech (albeit with an older terminology) now seek to deny that to pupils. It's true that an approach to English teaching that regarded the use of grammatical terminology as somehow restrictive or repressive has dominated for so long that the current generation of teachers may lack confidence in teaching it, but there are many creative ways of doing so. Is there any other subject where we would feel that technical terms are somehow damaging or unncessary?

Sorry, 'auxiliary'.

How would you have measured up? this is the DfE's release giving details of attainment in this year's SATs. Some of the stuff about grammar must have sunk in judging by the 72% who met the expected standard in SPAG! I was relieved to hear that GS was one of the 53% who met the expected standard in all three test.

How wonderful to know that, as my GS enters Y6 in September, much of his irreplaceable last year in primary will be taken up by his teacher trying to fill his brain with useless grammar exercises.

So many opportunities to learn and enjoy instead given over to drilling his for these pointless tests.

When will these ministers learn that you don't improve learning this way

I got seventy percent but the test is a pile of poop. If we want to undermine our children and teachers this is definitely the way to go.