Nick Gibb fluffs a SPAG question!

Michael Gove would say I was part of The Blob! I was in primary and middle schools as a teacher, then an advisory teacher in IT and special needs, then a general LA and Ofsted inspector in primary schools, but also specialising in literacy and IT across primary and secondary. I can understand your concerns much more knowing that you were working with lower-achieving children. I think the problem is that it is incredibly hard to teach the finer points of grammar, when you are trying to build on a fundamental deficit in language (especially spoken language). It is very very hard.
I have observed so many wonderful literacy lessons and seen many pupils achieving such high standards that I do get a bit twitched. Sorry.

Ooh. an expert, Mamie. I'm glad I got my 'rough guide' essentially correct

I don't know how much you have been involved with recent curriculum developments in all key stages,

I haven't. I have just taken an interest in developments in my own area of interest i.e working with those 'harder to teach' children who arrive at secondary barely able to read. As reading is so very fundamental to learning and everyday life it made sense to look for not only the most effective way to teach it but to understand how it is taught right from the start. Along the way I got involved with a lobbying group and that, and some of the dimly remembered bits of the politicd element of my degree, has, I hope, given me some insight into how policy implementation works (or doesn't)

And as I seem to have ended up following lots of teachers on twitter all sorts of information comes pouring in!

As a matter of interest, what was/are your particular interests?

2010 not 2005. It just feels like longer.

The curriculum and related tests used to be developed by professional bodies composed of teachers, advisers and other specialists (I have worked on many of these). Since 2005 much of the curriculum development has been driven by ministers and their advisers (not civil servants). I don't know how much you have been involved with recent curriculum developments in all key stages, but I think you will find that most professionals feel that they have been developed and implemented far too quickly and with insufficient rigour. I agree that the current SPaG requirements are ridiculous and I am also deeply concerned about the new GCSE exams.
The National Literacy Strategy was broadly successful in raising standards to around 85% L4 and above. Nobody would deny the challenges that remain in improving the standards of literacy in the "hard to reach" group, but it is clear that simply making the tests harder will not help.
Secondary schools have indeed not always "trusted" the results from primary schools. In my own LA we implemented a very successful strategy to demonstrate the real achievements of pupils in Year 6 to their destination secondary schools. It was interesting to see how the pupils went on to make much more rapid progress in Year 7 because the secondary teachers had seen what the children knew, understood and could do and had consequently raised their expectations.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse.

As far as I am aware the 'system' works roughly like this: ministers determine policy, civil servants (in this case those who work for the Dfe) have to implement the policy. As civil servants are 'generalists' with no particular expertise in education they will comission a group of experts in the particular field being developed to advise on and write the curriculum guidance. Tests are produced in accordance with the resultant expert guidance.

I would surmise that no minister has sufficient expertise to be able to tell whether the resulting guidance is appropriate. They have to rely on the fact that the developers are supposedly experts in their field. In the case in point, grammar instruction, I think that the experts have got it wrong. They have produced guidance which is far too complex and inappropriate for primary schoolchildren.

If the National Literacy Strategy was supposed to address the teaching of grammar it clearly didn't succeed, hence the current attempt to improve it.

On the issue of apparently rising standards there is a big question mark over whether this is a result of the NLS or intensive teaching to the test producing results which seem to wash out over a very short time. Certainly KS2 English results appeared to improve for a while but then plateaued (sp?) at around 80% L4 for a long time. And it is well known that secondaries didn't altogether trust KS2 NCT results, particularly for borderline children.

I often found KS2 Teacher Assessments for L3/4 borderline pupils to be more realistic than SATs results but there is of course an issue here with schools being judged on SATs results. No school would ask for a remark of the test paper of a child who got a L4 when only expected to get a L3.

I am intrigued when people talk about standards rising or falling - standards of what?

Standards of love of reading, which leads without effort to understanding basic grammar? Standards of self-esteem? - standards of social skills? - standards which would help someone to order the right amount of paint for a given area/write a simple letter? etc.

If people are going to talk about standards and base our children's whole school life (and happiness) on these then they need to start defining their terms.

Children need to leave primary school able to create sentences, know basic grammar (where a full stop or capital letter go), manage money, understand areas and percentages etc. They do not need to know the sort of grammar and mathematical detail that is for specialists/ A-level students/ university students.

Has anyone stopped to ask what this is doing to the self-esteem of children who have special educational needs? - or to ask what this is doing to their self-confidence?

And before anyone suggests that I am talking about teaching to the lowest common denominator, it is not about that - it is about tailoring expectations to the needs of the pupils. NO pupil needs this level of detail; EVERY pupil needs a broad education that can run away on exciting tangents that foster a love of learning.

The government says it wants higher standards and I say they should be careful what they wish for. Their definition of higher standards may come at too high a price.

I am a bit confused by your post MaizieD. Obviously if you have been working in schools in the last 20 years you will know that the National Literacy Strategy and the SATs tests were introduced and developed in primary schools in the 1990s.
You will also know from an analysis of the wealth of data available, that standards at KS1 and 2 have risen considerably since then. The SPaG test in its most recent form is obviously a more recent addition, but the testing of reading, spelling, grammar and writing has been in place for many years.
I also wonder who exactly you mean by the "experts", you describe as having let down the schools minister.
Do you mean the commercial organisation responsible for the actual tests? Do you think that the content of the SPaG tests has been developed without the influence of the DfE? I am not sure that you will find many people working in education who will agree with you on that one!

I was really pleased when it was announced that the teaching of grammar at primary school would receive more emphasis and become part of the testing requirements. I have worked with so many children at secondary level who had no idea of the parts of speech and punctuation and how to use them correctly; things like verb tenses, use of commas and apostrophes (commas do not indicate where to take a breath; 'its' is a possessive pronoun, 'it's' is a contraction of 'it is') and how to write a complete sentences. I thought that just learning the basics and basic terminology, such as 'possesive', 'pronoun' and 'contraction', would not only improve children's writing but also make it easier for teachers to communicate when teaching grammar. But I was horrified at the extraordinarily complex grammar curriculum which has been devised for primary children. Much as I dislike Michael Rosen (having had several on-line run ins with him over the teaching of phonics, which he wilfuly misunderstands) I think he is right in this instance. Fronted adverbials and modal verbs are university level stuff for people studying English Language, not primary children.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nick Gibb, who has the right idea about the teaching of reading and grammar but who is at the mercy of the 'experts' when it comes to implementing these ideas. In the case of grammar his 'experts' have failed him badly.

I think it is correct that children who read a lot of quality texts will unconsciously pick up good grammar as it is modelled in text but it won't work for children who struggle with reading (which is why I am obsessive about getting the teaching of reading right in the first instance)

I could say a lot about the appalling standard of spelling instruction, too Deedaa but I won't bore people further now

I expect you had the same sort of teachers as me vampire If you asked the right questions they would go off at a tangent and spend the whole lesson talking about something else. We learnt what we needed for exams, but we also learnt a whole lot of other things.

GS1 has been in tears this week over the list of random spellings they have been given this term. Some children scored 85% when they were tested, he got 5%! Like his grandfather he is completely unable to make sense of how words should look when he writes them down , in spite of being a voracious reader. The continual lists and tests are not helping him learn, they are just convincing him he's stupid which is very far from the truth.

I managed to go all the way through university and actually become a teacher before I knew all the parts of a sentence. I only learned some of the parts when I had to teach them.

I'm well educated and articulate but I don't know the answer to the SPAG question on the OP. I was, however, educated in a system that taught a broad curriculum with teachers who were allowed to nurture my natural curiosity and helped me to develop a love of learning for it's own sake rather than having to teach me to test.

Now it seems we quash the natural urge to learn in order to fulfil the SATS requirements. It used to break my heart when I had to close down a child who was enthusiastically going off at a tangent because there was an objective that had to be achieved in that particular lesson and I would be deemed a poor teacher if said objective wasn't achieved. Sadly I think I was a poor teacher because I had to stifle the child rather than encourage the excitement.

I'm not saying the children should be left to their own devices but there wasn't even a little time at all that I could promise to return to the child's interest. I used to have five minutes at the end of the day when the class came together to think about what we had done not just in learning but in the way we had behaved and treated each other. A few minutes of private reflection. I had to stop doing it because it took 25 minutes a week out of the timetable and things were so tight it couldn't be allowed.

GS seemed to think the SPaG test was easier than expected and reports of the Maths test today indicate that it was not too hard. All over tomorrow and there will be some very relieved children.

This teacher has the right approach:-

www.itv.com/news/2016-05-09/teacher-sets-fun-homework-for-year-6-pupils-to-relieve-stress-ahead-of-sats/

I remember when comprehensive schools came in and were greeted as the end to all the stress of the eleven plus. Yesterday when I picked GS1 up from school there were notices up saying "SATS in progress" "QUIET please". Add in the fact that they've been practicing for them for months and that children with any sort of problem with maths or spelling are being set up to fail and we're right back in the bad old days!

I was interested to see something on FB today - they are doing similar tests in Australia (Naplan) which are annual and are used for school ratings.
There are some comments from mums over there - all negative as far as I can tell!

Yes, it is wrong. Michael Rosen is leading a campaign against these ridiculous tests. He feels that the Language one, in particular, is going to destroy children's love of language and severely limit the curriculum at primary level.

I recently attended a Key Stage 1 Maths information event (in lieu of working daughter and SiL) at my 5-year old GS's school. I was shocked at the content being introduced. At a primary Maths Specialist, many years ago, I know the fear that many children have of the subject, and how important it is that they feel comfortable working within our number system and wider aspects of mathermatics.

Only by developing a 'feel' for the subject and confidence in their ability to manipulate numbers etc. will they come to enjoy and develop. This new curriculum is going to be counter-productive, except for the few, and is going to produce exactly the opposite results that this bunch of numpties are expecting.

Leave education to the experts.

Just e-mailed my daughter to see how youngest GS is coping.

So it's testing until they break now. It's all so wrong!

The practice tests were bad enough. I've heard that my GS liked the article they had to read but there was a question he didn't understand. He, like many other children, didn't finish it but did his best which is as much as you can expect of any child. I hope today's SPAG is less gruelling, but I wouldn't bet on it. It sounds as if they might have to revise their criteria for the higher levels as it seems that some of the brightest children who could have expected to do well were the ones who went to pieces.

Thanks for the info Mamie I really feel for these children and their teachers and parents. Thank goodness I am out of that system and GCs are not the age to be involved. Even imagining the level of distress and upset in the classroom upsets me.

The Year 6 children did the Key Stage 2 Reading Comprehension test yesterday. Apparently it was incredibly hard, much harder than the practice test (or any previous tests) and a lot of children, including the most able, were very upset.
SPaG today!

as in: " yer a proper abstract noun you are"

Proper Abstract Nouns
That sounds quite insulting, so I'll call it one of those annodomini

'-isms' are things you can't touch or feel. The grammar the children are learning refers to 'concrete' nouns which I think our generation (well, mine) would have called 'common' nouns. Anything you can't grasp is abstract. Maybe if they're capitalised they could be Proper Abstract Nouns. Bet the politicians haven't thought of that.

jalima "words are beginning to fail me" - same here! How did we get a Minister of State for Schools who can't answer a question in a test for 11-year-olds?