General Chat

Punctuation is vital for proper understanding of the written word. Some legal documents are written without commas (in particular wills) and in order to do this the language is so garbled as to be only comprehensible to another lawyer.

Lawyers sometimes argue that the absence of commas leads to improved understanding. But, what do they know!

In my opinion, the presence of commas can pinpoint one meaning to the exclusion of others. Clarity in speech or on papyrus is vital.

Let's outlaw the anti-comma brigade.

*drags out soapbox*

SATs have taken on far too much importance and general education (and a lot of the fun stuff) is neglected while teachers feel compelled to teach children how to gain good marks in SATs.

School funding often depends on the results as does the reputation of the school so head teachers are put under pressure and pass this on to the teachers who pass it on to the children.

We always used to test children, the difference now is that the results are published and some people think that good SATs score = good school and this just isn't the case.

We used to test to see how children were progressing and to pick up those in need of extra support in certain areas. No one knew the resuts except those concerned so there was no pressure on the children at all.

Now schools waste hours on practice papers to try to ensure as many children as possible get "good" results. They are no longer a fair measure of attainment but a measure of how good children are at doing tests.

If a child does well in the tests that doesn't mean he/she can apply this knowledge in a practical way in the real world.

It reminds me of my time before I took the 11+ when those of us likely to pass were taken out of lessons to do lots of practice papers. This meant that some who passed struggled when they got to grammar school because they were just good at doing the 11+ papers and were not necessarily cut out for an academic education.

I could rant on but I won't.

Children do not need that kind of pressure at a young age. :-(

*steps off soapbox*

I'm sure you're not thick...
Age 11 is too young for many children to show their poential.

We still have selective education in this area and I know many children who have not passed the Kent Test ( local 11+ exam ) but have later gone on to gain degrees at university.

Gwyn

WoHo! I just found I'm as bright as an 11 year old, I failed 11+ so can I do it again now please.
The first time I saw anything about metric was in the 11+ exam, I did not have a clue what the sums were about, wonderful education system!

Mayfield
Officially rated as thick by the system!

I vaguely remember half learning what verbs, adverbs, etc were, in primary school, but changing schools 6 times when there was no set curriculum meant I could leave one school having learnt a little about, say the Romans, and arrive at the next school half way through the Tudors.
However, i did pass the 11+ - mind you I didn't knwow I was taking it :-S But still don't know what an adverb is.
It would be handy if primary schools (or rather the reading system)taught English initially omitting the shortening of words, eg do not instead of don't, should have, instead of should've.

This would hopefully stop the ever increasing error of people using 'should of','would of' and 'could of', instead of 'should have' 'would have' and 'could have'.
I even saw 'could of'' in the Telegraph the other day :-(

When I worked in a school, if a child wrote 'should of', I would ask them 'Of you done your homework? Because you should of'. They looked at me like I was mad. I then wrote it down, said the first and last word in the phrase were the same, but not 'of' and asked them to change it. Amazingly they all managed it :-D

For the love of me I just cannot understand where our education system went wrong. All the schools I went to were state schools, and before I went from primary school in 1954 to secondary school, all the kids in my class, myself included, could read, write, and do basic arithmetic.

At the end of our time at primary school. we sat, what was then called the qualifying exam, and that decided whether you went to the lcal high school or local secondary school.

It was once you went to high school or secondary school, you honed, developed, and fine tuned, the subjects you were being taught.

They need to stop tinkering with the curriculum's of both primary schools and secondary schools and get back to basics, the sooner they do that the better.

I've just been looking at the sample questions.

It is the terms used for some of the grammar that would be unfamiliar, unless I helped out in school.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22484415