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Today's children are less literate than their grandparents


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Any ideas?
'Bit extreme, but radical problems call for radical solutions...Try and coerce parental reading support, by including book reading parental feedback in exam/end-of-cycle marking.

 

Not sure how other schools do it, but our primary (Woodsetts) runs such a scheme. Not compulsory as such, nor included in overall marking, but there is a reading book (per child) in which parents are expected to note (daily or at least several time a week) what they read with their child and information/details/feedback about each reading instance. E.g. perception of context, new/difficult vocabulary, understanding of grammar, etc, etc.

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What has changed is the level of interference over recent decades by successive governments who have shifted the focus from educating children to hitting targets. This has resulted in improved statistics but, as the study evidences, worst outcomes.

 

It is time for government to learn the lesson, reign its neck in and let the experts, those have dediciate their lives to the education system, get on with it. Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of madness was to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expected a different result? The madness of politicians.

 

It is the way of the world, results and statistics dictate our lives, unfortunately to get those results and the required statistics 'people' deceive ;)

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Ask Wayne Rooney, David and Victoria Beckham, or one of our many X factor winners how important it is to be literate or numerate :D

 

Indeed but that's part of the problem though Michael.

 

Parental ambition and a juvenile obsession with celebrity are a distraction from the realities of the world-that the likes of Rooney, the Beckhams and X Factor winners are the exception rather than the rule.

 

As interested parents we should ensure our children at least know the product of 2+2 is 4 and the cat has a full life when she's not sat on the mat :)

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What has changed is the level of interference over recent decades by successive governments who have shifted the focus from educating children to hitting targets. This has resulted in improved statistics but, as the study evidences, worst outcomes.

 

It is time for government to learn the lesson, reign its neck in and let the experts, those have dediciate their lives to the education system, get on with it. Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of madness was to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expected a different result? The madness of politicians.

 

That's always the problem setting targets, especially for bonus reasons, but not always, leads to people cutting corners to meet those targets. As a result the work becomes shoddy

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What has changed is the level of interference over recent decades by successive governments who have shifted the focus from educating children to hitting targets. This has resulted in improved statistics but, as the study evidences, worst outcomes.

 

It is time for government to learn the lesson, reign its neck in and let the experts, those have dediciate their lives to the education system, get on with it. Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of madness was to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expected a different result? The madness of politicians.

 

But I think the general public like targets. When choosing waynetta's school they can just flick through a few league tables and bobs your uncle, school is chosen. It's even mentioned now (don't know how long its gone on) mentioned in housing particulars in estate agent ads. Boils down to the whole "choice" thing. If you want people to choose between two things there should be something measurable (and easy) to help them choose. Targets, well the results, do that.

 

It also shows what ever the government of the time is doing is "working".

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Doesn't surprise me at all with today's leftie teachers more interesting in promoting diversity and multiculturalism than they are in teaching "old-fashioned" things such as being able to read, write, speak and add up.

 

The government decide what is or isn't taught in schools not the teachers. But hey/ho lets have a go at turning this into another teacher bashing thread.

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But I think the general public like targets. When choosing waynetta's school they can just flick through a few league tables and bobs your uncle, school is chosen. It's even mentioned now (don't know how long its gone on) mentioned in housing particulars in estate agent ads. Boils down to the whole "choice" thing. If you want people to choose between two things there should be something measurable (and easy) to help them choose. Targets, well the results, do that.

 

It also shows what ever the government of the time is doing is "working".

 

That's a very good point tfh.

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You're a teacher. Do you think the standards of literacy and numeracy are going down?

 

Don't really see what that has to do with my comment. However, I began teaching over 30 years ago and throughout that period people have argued that standards are falling. The government would argue that more students are passing GCSE's although to me the O- Levels were more difficult so I don't see how a comparison can be made using results. My opinion is that there has been a small drop in the basic standards of literacy and numeracy due in a large way to technology.

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