Happy 80th Birthday M'aam

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Oh, ok Brian - I forgot how much you hate generalisations. However I would suggest that the scale is weighted more in favour of poor comprehensives than of good ones - the latter of which are very few and far between.

Besides, what ever happened to decent primary schools? The first one I went to was top class and I was doing long division and multiplication at the age of 8 as well as being taught grammar and the such. At the comp I went to virtually none of my year had even tackled either long division or multiplication by the age of about 12! When I got to my second primary school at the age of 9 I had to teach myself maths as I was at least two years ahead of the rest - I had to sit on my own with a seperate textbook at the back of the class. That is probably where a lot of the problem lies - kids in general aren't getting a decent grounding by the age of 11.
 
Mo - I read PDJ's comment quickly and took it to mean that kids in comps had to work hard to get there [ie to a comp] rather than the kids who automatically went to private schools.
 
Originally posted by Shadow Leader@Apr 22 2006, 04:12 PM
Oh, ok Brian - I forgot how much you hate generalisations. However I would suggest that the scale is weighted more in favour of poor comprehensives than of good ones - the latter of which are very few and far between.

Besides, what ever happened to decent primary schools? The first one I went to was top class and I was doing long division and multiplication at the age of 8 as well as being taught grammar and the such. At the comp I went to virtually none of my year had even tackled either long division or multiplication by the age of about 12! When I got to my second primary school at the age of 9 I had to teach myself maths as I was at least two years ahead of the rest - I had to sit on my own with a seperate textbook at the back of the class. That is probably where a lot of the problem lies - kids in general aren't getting a decent grounding by the age of 11.
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Where is the evidence to back up your opinion about primary schools ? My understanding is that it is the exact opposite . There is far too much worthless testing of young children for a start.

As for good comprehensives being few and far between does that come from a study of results tables and OFSTED reports or the pages of the Daily Mail ? Brian is spot on , there are hundreds of comps up and down the land with committed hardworking teachers doing a good job .
 
The other large problem is that you and I, shadow leader, had parental support, no doubt sitting and reading with us or practising sums and that just doesn't happen as often now.
 
My opinion about primary schools comes from hearing about kids not knowing their times tables, basic grammar, basic spelling, basic maths et al not only at secondary school but also at university. Unbelievably some unviersities have had to introduce literacy and numeracy classes for their students! That is preposterous and if 18 year olds are at that stage they shouldn't be going to university in the first place.

PDJ has told me often enough that his pupils can't spell, use grammar, even count by the sound of it! I have heard similar tales from teachers I know also.

As for the Daily Mail comment - I don't read the paper and refused to look at it when PDJ was buying it last week! It is obvious to a blind man that education standards are slipping, as are kids attitudes - exam results aren't worth the paper they are written on as they are constantly being dumbed down for starters. It was bad enough 12 years ago when I did GCSEs yet standards are still slipping! Kids don't even get penalised in exam papers nowadays for spelling or grammatical errors which is ridiculous.
 
Dom, most of them succeed despite Pauls efforts, not because of them!!!

In all seriousness I agree with Brian. I went to a Grammar school and the standards of behaviour expected were so much higher than that expected at either of the comprehensives I spent brief period at.

I wonder if there is more than a casual link between the sports facilities available and academic success. My school had one of the best teams in the city at any sports we played, and the rest of the top teams were grammar schools and independant schools, all of whom had excellent sporting facilities.
If more comps had playing fields available I think that behaviour standards would improve. This is only my opinion so please dont all jump in asking what evidence I have for this, it is purely based on gut instinct.
 
I did on holiday, yes. It was a pound cheaper than my preferred paper and has 3 pages of puzzles which were ideal for solving around the pool. It in no way reflects my politics and my opinion of the rag stays the same.

Shadow Leader will be pleased you picked up on that. She said she was going to post it.
 
A few points...

The reason some students can't spell is because other skills are prioritised at school, skills that I for one would have liked to have had the opportunity to take on but didn't get it: problem-solving across different subjects, working with others, etc. Not being able to spell totally accurately doesn't make a person less intelligent.

Some universities, in order to gain funding, accept student with less qualifications than the Ivy League institutions but they still offer valuable Higher Education to students who wouldn't have got a sniff of a university education in our day.

I visit primary schools both to teach and advise and I can say that grammar and even etymology is taught. Parsing, as such, isn't taught, but parts of speech most certainly are.

When I was at Primary 40+ years ago, we were taught spelling, long division, calculating square roots, etc, but in a class of 40, I reckon it's fair to say that only a handful of us actually understood them to any extent and I doubt any of us understaood them all fully. In those days, ten of us would have gone to 'Senior Secondary', twenty would have gone to 'Secondary' and the rest 'Junior Secondary'. Most of the second group would have been very ordinary at spelling, grammar, etc., and the others would have been pretty clueless. Nowadays all three groups go on to mingle at Secpondary school so obviously it will seem as though standards are falling. Also, kids nowadays follow a much broader curriculum than in our day so they have less time in each subject therefore they cover less ground. It doesn't mean they are any less able than kids in our day. They have different skills.

(I could go on... B) )
 
One of my daughters was at the fireworks do last night, but she didn't get to talk to the Queen, or any of the other royals. She did meet Jimmy Tarbuck, though.
 
I have reviewed the work above, and am disappointed to find significant instances of spelling errors, poor grammar, misused punctuation, and badly-constructed sentences. :angry: If I see little improvement by the end of this month, the offending contributors will be consigned to a forum which does not pride itself on our high standards. As one of racing's premier websites, we have no intention of being dragged down to Banded level by appalling syntax. Thank you.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Apr 22 2006, 10:42 PM
misused punctuation, and badly-constructed sentences. :angry:
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Tsk, tsk - a comma before 'and' ????


That's you off then!! Biyeeeeeeee........ :lol: :lol:
 
It is now acceptable to do so Jules!

With regards to Colin's comment, I'm ok as I went to a shitehole comp anyway!
 
It's acceptable to do a lot of things these days Dom - don't necessarily make it right, though!

Ms Truss does not have the final word either, Mr Phillips!

Simplest way is to say the sentence out loud - you wouldn't really pause before using the word 'and' in that particular context - would you?!?!

PEDANT RULES KO? :P
 
"Not necessarily wrong" but I agree with Julie that it is clearly wrong in that context.
 
Originally posted by Songsheet+Apr 23 2006, 09:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Songsheet @ Apr 23 2006, 09:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-krizon@Apr 22 2006, 10:42 PM
misused punctuation, and badly-constructed sentences. :angry:
Click to expand...
Tsk, tsk - a comma before 'and' ????


That's you off then!! Biyeeeeeeee........ :lol: :lol: [/b][/quote]
She did it earlier in the same sentence too :lol:
 
Aha, but context is everything, and, in the case of the sentence above, you will see here, before your very eyes, and quite possibly your very noses, an example of how 'and' can have not just a comma before it, but one after it as well! Yes, indeed, think about how you might so emote such a sentence, and you'll find it's actually quite normal to take a breath before saying 'and'! Nu-Grammar, and all that! :lol: :lol:
 
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