1,000 signatures reached
To: Gavin Williamson Education Minister
Remove meaningless grammar terminology from Primary School Curriculum.
I want Gavin Williamson to remove the National Curriculum Policy on teaching complex grammatical terms to Primary School Children.
Why is this important?
The insistence on children's minds grappling with obscure grammar terminology such as: 'compound, suffix, prefix, clause, subordinate clause, determiner, fronted adverbial, modal verbs, relative pronouns, relative clauses, cohesion, ambiguity, antonym, synonym etc.,' only succeeds in causing stress and dislike of writing and reading.
If I asked you to write a story and to make sure you included a fronted adverbial, 4 modal verbs and an expanded noun phrase, how would you feel? Would you feel happy and confident to write a story? I don't think writing stories works like that, do you? Well that is what my neighbour's son had to grapple with. Unbelievable isn't it? But it's happening right now in Primary Schools.
The mechanics of writing becomes a chore, instead of a delight, and a discovery of new ideas and imaginative journeys. How crazy is that? A child wondering if they've ticked the right box, instead of exploring language confidently, asking questions and seeing real meaning in wanting to write.
Another neighbour's children, all bright and outgoing, hate writing and reading because the tasks they are given to do are meaningless - resulting in their confidence being eroded, their creative thinking replaced by 'grammar terminology' meaningless words that do not help with their understanding and expression of language, or their desire to read or write.
During my 19 years in Primary School, we taught young children about 'capital letters at the beginning of sentences, and for names and places, phonics - nouns - verbs - adverbs, tense, adjectives - question marks, apostrophes, exclamation marks, fullstops, commas, paragraphs,' I think that was it - simple and certainly not threatening. Children wrote with confidence.
This current closed minded approach to introducing English language to our young children has to be stopped. Pressure has to be put on the Government to change the curriculum NOW! For the sanity of our children bring back non-threatening terms that help young minds understand language and enhance their love of reading and writing.
