I'm sorry, maybe too harsh but what the hell is going on in primary schools?

peanuthead · 01-11-2011 06:07PM #1

I'm a secondary school teacher of English and languages.

Sorry, I don't mean to come across as overly harsh here, but what the hell is going on in primary schools today that means students can't spell??

I have bitten my tongue on this one for a long, long time because I wasn't sure who was at fault exactly. Having students come in to me not able to spell the most basic of words, even the ones who would be considered the more intelligent students, has both annoyed and frustrated me for a long time.

I often thought to myself, maybe it's harder than just repetition, spellings tests, games etc and that if the majority of students are having problems with it, it's not that primary schools are not approaching it, just maybe doing so in the wrong way.

But this year has been my first year to teach my language subject to first years and I am utterly appalled at my findings. After two months of doing this language, my students can spell better in a foreign language than they can in English!!

Can any primary school teacher (or anyone with a bit of insight into this) please explain to me what the hell is going on in primary schools that students don't know how to write things like "should of" and "we carrie are books in a schoolbag" correctly?

We are being asked to jump through hoops in secondary with relation to literacy and numeracy, but to be honest, after 6 years of doing it wrong, although I would never say it is too late to learn how to spell, it's a lot harder than if they had learned the right way in the first place.

As a secondary school English teacher I am losing my patience with students arriving into first year, having studied Junior certificate poetry, read junior cycle novels and completed huge chunks of junior cycle textbooks.

I also know from interviewing a 6th class teacher for a Curriculum research paper I wrote 2 years ago, that there is a heavy emphasis in 6th class on 1st year of secondary school, giving students extra homework, getting them to read more books.

With the greatest respect (and directed more at the system/powers that be/syllabus authors rather than the individual teachers) - can you not just stick to your own syllabus, focus on the basics/literacy and leave the secondary syllabus for the secondary teachers???

A big rant I know and hopefully not too OTT

Lord TSC · 01-11-2011 06:24PM

That was something which shocked me when I was doing my PGDE; dealing with even higher level students in first year and no idea how to use punctuation at all.

Maybe I went to a very, very good school and I took it for granted, but I was doing stuff with first (and some second) years that was drummed into me in 4th and 5th class....

biko · 01-11-2011 06:26PM

Without actually knowing the answer I would suggest two things.
Not enough reading "bukes" and txt spk.

Not enough reading means they'll spell things as they hear them, so "carrie are books" makes sense from a phonetic point of view, as does "would of/ should of".
These are not spelling mistakes or dyslexia (imo), it's from not knowing how to spell the words in the first place.

I see these mistakes on boards.ie quite a lot so it happens for older children/ teens/ adults too.

Text speak has taken regular English and replaced many words so children doesn't use the correct spelling in daily life.
2 for two, to and too.
4 for four and for.
Der for their, they're and there.

What perplexes me is that 20-something's has embraced text speak and willingly have dumbed themselves down.
It will just get worse and many of the children now at school will grow up with terrible written English.

*I've probably made several grammatical errors myself in the above post.

peanuthead · 01-11-2011 06:43PM

biko wrote: »

Without actually knowing the answer I would suggest two things.
Not enough reading "bukes" and txt spk.

Not enough reading means they'll spell things as they hear them, so "carrie are books" makes sense from a phonetic point of view, as does "would of/ should of".
These are not spelling mistakes or dyslexia (imo), it's from not knowing how to spell the words in the first place.

I see these mistakes on boards.ie quite a lot so it happens for older children/ teens/ adults too.

Text speak has taken regular English and replaced many words so children doesn't use the correct spelling in daily life.
2 for two, to and too.
4 for four and for.
Der for their, they're and there.

What perplexes me is that 20-something's has embraced text speak and willingly have dumbed themselves down.
It will just get worse and many of the children now at school will grow up with terrible written English.

*I've probably made several grammatical errors myself in the above post.

Ha! Me too in the original post, hence my editing!

See, it is inevitable that text speak will be used, and in actual fact the English guidelines stress that students should be aware of it, and know the difference between, for example 'nite' and 'night'.

I would say that not enough reading is not 100% of the issue, rather that these grammatical points are not highlighted to them when they are reading, ie:

"Do you see there where it says 'could have' - that is the right way to write it instead of like this: 'could of' "

My second years kept saying to me "are there much books in the library" When I explained the much/many rule to them they couldn't believe a rule so basic existed and that they had never heard anything about it!

I have decided that from November onwards our Friday classes are going to be grammar lessons, but I do feel that at 13/14 this is a waste of my time and something that should be being covered in primary schools.

One distinct memory I have from primary school is the little blue box of letters I had, I brought it every day in my bag and the teacher went through them with us, every time you learned how to spell a new word it went into the box and you were spot checked on them regularly.

I would love to know what percentage of the day is spent in primary school writing.

Honey-ec · 01-11-2011 06:55PM

I'll be lambasted for saying it and will add the caveat that I'm not a teacher, but I have two friends who are primary school teachers and they have mentioned several times that the huge influx of non-native English speakers into our primary schools over the last decade or so is having a huge impact on the issue of literacy. In some schools, teachers are having to spend so much time just making themselves understood to students who can barely speak English at all that they simply don't have time to concentrate on the intricacies of the language the way that the teachers of my generation (I'm 29) did.

I'm in no way trying to make this a political or xenophobic argument, btw, but that is the feeling on the ground and I think it would be absolute idiocy to suggest that having up to a third of students in a class who don't speak English fluently is not going to have a detrimental effect on the class's learning as a whole.

gaeilgebeo · 01-11-2011 07:10PM

Peanuthead, I have often asked the same question. I teach Irish and it's the same situation every September! Start from scratch. How can a child go through 8 hours of primary education and not be able to structure a sentence together or know some basic verbs?

. It is so frustrating!

peanuthead · 01-11-2011 07:22PM

Thanks guys

I didn't actually expect to get much support on this one, I was convinced there was some bigger picture I was missing.

I hate to sound so hard and judgmental towards primary school teachers, god knows I hate it when that happens to me, but I really just can't see how this is happening

Honey-ec that is a fair and interesting point you have made

In my case foreign national students are in the minority so although what honey-ec is saying is no doubt somewhat the problem it's not all of the time. And also, depending on the student, sometimes foreign nationals have a much better grasp over the grammar points (maybe not the spelling) of English than Irish students do (Which I know could be said of any nation of natives)

newmug · 01-11-2011 07:36PM

I firmly believe in continous assesment, even at primary level. A mini "leaving cert" at the end of every year should be done, and if you dont pass, you shouldn't progress to the next year. It could serve so many useful functions. The main ones I can see are:

1) guaranting a minimum standard of education for each class / year, 2) standardising the different levels of education state wide,
3) highlighting weaker students who may have gone unnoticed,
4) highlighting weak teachers.

And of course, you'd be giving students a flavour of the real leaving cert ahead of them.

jill_valentine · 01-11-2011 07:40PM

newmug wrote: »

I firmly believe in continous assesment, even at primary level. A mini "leaving cert" at the end of every year should be done, and if you dont pass, you shouldn't progress to the next year. It could serve so many useful functions. The main ones I can see are:

1) guaranting a minimum standard of education for each class / year, 2) standardising the different levels of education state wide,
3) highlighting weaker students who may have gone unnoticed,
4) highlighting weak teachers.

And of course, you'd be giving students a flavour of the real leaving cert ahead of them.

With respect, I think it would be disastrous to introduce a "learning for the test" mentality at that young an age. Primary school was the only time in my educational career when I actually enjoyed learning, because it was something I could do for the sake of itself.

Geekness1234 · 01-11-2011 08:02PM

newmug wrote: »

I firmly believe in continous assesment, even at primary level. A mini "leaving cert" at the end of every year should be done, and if you dont pass, you shouldn't progress to the next year. It could serve so many useful functions. The main ones I can see are:

1) guaranting a minimum standard of education for each class / year, 2) standardising the different levels of education state wide,
3) highlighting weaker students who may have gone unnoticed,
4) highlighting weak teachers.

And of course, you'd be giving students a flavour of the real leaving cert ahead of them.

Continuous assement means that they student is assessed on a weekly/monthly basis.So a "mini leaving cert" that decides wether you go into the next year doesn't tie in with that.
I disagree with the "mini leaving cert" but other than that I think its a pretty good idea.

raytray · 01-11-2011 08:02PM

I teach in the UK and they have a common test in primary schools in literacy and numeracy that students take in 6th class. As far as I can see it is one of the worst things about the British education system. Rote learning begins at an even earlier stage and teachers drill the students for the test for the whole year. Their learning is not meaningful at all. Plus the stress the kids are put under is just awful. Don't think formal testing like this is wise at such a young age.

gbee · 01-11-2011 08:03PM

Personally I blame Irish. I've long since blamed Irish for our high level of illiteracy. I personally don't think Irish should be taught until a foundation language is formed ~ now that language could be Irish as you know, but it has to be native and Irish just isn't ~ it's syntax is the exact opposite, like the cat is on the table means the table is under the cat.

So we don't know whether it's table or tabla because they are in different places.

Add tot that, the migrant population where 'other' children were undisciplineable and the general break down of the primary system where inducements to take 'other' children were not honoured and an inappropriate mix ~ that wave you should be seeing now ~ were just let sail through ~ there is a lot of friction out there in primary, some taking excess and some being forced to take excess and you are reaping the whirlwind and will for some time yet.

Add to that the general breakdown in communication with txt speak and the lack of respect for teaching institutions and the enforced minimum leaving all back up to encourage dumbness, and wide eyed vacancy.

Things are improving again, but that's about five to seven years for you.

And don't forget that pre-dating this there was a damming report from our universalities graduating illiterate students.

So it's not new and it comes in waves, socio economic and ethnic disturbances exassorbate it. And that's spelt wrong, correct it and give me a mark.

flash1080 · 01-11-2011 08:08PM

Spelling needs to be beaten into them. Bring back the cane!

whiteandlight · 01-11-2011 08:22PM

Im a Maths teacher and it's only with the advent of project Maths tht I've realised how bad english is. I'm having to say every single day to students to re read their answers. The amount of them that make absolutely no sense or even contradict themselves is staggering.
In a similar vein the amount of students of good ability who cannot do their Times tables and even addition tables in first year is staggering. Simple calculations such as 3 by 6 they a reaching for a calculator. It really slows down their work if they need the calculator for everything. I know it's a rote learned section of the course but we can't get rid of all rote learning surely?

gbee · 01-11-2011 08:30PM

Musicmental85 wrote: »

a rote learned section of the course but we can't get rid of all rote learning surely?

In this I'd agree. 50 years later, I don't remember my tables, I'd actually trip up on 1+1 ~ the rhyme Da, de, da, da, dada,

A.Partridge · 01-11-2011 08:52PM

peanuthead wrote: »

Thanks guys

I didn't actually expect to get much support on this one, I was convinced there was some bigger picture I was missing.

I hate to sound so hard and judgmental towards primary school teachers, god knows I hate it when that happens to me, but I really just can't see how this is happening

Honey-ec that is a fair and interesting point you have made

In my case foreign national students are in the minority so although what honey-ec is saying is no doubt somewhat the problem it's not all of the time. And also, depending on the student, sometimes foreign nationals have a much better grasp over the grammar points (maybe not the spelling) of English than Irish students do (Which I know could be said of any nation of natives)

I have been following your thread with great interest. When I see many of the posts on Boards I have to admit that it is hard not to get the impression that there is a widespread dumbing down of our society in terms of basic grammar and literacy.

Sadly, it has become apparent that many primary school teachers who have graduated in recent years are clueless when it comes to using even the correct tense in everyday speech. For instance, my wife works in a primary school and the amount of times she has heard young, newly qualified teachers say "I seen it " or " I done it" in the normal course of conversation in the staff room is just unbelievable.

Musicmental85 is quite correct with regard to the teaching of maths.
The curriculum has changed drastically where the use of rote has apparently, been completely abandoned for the use of the calculator. Learning by rote might be a bit old-fashioned in the eyes of some but it certainly serves its purpose when it comes to learning and remembering one's times-tables.

raytray · 01-11-2011 08:53PM

Totally agree that certain things need to be rote learned-especially times tables. I teach biology to 16 and 17 year olds and the amount of students who cant spell or add continues to shock me. I don't t think the problem with spelling and numeracy are issues with Irish education though. A lot of my students in the UK don't use capital letters at the start of sentences, they use the word 'what' instead of 'that', don't know how to use paragraphs, can't do addition without a calculator (think this one is sometimes pure laziness though!)

RealJohn · 01-11-2011 09:50PM

Like musicmental and A.Partidge said, it's the same situation in maths. Even stronger students automatically reach for a calculator for basic things and the result is that they then don't recognise patterns in their addition and multiplication, they don't notice connections between basic arithmetic and more complicated maths and their overall ability suffers. It might not be the primary school teachers that are to blame but the blame is unquestionably in the primary school system. I have a long maths course to teach. I don't have time to spend teaching my students things they should have learned when they were in first class.

As it is, we've had to bring in a rule in my school that students are not allowed to use calculators in first year in the hopes they'll start developing the skills that are vital to their future success in mathematics.

Primary schools (and primary school teachers) need to realise that their first duty is to ensure that their students are learning the basics. If they're not then they are failing those students.

jimmycrackcorm · 01-11-2011 10:00PM

gbee wrote: »

Personally I blame Irish. I've long since blamed Irish for our high level of illiteracy. I personally don't think Irish should be taught until a foundation language is formed ~ now that language could be Irish as you know, but it has to be native and Irish just isn't ~ it's syntax is the exact opposite, like the cat is on the table means the table is under the cat.

Irish has absolutely nothing to do with it. When I was growing up we did a lot of reading,but these days reading a significant amount of competition from ever more tv channels, YouTube, Call Of Duty and most significantly TxtSpeak.

The inventor of SMS has a lot to answer to.

E.T. · 01-11-2011 10:02PM

From a primary teacher's point of view, here are a few of the problems I see every day:

- The huge amount of time that has to be spent with children with special needs (educational, physical, behavioural, emotional), who aren't receiving any/adequate official support. It's just such a big problem, and I can only see it getting worse as more and more supports are removed from schools.

At this stage it's almost impossible to even get "access" to an SNA, despite reams of paperwork from psychologists, ASD teams and teachers. The criteria for Resource hours have changed and many pupils with recognised special needs, often severe, don't qualify for hours.

Obviously this has a huge impact on the quality of teaching, and the amount of time that can be spent with the other children. I'm all for inclusion, but adequate support has to be given.

- A lack of respect for education, learning, and teachers. It's widespread in our society, and parents are passing it on to their children. Why would a child bother listening to the teacher when their parents go on about how useless teachers are, just in it for the money, holidays, and all the perks!

I'm lucky that the school I work in does have a lot of interested parents, but I know there are many schools where this isn't the case. I've seen one really sad case where a parent publicly mocked their child for showing an interest in schoolwork.

- Fewer people reading to their children regularly. I teach infants, and can usually spot the children who are read to at home quite easily. I feel that reading to children just helps them in so many ways - interest in books, respect for reading, concentration, general knowledge, and also emotionally it's very calming and bonding. It's pretty easy to spot the children who go home from school and sit down to a few hours of telly/computer games.

Many schools are using synthetic phonics schemes eg Jolly Phonics at this stage. I've seen a huge improvement in spelling (in infants!) after using it for a few years. The children get a great buzz out of being able to spell out tricky words, and become very interested in the idea of spelling in general.

I think that if there isn't a specific learning problem, a lot of misspelling comes down to just carelessness. The careless attitude is a societal problem, many children expect to be rewarded for just doing their work, and don't bother putting in much effort in general. It shows across the board, in all subjects.

jimstir · 01-11-2011 10:05PM

They spell better in the foreign language because they DON'T txt (text) in foreign languages. Texting is the reason why spelling in English has become so poor.

amdublin · 01-11-2011 10:08PM

I agree with Biko.

Children need to read more.
And txt spk less.

Red Alert · 01-11-2011 10:14PM

I'm lecturing at third level and I'm dismayed by a lack of basic reading, writing and mathematics. I think the lack of basic literary skills are just a symptom of a much more serious problem. What really bugs me is a lack of general cop-on amongst students, which is tolerated to a large degree by 3rd level staff. I don't blame primary or secondary teachers any more than anyone else, because this mentality appears to come both from home and from the education system itself.

Three teachers in particular will always stand out in my memory. My sixth class teacher covered nearly everything we'd need in 1st and 2nd year in secondary school. Another teacher in the school who I never had apart from for choir had a very strict but good humoured sense of discipline. It was said by many people later on in life that he made "big men and women" out of them. Same story for my very strict Irish teacher in secondary school - he did the curriculum and a half, and you'd be afraid not to learn his stuff for him the night before. I'll never forget how confident I was going into the leaving cert Irish exam because of him, and he got the results. The school principal of my primary school was also a very formidable but really likeable lady who took no nonsense and put 100% into her job - she literally knew everyone and their parents by name. What these four people really had in common was that they taught "cop on" in a big way to their students, mainly by example. The sad part nowadays is that this type of teaching wouldn't be encouraged by the light touch parents that now seem commonplace.

These are the same parents that have the kids running from swimming to cello practice. They'd never think of leaving a child in a room with books or let them out to roam around the natural environment. Many teenagers leave school having never read a newspaper. Children aren't able to amuse themselves or engage their intellect without outside help.

When these pupils eventually make it to a third-level course of any sort they're completely unprepared. Mum and dad suddenly can't fix knowledge deficits with a trip to the Institute. They can produce excuses and medical certificates for assignments missed at the drop of a hat, and protest that normal consequences for missing something because they've a debs on are "unfair". They assume that doing an essay equals plagiarising wikipedia. Of course, school and their parents aren't responsible entirely at all either - the third level system has adapted to this child-like mentality among its adult student population.

PseudoFamous · 01-11-2011 10:19PM

gbee wrote: »

Personally I blame Irish. I've long since blamed Irish for our high level of illiteracy. I personally don't think Irish should be taught until a foundation language is formed ~ now that language could be Irish as you know, but it has to be native and Irish just isn't ~ it's syntax is the exact opposite, like the cat is on the table means the table is under the cat.

The only issue with your theory is the fact that no primary school students, bar the ones in gaelscoileanna, speak any Irish, at all.

When I was in first year, there were still a fair few people who didn't/don't understand English grammar or spelling.
This was just before everyone had a phone to themselves, too, so don't try to blame it on mobiles.

There were no foreigners to blame, either.

Now, the fact that "a few people" not being able to understand grammar might not sound so bad, but I was in the highest streamed class in the year, out of 6/7 classes. The further down you went, the worse the grammar became, from what I saw in split classes.

I honestly put all the blame of poor education on primary schools. I came out of primary school without a single verb in Irish, despite being forced to take down pages and pages of them, without the foggiest clue of what was going on.
We spent all of our English classes doing Nature studies one year. The only reason I even learnt any English that year was because I told my Mam about it, and she decided to teach me herself.

My school was, sadly, one of the better primary schools in the town. As far as I've heard from second hand reports from friends of mine, they managed to do less work in primary school than us.

I do not blame texting. I firmly believe that a lot of texting has actually come as a result of a lack of spelling ability and education, and is the easy excuse so no-one has to do anything to rectify it.

Texting is a "Fianna Fail solution" to this problem. Just blame something which is just outside the jurisdictions of education, so no one has to do anything about it. Good work.

E.T. · 01-11-2011 10:27PM

PseudoFamous wrote: »

The only issue with your theory is the fact that no primary school students, bar the ones in gaelscoileanna, speak any Irish, at all.

I'm not even sure how to respond to this! Let's start with the fact that it's not true at all.

For someone to go through primary school and "come out without a single verb in Irish" is absolutely shocking, and seems completely exaggerated.

It's hard to take a post seriously when it's so completely exaggerated and full of generalisations.

PseudoFamous · 01-11-2011 10:41PM

E.T. wrote: »

I'm not even sure how to respond to this! Let's start with the fact that it's not true at all.

It sure is fun to instantly disregard an entire post as lies.

E.T. wrote: »

For someone to go through primary school and "come out without a single verb in Irish" is absolutely shocking, and seems completely exaggerated.

I knew "Tá" and "Bhí". I did not know they were correlated.

I went to the Gaeiltacht many, many times during secondary school, which is the only reason I speak the language today.

E.T. wrote: »

It's hard to take a post seriously when it's so completely exaggerated and full of generalisations.

The truth is that there was not a single exaggeration in my post, everything was factually correct. If you would like, I could go into the part about how one of my teachers was from Scotland, and didn't speak Irish, so we were told to read a verb book until they found a teacher to cover for the Irish classes.

implausible · 01-11-2011 10:54PM

I teach English and drive the kids around the twist by correcting them every time they say "I seen", "I done" and "I writ". They get annoyed with it and I'm sure they forget when they text and speak outside the class, but they do self-correct in class (done with a huge dose of dramatics and sarcasm) and are aware that it is wrong.

Texting is not the problem, in fact I would argue that it is merely another symptom of the problem shown by 'should of' i.e. students are spelling phonetically, without any idea of what the word looks like when it's written down correctly.

They are not reading enough and what they are reading (webpages, signage, even local newspapers) is not good enough. I despair when I see things like the (presumably expensive) scrolling neon sign in a nearby town urging people to use it to advertise their 'buisness', the sign I pass everyday for 'local potatoe's' and the shop sign for "The Cat's Pajamas". My colleagues are often no better - 'I seen' and 'I done' are commonplace, a post-holder recently gave out a list of their 'tudors' to her students and another colleague requested a list of 'passed' colleagues from us(my quip "what about the living ones?" was met with a blank face). The grammar and spelling of my friends on Facebook is shocking, especially when you consider that lots of them are 3rd level educated. I've often seen horrendous examples of bad grammar and spelling on this forum, but out of fear of the ban-hammer, I have to restrain myself!

All of this is in spite of a spell-checker being at everyone's disposal:rolleyes:

We have gone from the extreme of rote-learning lists of spellings with the fear of punishment for getting it wrong to an attitude of "spelling doesn't matter, as long as you get your point across".

I don't know if it's right to blame primary schools, but I definitely think that as educators, we should all raise our standards, take care with our own spelling and grammar and lead by example.

E.T. · 01-11-2011 10:58PM

PseudoFamous wrote: »

The truth is that there was not a single exaggeration in my post, everything was factually correct.

So you have facts to back up your statement that "The only issue with your theory is the fact that no primary school students, bar the ones in gaelscoileanna, speak any Irish, at all."

I wouldn't even call that an exaggeration, more a completely false statement.

readmylips · 01-11-2011 11:01PM

I've noticed this too but thought I was being pedantic! I'm not a teacher but as a parent , I often see misspelt words on the board in the classroom, as written by the teacher !! Indeed, typed up information sent home from the school is infuriating to say the least, given the amount of spelling errors, punctuation errors etc. And finally, when I look at my childs homework and see that it's been corrected even when there ARE blatant obvious spelling mistakes, drives me NUTS !!! I've often sent the kids back with their corrected homework re-corrected....they love me at that school

RealJohn · 01-11-2011 11:04PM

E.T. wrote: »

So you have facts to back up your statement that "The only issue with your theory is the fact that no primary school students, bar the ones in gaelscoileanna, speak any Irish, at all."

I wouldn't even call that an exaggeration, more a completely false statement.

The sentiment is correct though. Very few students are remotely competent when it comes to Irish in spite of supposedly learning the language for eight years unless they went to a Gaelscoil. I teach in the Gaeltacht during the summer and regularly see students who can barely string a basic sentence together, much less hold a basic conversation. Those same students can hold at least a basic conversation in German or French or whatever European language they're doing by the end of first year.

This is not intended as a personal attack on you or on anyone else but the fact is that the primary school system seems to be failing a large number (I'd say anecdotally, a majority) of students in both Irish and maths (and possibly english - I've no experience of that one myself).

Cat Melodeon · 01-11-2011 11:08PM

I agree with some of what previous posters have said, particularly with the problem of promoting inclusive education without accompanying such a system with the appropriate resources. Special needs students need resource teachers and SNAs if there is to be no negative effect on the mainstream class. Limited English students need immersion programs and intensive language tuition if they are to stand a chance of integrating into our schools. Schools with a high proportion of special/particular needs students need a dedicated SENCO or similar staff member who can organise resources, apply for funding and ensure that teachers are properly trained. All teachers need extensive training in inclusive education and literacy once they have gained a certain amount of teaching experience (years, not months). In-service training is not enough, it must be deeper and more comprehensive (and more measurable) than that. There also needs to be better community liaising. It is not the sole responsibility of teachers to ensure that children are educated, parents must step up and play a role too. Parent education classes, particularly for parents who were themselves failed by the education system, could play a role in helping them to overcome whatever prejudices or fears they have concerning schooling and teachers. This probably falls outside the remit of the school and might be best done by independent community groups or some sort of collaboration between the school and such groups.

Ruairi Quinn has stated that one of his chief aims will be soaking literacy & numeracy education throughout the primary curriculum rather than having it treated as something that failing pupils are taught. It needs to be addressed every day with every child. Nature studies, religion, even history and geography are unimportant in comparison with the need to have children emerging from primary school with basic reading, writing and maths skills. It will be interesting to see what shape the proposed changes will take, or if they will even be possible without massive investment in teacher training and resource staff. Some of the projects currently being run by the Young Ballymun group if anyone is familiar with them show great potential, but they are funded by a philanthropic organisation and I don't know if they are replicable on a national scale.

Blaming primary teachers is wrong though. Most of the ones I've worked with have been amazing, going well beyond the job description in attempting to give all their pupils the best chance possible. Doing that without support and within a very damaged system is exhausting though, and many burn out or simply have to step back a bit for their own sakes. You do get the odd bad one, same as any profession, and there really should be a way to weed the genuinely poor ones out (same as any other profession). But for most any deficit could be remedied by proper training, resources, support and curriculum/system reform.

I'd just like to add that I am a strong supporter of inclusive education and believe the benefits to SEN kids of attending a mainstream school is massive. But the support has to be there, they MUST have an SNA where necessary and every class with a certain proportion of special/educational needs pupils should have access to a classroom assistant (assisting the classroom teacher with more than just special needs but education/behavioural ones too).

I also feel too much is made of non-English speakers in schools. If a school organises itself properly, it can tailor it's funding to put on intensive English language classes for newcomers. Six weeks of such intensive training should be enough to equip most children with enough English to be able to follow instruction and function within the classroom. The old system of 2.5 hr per week for 2 years is much less effective than total immersion. However, for that to work, proper dedicated ESoL teachers need to be used, not primary teachers who have done a 6-week ACELS course and have no prior experience of ESoL teaching.

I'm sorry, maybe too harsh but what the hell is going on in primary schools?

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