Today, across England, children in Year Six will be sitting down to take part in the new grammar test. How prepared they might be will vary. Some teachers may have been proactive in drilling correct grammar into their students for years. Others may have just started putting on the pressure this year in response to the new tests.
Looking back upon my own education I recall when "grammar" was brought up in class that would mean punctuation. I honestly did not realize that grammar meant the actual content and structure of sentence until secondary school. Was this my own failing or the teachers? The teachers from my primary school were mainly fantastic teachers, particularly those from my final two years. However whilst we were taught spelling explicitly, for about every three spelling focused activities there would be one on grammar.Grammar is not (as I type this) a subject that teachers have to compulsorily focus on through school, at GCSE one does not need to analyze the use of grammar or (realistically) have a deep knowledge of it. But come A Level understanding is a must.
Therefore I welcome the new tests. Not with a petty vengeance as "I had it harder" or saying it in the safe knowledge that I will never have to sit the test, but because I want the children who will sit it today to have better chance at knowing grammar. Learning grammar, from the difference between "Who" and "Whom" to what a gerund is, from a younger age will save it from having to be taught at a later stage and make language texts more assessable. When it is taught younger it becomes second nature, those at the top may criticize at thirteen year old for not knowing the difference between "less" or "fewer" but we cannot blame them when they have not been taught the difference. We need to know more than simply "a verb is a doing word" by Year Nine. We need to know the rules, not just to have the rule book thrown at us.
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