Dear Ms Morgan: in grammar there isn’t always one right answer | Michael Rosen

The English spelling, punctuation and grammar test's apparent purpose is to examine children's knowledge of language. I think its main purpose is to grade children

I can understand that you may not have had a chance to look at the 2016 sample test [pdf] for key stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling. It suffers from a severe case of terminology-itis. The symptoms are: a) an assumption that there is universal agreement on all the names, structures and functions of bits of language in this test - there isn't; b) the best way to achieve coherence and effectiveness in children's writing comes from getting them to learn these names - there is no evidence for this; c) that the hours of teaching-time required to teach these names could not be better spent helping children to do detailed comparative work on different kinds of texts, investigating, interpreting and experimenting, while keeping in mind the objective of enabling all children to write coherently and interestingly.

Related: Is good grammar still important?

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