Listening Comprehension Texts

English Language course provided by Travel Management Global in conjunction with Suzanne Sparrow (Plymouth) English Language School

Cow Parsley, skirting a Devon hedgerow

Texts:

Texts are saved in Word 1997-2003 format but will open in Wordpad or another suitable word processor. They may also be downloaded using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Catenative and Phrasal Verbs [PDF]

Development of the English Language (The Lord’s Prayer) [PDF]

Lewis Carrol [PDF]

Conditional Sentences [PDF]

Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales [PDF]

Jabberwocky (Poem)

You are Old Father William (Poem)

Ralph Vaughan Williams [PDF]

George Butterworth [PDF]

Serenade to Music (Vaughan Williams) [PDF]

Scarborough Fair (Lyrics)

Scarborough Fair (Comments)

William Shakespeare [PDF]

Sonnet 18

Purple Passages from Shakespeare [PDF]

Music:

Scarborough Fair

The King’s New Clothes

The Banks of Green Willow(Butterworth)

The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams)

The Lord’s Prayer in Old English

Links:

The Book Depository - a good source of discounted books. Delivery free of charge anywhere in the world.

Deezer - Find and listen to music on line. Songs cannot be downloaded.

And finally:

Time - Who knows when we shall meet again. (Alan Parsons) Lyrics

“Thomas Stephen Szasz (pronounced Saas); born April 15, 1920) is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990[1] he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. He is well known for his books, The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970) which set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

His views on special treatment follow from classical liberal roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others, although he criticized the “Free World” as well as the Communist states for its use of psychiatry and “drogophobia”. He believes that suicide, the practice of medicine, use and sale of drugs and sexual relations should be private, contractual, and outside of state jurisdiction.” - Wikipedia

 See also: <Science of deception> (cf. here) and <Violence in schools>

Further reading:

Naughty Boys: Anti-social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture (Paperback)

The Mind Game, Phillip Day

· adding
· subtracting
· multiplying
· dividing

in that order and in varying degrees of complexity according to age and natural ability.

Maths is to do with space, bigger and smaller, more and less, the order in which things come and the beauty and elegance inherent in order. A lot of early learning has to do with developing a sense of space, size and number. Nursery rhymes encourage a sense of timing; board and card games develop a child’s ability to count backwards and forwards. Playing these types of ‘maths’ games should be just as much a part of children’s learning at an early stage as reading to them and listening to them read.

The approach to number is progressive and follows roughly the following steps in Years 1 - 4:

1) learning how to count
2) what comes before and what comes after specific numbers (to develop a sense of sequence and order)
3) addition - simple number bonds under 10. e.g. 3 + 4 = 7
4) addition - number bonds up to 20, e.g. 8 + 16 = 14
5) subtraction – under ten, e.g. 7 – 3 = 4
6) subtraction – using numbers up to 20 (e.g. 14 – 9)
7) subtraction – numbers over 20 (e.g. 34 – 9, 34 – 27)
8) multiplication – some times tables are easier than others (e.g. 2x 5x 9x 10x 11x 12x)
9) multiplication – 3x 4x
10) multiplication – 6x 7x 8x
11) multiplication by 10, 100, 1000 …etc
12) multiplication – e.g. 56 x 7
13) multiplication – e.g. 56 x 27
14) division – within the tables 2x – 10x
15) division – short division involving numbers beyond 100, e.g. 151 ÷ 7
16) division – long division 432 ÷ 16 = 27
17) division – long division 433 ÷ 16  = 27 r1
18) division by 10, 100, 1000 … etc

Into this work measurement can gradually be integrated in Years 3 & 4: weight, distance, area, perimeter, time and conversion from one unit to another, e.g. centimetres to metres, hours to minutes.

After a solid foundation in basic number work, more advanced topics can be approached in Years 5 & 6:

1) Fractions
2) Ratios
3) Percentages
4) Decimals

In fact fractions, percentages and decimals are closely related and pupils need to know and understand such equivalences as ¼ , 25% and .25 so that they can exchange one for the other to make word problems simple to solve. For example, it is easier to work out ¼ of 168 than 25%, if that is what the problem requires.

By the end of Year 6, the aim is for pupils to be able to …

1. Recite all tables to 10 x 10, especially for division,
e.g. 63 ÷ 7 = 9, and quickly work out remainders.
2. Multiply and divide decimals by 10 or 100 in their heads,
e.g. 2.61 x 10, 53.2 ÷ 100.
3. Put numbers, including decimals, in order of size,
e.g. 1.06, 0.099, 0.25, 1.67.
4. Use pencil and paper to add and subtract decimals, e.g. 3.91 + 8.04 + 24.56, or 13.3 -1.27.
5. Use pencil and paper to multiply and divide, e.g. 387 x 46, 21.5 x 7, 539 ÷ 13, 307.6 ÷ 4.
6. Cancel fractions e.g. reduce 4/20 to 1/5, and work out which of two fractions is bigger, e.g. 7/12 or 2/3.
7. Work out simple percentages of whole numbers, e.g. 25% of £90 is £22.50.
8. Work out the perimeter and area of simple shapes that can be split into rectangles
9. Solve one and two stage word problems and explain their methods
10. Use co-ordinates to plot the position of points.
11. Understand and use information in graphs, charts and tables.

In my experience many pupils at the beginning of Year 5 do not know their times tables and this is the single main contributing factor in poor performance in maths. This is not simply a question of intelligence but a lack of thorough knowledge as acquired through constant repetition and practice. Parents concerned about their child’s performance in maths should ensure in the first place that their child learns the times tables. A little and often is all that is required.

It is also worth checking that a child knows how to use the basic mathematical operations. Adding is rarely a problem, but many children have a poor understanding of subtraction, multiplication and division in the last years of primary school. And without these basic skills they are poorly equipped to tackle a maths SATs paper at Key Stage2 or to extend their knowledge of maths at Secondary Level.

English attempts to represent the sounds of language phonetically, meaning that the learner has to recognise individual symbols and the sounds which correspond to them. Since English has 44 sounds but only 26 letters to represent them, there is no one to one correspondence and this leads to a number of problems for the learner:

1. Individual letters may represent more than one sound:

• cave/cot/cut ~ city/celebration
• gave, give, got ~ gin, generation

2. Letters may be combined to represent sounds in ways which are not intuitive:

• th (the), wh (where), ph (phone), ch (church), kn (know), wr (write)

3. Combined letters may represent more than one sound:

• church/chemist/chef
• head/beach

4. Individual sounds may be written  in different ways:

• (initial) alien (middle) made, rain, sleigh, reins (final) day, grey
• (initial) evening (middle) sweet, dream, field, theme, receipt (final) lady, monkey
• (initial) ivy (middle) hike, might, kind  (final) cry, pie
• (initial) open (middle) bone, road, (final)  how, doe
• (initial) unique (middle) (final) rescue, dew

5. Identically sounding words written differently:

• there/their/they’re
• practice/practise
• no/know
• seem/seam
• new, knew

6. Sounds represented by the ‘wrong’ letter:
wand, wasp, waddle, was, what, women

7. Words where there is a big difference they way they are spelled and the way they sound:

• said, yacht, laugh, people

8. The prevalence of neutral ‘e’ (schwa) and ‘i’ (’it’}
A C Gimson in his book, “An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English”, (1969, p.143) pointed out, after an investigation by D B Fry, that neutral ‘e’  (schwa) and ‘i’ (as in ‘it’) represent 10.74% and 8.33% respectively of the sounds commonly occurring in Received Pronunciation.  Knutson further remarks that “[the data] mean that more than one out of every 10 phonemes in English is schwa, the one sound we have no way of showing in spelling. - Note too that speakers who use  ‘i’ for  ‘e’ in words like ’started’ and ‘believe’ will have an even higher schwa-frequency.”

These conclusions are highly significant for the teaching of vowel digraphs. As much as we might like to prioritise the order in which they are taught, such an approach is likely to be unhelpful, because all vowels - except ‘e’/'i’ - occur relatively infrequently (relative to one another), and the spellings of the two vowels which do occur most frequently, namely ‘e’/'i’, are determined largely by their etymology.

This is what Bill Bryson had to say about English spelling:

Spellings in English are so treacherous, and opportunities for flummoxing so abundant, that the authorities themselves sometimes stumble. The first printing of the second edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary had millennium spelled millenium in its definition of that word, while in the first edition of the American Heritage Dictionary you can find vichysoisse instead of vichyssoise. In The English Language,’ Robert Burchfield, called by William Safire the ‘world’s most influential lexicographer’, talks about grammatical prescriptivists who regard ‘innovation as dangerous or at any rate resistable’. It should be resistible. In The Story of Language, Mario Pei writes flectional on page 114 and flexional just four pages later. And in The Treasure of Our Tongue, Lincoln Barnett laments the decline of spelling by noting: ‘An English examination at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University disclosed that less than one quarter of the freshmen class could spell professor correctly.’ I wonder, for my part, how many of them could spell freshman class?
Just as a quick test, see if you can tell which of the following words are mispelled.

supercede
conceed
procede
idiosyncracy
concensus
accomodate
impressario
rhythym
opthalmologist
diptheria
anamoly
afficianado
caesarian
grafitti

In fact, they all are. So was misspelled at the end of the preceeding paragraph. So was preceding just there. I’m sorry, I’ll stop. But I trust you get the point that English can be a maddeningly difficult language to spell correctly.

‘Mother Tongue – The English Language’, Bill Bryson, PENGUIN, 1990

The above examples illustrate that there is no regular one-to-one correspondence between sound and symbol and suggest why children may experience difficulties in learning to read and spell.  Dyslexic children may be particularly disadvantaged because of the following cognitive weaknesses:

• poor sound processing (the inability to distinguish at speed or at all between sounds, e.g. between different vowels and consonants (’father’ pronounced ‘fahver’)
• weak working memory (Working memory is responsible for holding and manipulating information, such as remembering and writing down verbally pronounced sentences, adding numbers without writing them down, and generally remembering things.)
• slow to become automatic in skills (learning to do things without having to think about them)
• slow visual processing (the inability to recognise something quickly from the way it looks)

It is easy to understand how these weaknesses might impact on a child’s ability to read. However, with regard to poor sound processing, research conducted at the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Sydney, Australia, suggests “that training school-aged children with Special Reading Difficulties or Specific Language Impairment for their auditory processing skills alone will not improve their poor reading or poor spoken language.” Approaches to teaching reading, and especially dyslexic learners, must be diverse in  approach and constantly take into consideration the latest research developments.

Rudolf Flesch, one of the pioneers of the phonic approach to teaching reading, suggested that there were 218 rules governing English spelling. Unfortunately, the 10% of words we use most frequently are not rule-governed, increasing the burden for the dyslexic learner. In 1948 Dr. Edward William Dolch wrote a book, Problems in Reading, in which he included 220 of the most high frequency (common) words excluding nouns in the English language (the Dolch word list). Since many of these words cannot be sounded out (as they do not follow decoding rules), they have to be learnt as sight words, using flash cards.

If a dyslexic pupil is taught specific sound/letter or word/sound correspondences, without constant and frequent revision s/he will have difficulty remembering them. This makes working with dyslexic children especially demanding, since frequent repetition (over-learning) is required. At the same time, teaching will need not only to be highly structured to cover the main rules but also selective to lighten the load as much as possible.

All dyslexic readers will share some or all of the following characteristics:

• hesitation and labouring over words
• leaving out or adding words
• maybe reading at a reasonable speed, but not understanding what they have read
• difficulty with unfamiliar words (especially the names of people)
• jumping over lines, repeating lines or phrases, losing the place
• reading words out of context as in a dictionary or phone book
• aversion to reading (At times this can be extreme.)

Since dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, any approach to the problem will have specific core aims:

• to develop an understanding of the correspondence between written symbols and the sounds they represent
• to develop fluency through practice
• to develop understanding of text through discussion

Further information and advice about dyslexia can be found on the following sites:

• Channel4 Lost for words
• NHS help for dyslexics
• The School Bell
• Cornwall Dyslexia Association
• Dyslexia Action (Bath)

A personal approach:

My approach is always individual because dyslexia is a syndrome rather than a discreet condition with a single cause and cure. Dyslexia is elusive because the factors which make it up cannot easily be identified or tested and are never present to the same degree or the same intensity from pupil to pupil. Intuition plays a greater part in what I do than I would like -  but not blind intuition, since it is based on specific observations on the behaviour of each pupil as I work with them.

My first task is to assess the “level” of the pupil. Usually s/he has a reading book from school and I listen to how well s/he reads. I then base my choice of  reading materials on books where I know the pupil will be able to read nine out of ten words. This means that difficulty in reading will not interfere completely with the task of comprehension.

A particular difficulty arises when the pupil is older and still reads like a beginner. My aim is to engage the pupil in reading by presenting interesting books to read. Fortunately there is a wide range of material to choose from. I usually source my materials either from my local lending library or from a local primary school, since the cost of buying whole reading schemes is enormous. Some useful links are:

• Sue Cunningham’s list of books for dyslexic readers
• Oxford Reading Tree scheme
• Pearson Education
• Books for older pupils at Barrington Stoke

About 80% or more of my lesson time is taken up with reading. I usually offer the pupil a range of books of a suitable level to choose from. We discuss what the story might be about by looking at pictures or chapter headings. Once a choice had been made, I negotiate with my pupils how much they are going to read, so that they have a manageable goal to achieve. I also read to the pupil in order to give a sense of accomplishing a task, to give continuity  to a story and to provide a good model. I should mention here that beginner readers read in a very expressionless way. I sometimes read Roald Dahl’s autobiographical book, “Boy” to older pupils (9 or 10). It is a book which breaks into manageable sections and consists of very amusing and engaging anecdotes. I have two main reasons for doing this. Firstly the book has an extended vocabulary. Children with reading difficulties rarely get an opportunity to expand their vocabulary through their own reading. Secondly, the language structures used are complex and I believe that exposure to “quality” English challenges and trains the pupil’s ability to comprehend and use complex language. I have used Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows” in the same way, but, maybe not surprisingly,  with far less success, probably because the vocabulary is far too rich for modern children and therefore stands in the way of comprehension.

I believe that pupils have/develop their own learning strategies and that they learn a lot from example. Formal teaching is quite often less appropriate than allowing a pupil to regain confidence through lack of formal constraint and modicum of careful guidance. Teaching is always a balancing game. There is a time to intervene and a time to be silent.

I also believe that dyslexic pupils tire quite quickly and the periods when I read are deliberate rest periods. In order to encourage attentiveness, I sometimes warn the pupil that I will suddenly stop and s/he must then point to the word I have stopped on. I may get the pupil to turn the page.

When the pupil reads, I have to strike a balance between allowing wild guessing and a stiff insistence that every word is read correctly. The vast majority of English words contain only one syllable and most pupils can manage to decode these words. The difficulty arises with words of two or more syllables and it is here that I may simply tell the pupil what the word is. If it is a word that has occurred before, I will encourage the pupil to look at the word carefully and work it out.

I make a note of words the pupil struggles with and use them for practice later.

If the reading book is relatively short, I may ask the pupil to find particular words – for example, all the words on a page ending in a common suffix or new words which occur in the book.

Phonics is painful for dyslexic readers. While concentrating on the skills they need to develop, I try to find “fun” ways of tackling this part of the lesson. At this point, my focus is on encouraging the pupil to learn letter/sound correspondences and to work on breaking down and building up words.

A good source of ready-made materials is LDA Learning. A part of my kit is a Phonics Groupwork Set, a range of 300 colour-coded cubes, containing high-frequency letters and blends. It includes 60 red vowels, 60 pink vowel phonemes, 60 blue consonants, 60 yellow initial blends and 60 green final blends.

From the Early Learning Centre I also have a set of word tiles for practising word recognition and sentence structure.

At the simplest level the cubes can be used to develop the pupil’s understanding that the written language consists of strings of segments which go together to make the sounds in words. The pupil can sort the mixed cubes into sets and learn the order in which the letters come in the alphabet.  Each letter has its own sound and it is the association between the appearance of the letters and the sound they “make” that I wish to encourage. At this stage I will encourage the pupil to give me the sound of the letter rather than its name. The colour coded cubes allow me to test the pupil’s knowledge of sound/letter correspondences. I can form a word and get the pupil to break it down sound by sound. I can arrange cubes randomly and get the pupil to reconstruct words. I may concentrate on specific consonant blends or vowel digraphs, getting the pupil to create new words by changing letters at the start or middle of the word.

Usually I invent my own materials in response to specific difficulties the pupil is experiencing. An example would be differentiating ‘what/that’ ‘were/where’ ‘was/wasn’t’. I might write these words on separate piece of paper along with eight or more other words taken from the reading book. In the simplest form the task may be to read the words individually. This is how I usually start off, because without a recognition of the words, nothing else can be attempted. I may then get the pupil to place the words face-down on the table. I will then point to a word which s/he has to recognise. I get the card if the pupil makes a mistake and s/he keeps it if s/he gets it right, allowing some sort of record of progress to be kept. Speed of recognition also needs to be tested. Once the pupil is well acquainted with the words, I place them face-up and point to the words in turn, increasing my speed.

Cards made in this way are given to the pupil’s parent for practice until the next lesson.

A variation on the above game is to write out and cut up a sentence, which the pupil then has to re-arrange.

Either of the two games can be used to practise spelling.

With dyslexic pupils I prefer to keep lessons short – about 30 minutes. If I am employed to work with a pupil for one hour, I will endeavour to break this up into two separate visits.

At all events, given the cognitive difficulties which dyslexic pupils have, progress is very slow. I often discover that words, letter combinations and sounds encountered and practised in one lesson are quite forgotten in the next. It is for this reason that I concentrate mainly on the actual task of reading. It is what the pupil normally wants to do, and learning happens more often through constant repetition, practice and spontaneous, undirected insight rather than through an unwavering appeal to conscious reasoning and precisely targetted teaching. In my experience phonics has to be dosed very carefully. Discouragement can sometimes be so great that work has to be postponed until the pupil regains the confidence to renew his/her effort to learn how to read.

Education in England: a brief history: Derek Gillard

The 1944 Act established a nationwide system of free, compulsory schooling from age 5 to 15. (The school leaving age was raised to fifteen in 1947 and the Act said it should be raised to 16 as soon as practicable). (Gillard)

It also provided for “education otherwise” for those parents who did not wish their children to be educated within the State system. This led to the growth of home schooling.

Even so, the vast majority of pupils in primary and secondary education are educated in State schools with probably less than 5% attending independent schools. While State education is free, parents sending their children to independent schools pay school fees typically ranging between £13,000 and £18,000 per year.

In return parents of children placed in independent schools expect the following advantages, though provision will vary from school to school:

• better resources
• better teachers
• better pastoral care (caring for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the pupils)
• less bullying
• better classroom discipline
• better communication between parents and the school through a regular school report system, giving information about the progress of the child
• smaller class sizes - typically classes run at about 20 as opposed to 30+ in State schools.
• better public examination results (GCSE and A-Level)

Independent Schools operate outside the State system and have greater freedom to experiment and innovate.

Although scholarships and bursaries are available for pupils with special talents, Some argue that the existence of independent schools is divisive. Nevertheless, successive governments have continued to accept the existence of independent schools and most independent schools achieve outstanding results from their pupils.

A third type of school - the Grammar School - has also been accused of being socially divisive.

Grammar Schools select pupils according to ability  on the basis of the “11+ examination” taken by pupils in their last year of primary education at age 10 or 11. The examination is no longer compulsory, and parents usually have to make special arrangements with the Grammar School of their choice for their child to sit the examination.

Grammar Schools resulted from the 1944 Education Act. Although this Act did not specify that such schools should be set up by law, this is what happened in most of the country. A tri-partitite system of education (Secondary modern schools, Technical schools and Grammar Schools) remained the norm until the introduction of Comprehensive Schools in the 1970s.

Gillard (see above) states:

In fact, the Act did not specify any particular kind of secondary school, as J Chuter Ede, Labour Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, pointed out in a speech reported in The Times of 14 April 1944:

‘I do not know where people get the idea about three types of school, because I have gone through the Bill with a small toothcomb, and I can find only one school for senior pupils - and that is a secondary school. What you like to make of it will depend on the way you serve the precise needs of the individual area in the country.’ (quoted in Chitty and Dunford 1999)

However, even though it wasn’t specified, there is no doubt that the tripartite system was the outcome of the Act.

And the effect of the tripartite system was to disqualify a majority of the nation’s children from access to qualifications. The General Certificate of Education (GCE), introduced in 1951, was designed for the top 25 per cent of the ability range. GCE exams were normally taken at 16 (Ordinary Level) and 18 (Advanced Level), mostly in the grammar schools and the independent (public or private fee-paying) schools. The result was that the ‘parity of esteem and prestige’ between grammar and secondary modern schools, which the Act’s authors had envisaged, never became a reality. Competition for grammar school places increased as these schools offered pupils the opportunity of a place at university and thereafter a professional career. The tripartite system thus reinforced the notion that working class children were of lower intelligence.

In response to the criticism that Grammar Schools disqualified a very high percentage of working class pupils from access to qualifications, it can be argued that those working class pupils who did gain a place at a Grammar School (approximately 15%) received an education which was equal, or superior, to that offered in the majority of independent schools.

For many pupils from poor backgrounds the Grammar School provided a unique opportunity to receive an academic education which fitted them for university study and better job opportunities.

The concern in the 1970s, when Grammar Schools came under increased attack, was that most pupils who left Secondary Modern Schools (the schools for those who did not gain a Grammar School place) had no, or few, paper qualifications. Rather than improve provision in Secondary Modern Schools (which would have been a viable alternative), Labour-run Local Education Authorities set out to replace Grammar Schools by Comprehensive schools.

In some Conservative-run LEAs Grammar Schools have survived to the present day, though they are still regarded as socially divisive by many regardless of the educational advantages they offer working class children of superior academic ability.

Further efforts to democratise education occurred at the end of the 1980s when GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) were introduced to replace the former two-tier system of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) and O-Levels (General Certificate of Education at Ordinary Level). O-Levels  were the examinations taken in a number of subjects at Grammar School at the end of secondary education (16) and pupils were awarded Grades A-F with “F” generally recognised as meaning “fail”. CSEs  were taken by the rest and awarded grades 1 - 4. Grade 4 was recognised as the national average and pupils achieving a Grade 1 were considered to have achieved the equivalent of a pass at O-Level.

The examination system was seen as divisive and was eventually replaced by GCSEs at roughly the same time as the National Curriculum was introduced at the beginning of the 1990s. The number of GCSEs to be taken depended on the academic performance of individual pupils and the grades awarded ranged from A - G. These were regarded as “pass” grades in order to include as many pupils as possible. A “U” grade (unclassified) did, however, exist and was given to pupils whose performance was extremely poor.

Initially the Grade A GCSE did not do justice to the wide range of ability which this grade encompassed, since the new Grade A at GCSE was roughly equivalent to Grades A-C at O-Level. This led to an additional GCSE grade being introduced - A* - for those pupils who performed exceptionally well at GCSE.

A comparison of results in 1990, when the first cohort of pupils took their GCSEs, and 2008 shows that there appears to have been a steady improvement the number of pupils achieving at least 5 GCSE passes at Grades A* - C.

YEAR 2008: All pupils (65.3%) Boys (60.9%) Girls (69.9%)
YEAR 1990: All Pupils (34.5%) Boys (30.8%) Girls (38.4%)

Examination papers are produced by a number of examination boards (under the supervision and guidance of the QCA). The papers are sat nationally and schools are free to choose whichever examination board they prefer. Over the years GCSEs have received a great deal of criticism, mainly because some people argue that they have become less challenging over the years and too many school leavers are not proficient in maths and English.  

THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM

The following summary of the NC is based on web pages taken from Hays Specialist Recruitment .

From the ages of 5-16, all children in England and Wales must receive an education based around the four key stages (KS) of the National Curriculum (NC). Below is an introduction to the National Curriculum.

What is the NC?
The National Curriculum was introduced in the UK in 1988 through the Education Reform Act (for Scotland, look at: www.ngflscotland.gov.uk ). Its aims are to:

Establish an entitlement for all children to a certain type of education

• Raise teaching standards
• Create a national framework for education to promote continuity and coherence between schools
• Promote public understanding of, and confidence in, schools

The National Curriculum has continued to develop through further legislation and different governments since that time. It has remained a political ‘hot potato’ and it is the teachers at the chalk facewho have had to cope with each new change.

Areas of study
Within the key stages, different areas of the curriculum are mandatory:

KS1(age 5 - 7/Years 1 & 2) and KS2 (age 8 - 11/Years 3 - 6)) - English, mathematics, science, design and technology, history, geography, art, music and PE
KS3 (age 11 - 14/Years 7 - 9) - All the above, plus a modern foreign language
KS4 (age 14 - 16/Years 10 & 11) - English, mathematics, science, PE, technology and a modern foreign language (there is no longer a requirement for pupils to study a modern language beyond the age of 14)
All students study religious education based on a non-denominational curriculum decided locally. This curriculum should not try to convert pupils or urge a particular religion on them. It needs to reflect the broadly Christian tradition of Britain but should also take in other religions.

For each subject and at each key stage, a school`s programmes of study (or POS) sets out what pupils should be taught. Attainment targets establish the expected standards of pupils’ achievements.

Schools are able to organise the delivery of these POS as they wish. Each school will create its own plans, day by day, week by week, term by term and year by year. Planning within schools can take place on a school, department, key stage, year group or individual teacher level.

Assessment  
Pupils are formally tested by their teacher when they first start school: this is called the baseline test. There are also national tests (or SATs) in English and mathematics at the end of key stages 1 and 2 with the addition of science at the end of key stages 2. At the end of key stage 4, students sit national examinations such as GCSEs or GNVQs.

[The results of SATs are expressed in terms of the level achieved by each child. At KS1 (age 7) pupils can attain levels 1 & 2. At KS2 (age 10) pupils may achieve Levels 3 - 5, with 4 being the national average, which most pupils achieve.]

Pupils can also continue their schooling beyond the age of 16. From 16-18, they can study for further GCSEs or GNVQs, or they work towards the AS/A2 qualifications in individual subjects. They can study for these at secondary schools or in colleges of further education. These qualifications can enable them to progress to university.

The Government is, however, also keen to encourage ongoing education with evening classes and part time study for adult learners in all qualifications from GNVQs to university degrees.

Special needs  
Students with specific learning difficulties, or special needs, are often taught within mainstream schools. Such learning difficulties can be emotional, behavioural, physical or through conditions such as dyslexia.

Such pupils will be monitored and their progress evaluated via an IEP (Individual Education Plan) under the supervision of the school`s SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator). They are assessed as to the level of their needs (from Stage 1 to a full Statement) and the school is then given state funds to help the individuals, either through withdrawal from lessons and/or in-class support, possibly from a learning support assistant. (An independent assessment by an educationalist psychologist not attached to the school is not regarded as valid evidence of special needs.)

There are also around 2000 schools across England and Wales that are special schools. They usually cater for those with severe difficulties. Class sizes are generally very small (around eight) and they follow a simplified, more appropriate National Curriculum.

Organisation in schools
To an extent the organisation of a school will depend on its size. However, every school will have a senior management team to lead it. This team will include the head teacher, one or more deputies and possibly the school bursar.

Primary schools are then further divided into Key Stage teams and possibly year group teams for the purposes of planning the curriculum as well as individual lessons for a particular year. They may also have a number of ‘co-ordinator’, for example for numeracy, literacy or music.

Secondary schools will certainly be split into subject departments with their own programmes of study (sometimes called ’schemes of work’) and departmental policies. These departments may be grouped together into faculties covering arts, technology, humanities, etc.

Secondary schools will also have pastoral teams of form tutors, which can be organised by year group under a year head or vertically through the school in a system of houses under a head of house.

Homework
When setting homework, it is important to follow your school’s homework policy. This will be set out in the staff handbook.

At primary level, homework is likely to be organised on a weekly basis and to concentrate on English, mathematics and science. It may well increase in amount as pupils progress up the school in order to prepare them for secondary education.

In secondary schools, each subject will have at least one ’slot’ per week. You will need to check how much to set each year group and if there is a particular day on which it needs to be set (in other words, do they have a homework timetable to help them to organise their week?) Always bear in mind that successful homework should:

• Be relevant
• Reinforce and extend the core work covered in class
• Not necessarily need too much marking

A major criticism of the NC is that it imposes a narrow academic structure on schools from above, forcing pupils and teachers to follow an academic curriculum which does not satisfy the needs of many pupils.

HOME TUTORING AGENCIES
Drake Tutors (Plymouth) - Tel: 01752 776622

Personal Tutors (National) - Tel: 0161 428 2285 (8am - 4pm Mon - Fri) or 0161 491 4769 (24 hrs)

The Tutor Pages - Nationwide directory of tutors in all subjects

PUBLISHERS
Barrington Stoke
Barrington Stoke is a specialist Edinburgh publisher, publishing books for children who have dyslexia, or who are struggling or reluctant readers. They also publish resources for teachers.

Franklin Watts
Franklin Watts have an excellent reputation for their Literacy Development series

LDA (on-line shop) - ” .. 30 years experience in developing creative and effective solutions to teaching and learning issues that are faced every day by teachers, SENCO’s, teaching assistants and healthcare professionals. ”

Neuron Learning
Neuron provides Fast ForWord ® products in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Fast ForWord Language method is a series of teacher led, computer-delivered exercises that develop the cognitive skills necessary for successful reading and learning.

Penguin Longman Readers
Penguin Longman Readers online catalogue

Publications for teachers
All users can choose to view or download the publications that are relevant to them. Registered users can order copies (paper-based, CDs, videos etc) and receive email alerts to the latest documents.

PUBLICATIONS

The Primary Times
What’s On, Where to Go, What to Do Guide for parents and teachers of Primary school children in the State sector.

The Times Educational Supplement

‘Ed School Follies - The Miseducation of America’s Teachers‘ - Rita Kramer. 1991, 2000
ISBN 0-595-15324-0
“Everywhere, I found idealistic people eager to do good. And everywhere, I found them being told that the way to do good was to prepare themselves to cure a sick society. To become therapists, as it were, specializing in the pathology of education. Almost nowhere did I find teachers of teachers whose emphasis was on the measurable learning of real knowledge.” p.209

ORGANISATIONS

Citizens Commission on Human Rights, http://www.cchr.org
P. O. Box 188
East Grinstead - RH19 1Rl
Tel: 01342 313926 Email: info@cchr.org.uk

League results 2009 (Sorted in descending order)

PLYMOUTH SECONDARY SCHOOLS

League results 2009 (Sorted in descending order)

DEVON PRIMARY SCHOOLS

League results 2009 (Sorted in descending order)

DEVON SECONDARY SCHOOLS

League results 2009 (Sorted in descending order)

You are invited to leave your comments by clicking on the comments link immediately below.

Since dyslexia is a syndrome and not a medical condition, it cannot be diagnosed by clinical tests. Diagnosis relies upon a check list of characteristics which might point to dyslexia (see below). It can be difficult initially to decide whether a child has a specific difficulty such as dyslexia or is experiencing the problems all children face when learning to read. For example, all early learners will confuse ‘b’ and ‘d’ or ‘was’ and ’saw’. The question is how quickly a child overcomes this difficulty, to what extent such problems appear intractable and whether they present a serious impediment to learning how to read. While teachers do not have access to the whole battery of tests available to an educational psychologist, your child’s teacher will be able to tell you how your child is progressing and what his/her reading age is.

SATs results at the end of Key Stage 2 (age 10/11) show that about 20 - 25% of children regularly perform below the attainment targets set by the Government. Children in this percentile are ill-equipped to start KS3, and some secondary schools are keen to identify these children in Year 7 using Cognitive Aptitude Tests (CATs) with a view to providing additional help and eventually improving GCSE results.

In view of the large number of children who fall into this category they cannot all be described as dyslexic. Since a tail of about 25% at the lower and top ends is normal within the normal curve of distribution, it seems fair to conclude that the percentage of genuinely dyslexic children must be much less. Some sources state, reasonably in my view, that only 4% of the population is genuinely affected by dyslexia.

Pupils who are officially diagnosed as dyslexic are awarded extra time to complete their GCSE examination papers. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children), used in diagnosis, is only available to educational psychologists and cannot be administered by teachers. Employing an educational psychologist to conduct the necessary tests is, however, a costly business, and reports commissioned from outside state-maintained schools may be disregarded. In the state-maintained sector the accepted route is through the school liaison officer, the classroom teacher and the coordinator for special needs (SENCO).

Once a child has been officially diagnosed as having a special need, schools should then make proper provision. However, the process of getting your child statemented can be drawn-out and frustrating, with children exhibiting aggressiveness more likely to be taken notice of than those displaying other special educational needs. The process is by no means transparent to the layman and, in my experience, children may also emerge with additional diagnoses such as autism and ADHD and a recommendation that they be placed on medication.

More information about the statementing process and your child’ rights within the education system can be found on line. NetDoctor is one such source of information, though parents should consult several sources before drawing their own conclusion about the best course to follow.

Whether your child is severely affected by difficulties with reading or not, the generally accepted approach to teaching reading is based on a system called “synthetic phonics”. Your child needs to understand one basic thing: that written symbols correspond to the the sounds of language.

The main problem teaching reading  is that there are 44 sounds in the English language but only 26 letters in the alphabet to represent them. Consequently, numerous and apparently arbitrary combinations of letters (from the perspective of the dyslexic) are used to represent different sounds. In fact there is good historical justification for the combinations in use today, but that is no consolation to a ten-year-old struggling with reading.

For example, there are only five vowel letters in English (A E I O U) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowels, yet they have to be combined in different ways to make up 20 different vowel sounds.

At present - whether your child is genuinely dyslexic or just a slow reader - the “phonic” approach to the teaching of reading is the preferred method for all pupils. This is because it is the teaching system which most strongly emphasizes the correspondence between the symbol(s) on the paper and the sounds they represent.

Rudolph Flesch, who launched an assault on the ‘Look and Say’ method in the 1950s, concluded that there were some 218 spelling ‘rules’ in English (’Why Johnny Can’t Read’ (1955) and ‘Why Johnny Still Can’t Read’ (1981)) and that the sound-symbol correspondences should be taught systematically. He claimed that he could teach a dyslexic child by his method how to read within a matter of about six weeks. That begs the question in my view since there are wide differences in cognitive ability among children.

My own experience has shown me that “slow” readers find the phonic approach difficult, precisely because dyslexic children by definition have great difficulty in mapping sounds to letters and vice versa. Teaching dyslexic children by the phonic method (the only method which seems to work) is very slow.

No one can fully explain, in our current state of neurological knowledge, how the brain as a physical object relates to all we are as individuals. Unfortunately, our education system seems slow to recognize skills other than the highly cognitive and to offer satisfactory outlets for individual talent in other areas. The Three Rs play the predominant role in our education system.

At present, I prefer to treat each child with a reading “problem” as an individual rather than a category. If they can grasp the phonic approach, that’s an enormous advantage. My main aims are to encourage interest in reading as a skill of both social and personal importance, to recognize the limitations which each child brings to the problem of learning how to read and to develop a child’s confidence to confront the challenges posed by reading.

IS MY CHILD DYSLEXIC?

The short answer is probably ‘NO’. S/he probably belongs to the 20-25% of children who quite normally find learning to read challenging. Because of the enormous importance which society attaches to being able to read, parents and teachers may pass on their anxieties about perceived deficits to the child. Reading, of course, is only one small part of everything your child does. The most important thing is to offer support and of praise for the 99% of things your child excels at.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?

TURN OFF THE TV!
Talk to your child - OFTEN
Read to your child.
Make an event of it which is enjoyable for you and your child.
Practise reading for about NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES with your child EVERY DAY .
Be flexible in your approach. It’s OK to take a break from the routine.
Take your child to the library and let him/her choose the books s/he wants to read.
Try not to pass your anxieties on to your child.

DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION

Source: http://www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk/Page.aspx?PageId=69:

Please note that for convenience the student is referred to as ‘he’:

All ages

Is he bright in some ways with a ‘block’ in others? Is there anyone else in the family with similar difficulties? Does he have difficulty carrying out three instructions in sequence? Was he late in learning to talk, or with speaking clearly?

Ages 7-11

Does he have particular difficulty with reading or spelling? Does he put figures or letters the wrong way e.g. 15 for 51, 6 for 9, b for d, was for saw? Does he read a word then fail to recognise it further down the page? Does he spell a word several different ways without recognising the correct version? Does he have a poor concentration span for reading and writing? Does he have difficulty understanding time and tense? Does he confuse left and right? Does he answer questions orally but have difficulty writing the answer? Is he unusually clumsy? Does he have trouble with sounds in words, e.g. poor sense of rhyme?

Ages 12 - adult

Is he sometimes inaccurate in reading? Is spelling poor? Does he have difficulty taking notes or copying? Does he have difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters or reports?

Some common problems

You may think that he is not listening, but…. he may have difficulty in remembering a list of instructions he may have problems getting thoughts together coherently for story or essay writing he may have sequencing problems and may need to be taught strategies to cope/alternative ways of remembering.

You may think that he is lazy, but…

he may have difficulty in organising work and need specific teaching to help him he may be able to answer the questions orally but can’t write them down he may have found that the less he writes, the less trouble he gets into for making mistakes You may think that they are not concentrating, but… he may have difficulty in copying accurately. This is often because he cannot remember chunks but needs to look at each letter, write it, then look at the board again, find the place, and so on… You may think that he is careless, but…he may have very poor handwriting as dyslexic people haven’t sufficient hand skills to control the pencil. You may think that he is not checking work, but… he may spell the same word several different ways if he doesn’t have the visual memory to know what is right or the kinaesthetic memory for it to feel right as he is writing. You may think that he doesn’t look carefully, but… He may have a visual memory deficiency and therefore experience difficulty when interpreting symbols. You may think that he is being awkward / impossible on purpose, but… he may be able to produce very good work one day and the next ‘trip up over every word’. ‘Off days’ are quite common and require extra encouragement and understanding.

Some common strengths

You may be surprised that: he has a good visual eye he may be able to arrange the furniture in the classroom very effectively he is very imaginative and skilful with his hands he may be able to make the best models he is practical he may be able to work the computer before the others - even perhaps repair it. He may be able to start the car when others have failed he is mad on sport and may excel at individual sports he has a fantastic imagination he may be able to tell wonderful stories if his long-term memory is good.

General comments

The main problems are: poor sequencing skills poor auditory discrimination and memory poor visual discrimination and memory poor short term memory poor self-confidence

Source: http://www.dyslexia-inst.org.uk/what.htm

Summary

There are many types of learning disability of which dyslexia is only one. In some cases of disability, diagnosis can be difficult. Only a full diagnostic assessment will determine if any child or adult is dyslexic - but there are pointers. As noted, dyslexia is not just a severe reading disorder characterized by reversals. It is a syndrome of many and varied reading and non-reading symptoms such as:

Reading

Memory instability for letters, words, or numbers. A tendency to skip over or scramble letters, words, and sentences. A poor, slow, fatiguing reading ability prone to compensatory head tilting, near-far focusing, and finger pointing. Reversals of letters such as b and d, words such as saw and was, and numbers such as 6 and 9 or 16 and 61. Letter and word blurring, doubling, movement, scrambling, omission, insertion, size change, etc. Poor concentration, distractibility, light sensitivity (photophobia), tunnel vision, delayed visual and phonetic processing, etc.

Writing

Messy, poorly angulated, or drifting handwriting prone to size, spacing, and letter-sequencing errors. Spelling, Math, Memory, and Grammar Memory instability for spelling, grammar, math, names, dates, and lists, or sequences such as the alphabet, the days of the week and months of the year, and directions.

Speech

Speech disorders such as slurring, stuttering, minor articulation errors, poor word recall, and auditory-input and motor-output speech lags.

Direction

Right/left and related directional uncertainty.

Time

Delay in learning to tell time. Concentration and Activity Impaired concentration, distractibility, hyperactivity, or overactivity Behavior, Temper, or Impulse disturbancesBalance and Coordination Difficulties with balance and coordination functions, i.e., walking, running, skipping, hopping, tying shoelaces, and buttoning buttons.

Psychosomatics

Difficulties with headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, motion sickness, abdominal complaints, excessive sweating, and bed-wetting.

Self-esteem

Feeling stupid, ugly, incompetent, brainless. Phobias and Related Mood and Obsessive/Compulsive Disorders Fears of the dark, heights, getting lost, going to school. Fear or the avoidance of various balance, coordination, sports, and motion-related activities. Mood disturbances. Obsessions and compulsions.

The Government scrapped National school testing for 14-year-olds in England as part of a major shake up of testing in primary and secondary education in October 2008.  Key Stage 3 National Curriculum tests are to be replaced by better and more intensive classroom assessment by teachers and more frequent reporting of pupils’ progress to parents. As part of the reforms, an annual School Report Card will be drawn up for every school in England, awarding it a grade from A-F.

While some form of objective comparison of achievement among schools and pupils is useful, there is growing discontent at the high level of stress caused to pupils (particularly at primary level) by national testing and the restrictions placed upon the school curriculum (teaching to the test in Year 6). The BBC’s Education web site (13 May 08) offers a comprehensive review of these concerns based on recent findings of The Commons schools, children and families committee.

A good source of information about the structuring of SATs within the UK is also to be found at the BBC’s Education web site. For more precise detail as to helping your child to mastering the skills required at the various Key Stages, a good source of information is brightminds.co.uk. This is essentially a commercial site, selling a wide range of educational materials for children of all ages, but it will give you an idea of the type of activities children of different ages should be able to cope with even if you do not intend to buy.

If you would like to take a closer look at curriculum content and the concepts which underpin it, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority provides comprehensive information.