Published letters on education

• Literacy in Schools - October 2009

• Language Learning and oral exams - Feb 2008

Literacy in Schools - October 2009

If formal literacy lessons benefited very young children you would expect to see the UK was ahead of other
countries on literacy. In fact the reverse is the case.

In most of Europe children do not learn to read and write until they are six or seven. Before that age they are learning all the other skills they need in life; learning to play, to explore, to discover, to socialise and interact with other people.   

With three children in school, I have seen the stresses the UK approach brings first hand. One child was criticised for ‘wasting time’ in her first year at primary school. She was four years old. How can you waste time at four years old?

Another daughter informed us, after her first day in year one, that her class couldn’t play anymore, except for ten minutes on Friday afternoons, if they’d been good. In year six she became bored out of her mind as an entire year was devoted to practicing for Sats exams instead of learning. Her teacher was as upset as his pupils, having to squander a year on something that was for the school’s benefit and not the children’s.

Playing is learning - learning to co-ordinate muscles by drawing and scribbling, learning to organise thoughts and communicate opinions. Let children learn to paint and catch a ball, listen to stories and make friends. Then, when they are six and seven, they’ll be ready to begin formal literacy and numeracy lessons, and they will be well-adjusted human beings, and the UK won’t continue to be listed in Unicef reports as having the unhappiest children in the West.

Language Learning and oral exams - Feb 2008

The government's latest announcement, that GCSE pupils learning foreign languages should not be required to sit oral exams, because they are stressful, is as ridiculous as it is predictable.

Foreign language skills are already lamentably low in this country compared with the rest of Europe. The idea that you can be proficient in a modern language without being able to actually speak it in front of an examiner is a further sign of the Labour government's detachment from reality.

What will our new language 'specialists' do in the real world after their exams? Go into a patisserie and wave a GCSE certificate about instead of speaking? Ask for a discrete curtain to be drawn across the counter to allow them to speak 'foreign' without feeling embarrassed, perhaps?

The first time you try to order a meal in Italian, German or Japanese, it is stressful. The second time is less stressful. Pretty soon it becomes enjoyable. The learning is in the doing.

If the government is serious about removing stress from schools, how about removing the SATS exams little children are obliged to sit in primary school? How about looking at the way reading and writing is taught across Europe, where literacy rates are often higher than in this country, instead of obliging nurseries to force feed alphabets to three year olds?

Being able to speak more than one language is a huge advantage in life. It transforms the way you think and the way you see the world. If more of our MPs spoke foreign languages they would be more engaged with the world around them.

A modern language qualification without an oral is like music without sound - pointless.

Published and promoted by Christian Vassie, 10 Blake Court, Wheldrake, York YO19 6BT