One in 5 children failing in English, why ?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-120414 0/One-children-failing-English-Sats-results-fa ll-time-15-years.html

Could it be because----------------------------?

Latest figures translate to some 470,080 pupils in primary schools and 354,300 pupils in secondary schools whose first language is thought not to be English.

Certain areas, such as inner London where 53.4% of pupils do not speak English as a first language.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7372853.s tm

[anotheoldgit]

Eleggantly

I think to blame your typing ability for your poor English is just a poor excuse.

Typing mistakes can easily be rectified by just reading through what you have typed, if you can spot the mistakes that is.

[TCL-MUMPING]

"The figures of pupils who do not speak English as their first language is (sic) from the BBC" The figures...IS from the BBC? .

[New Judge]

I know little of the Cambridge University study, Gromit and can only speak from my own experiences.

I did not as a child and do not now move in particularly exalted circles. However, I do come across many people from all walks of life in some of the work that I currently do. I can say quite confidently that it is extremely rare to encounter anybody over the age of about 50 who cannot read and write reasonably competently. However, the number of people I meet aged under about 30 who lack such basic skills is alarming to say the least.

If you can, do an admittedly unscientific straw poll yourself to see what I mean. If you believe that primary school standards (by which I mean basic results � teaching children to read, write and add up) are better today than fifty years ago, we must be living in different countries.

[sp1814]

Let's do some maths here...

How many kids in total are in primary and secondary education?

Now take those figures and represent 470,080 and 354,300 as a percentage of that number...

Whaddya get?

Ya get a dirty great big hole blown in the argument...that's what you get.

[Gromit]

New Judge

My sister left school in the early 1970s unable to read. Now she is 50 she has since learned to read adequately.

In the late 1970s, Bob Hoskins first break was an educational series called On the Move a series for adults who had difficulty with reading and writing. The show is credited with removing the stigma with literacy problems which people had tried to hide for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Move_(TV_s eries)

This problem is not new, but has been improving greatly until the present figures show a dip for the first time in 14 years.

[New Judge]

Looking at the total school population (up to age 16) you get about 8% and 6% respectively, sp1814 (based on about 7 million pupils in school).

However, this report is not about those over eleven. It is about those leaving primary school. There are about 3.5 million children at primary school, and about 650,000 leave for secondary education each year. It is those pupils to whom this report refers and I still maintain that the proportion of those failing to achieve the most basic levels of literacy is scandalous..

[tamborine]

It would be beneficial If every child had a simple english verbal test before being accepted into school.