Last week there was a lot of talk by teachers, parents and MPs about bringing in national standards in primary schools. A national standard is a list of things that children must be able to do each year. Maybe the standard for year 1 is to be able to count to 100 by the end of the year. If the pupils can do this, they have reached the standard.
There are national standards already in schools but the difference will be that each school will need to send their results to the Ministry of Education. Schools will need to show how many pupils are below the standard, have reached the standard or are above the standard. Teachers are worried that the Ministry of Education will make these results public so that people can see that School A has more pupils who reach the standard than School B.
Primary schools will have to focus more literacy which means reading and writing, and numeracy which means arithmetic. Pupils will be tested in many ways. Sometimes the teacher does not need to use tests but instead can listen to a child reading or can read what a child has written. This way, the teacher knows whether the child can read or write at the national standard.
The Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, says that one reason for bringing in these standards is find out and help those pupils who are below the standard. Another reason is so that parents can see exactly how their child is doing at school. Our schools do not use marks, grades, percentages or place in class so sometimes it is hard for parents to know if their child is doing well at school. School reports from next year will tell parents if their child has reached the national standard for reading, writing and arithmetic.
The Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, says that one reason for bringing in these standards is find out and help those pupils…
Pls explain why does not use past tense of FIND being FOUND in the above sentence.
Last week there was a lot of talk by teachers…
Why does not use “were a lot of talks” instead of “was a lot of talk”.
What an interesting question!
When talk is uncountable, it usually means the same as discussion. When it is countable, it is often more formal e.g. The Prime Minister held talks with other Prime Ministers. It can also mean individual talks like speeches in a classroom e.g. The students gave one-minute talks yesterday.
Here it is used as an infinitive. The sentence means: to find out and to help … Often we leave out to in a sentence like this.
What’s up i am kavin, its my first time to commenting anyplace, when i read this post i thought i could also make comment due to this sensible paragraph.
hello miss Syme! i’ve noticed that you say “focus more ON literacy” but it(on) isnt in the text and please may you tell me more about how they avaluated if there isnt score or grade on their test(do they have test or exams at school?) to see close and regularly whether they’re keeping up with the topics etc so that they themselves, their parents and the school can take some attitude to help them, how can they check their progress? All the best, cheers!
Yes, I did say ‘focus on’ and it should be in the written text but sometimes I make mistakes. Mostly primary schools do not use exams but they may use a variety of small tests. Some classroom teachers are with the class 25 hours a week so they know their students very well.
it must feels more pleasant to the kids rather than a heavy weight on their shoulders, I was just puzzled that there wasnt a way to find out your progress but I thought it quite interesting the first time I read it, they’ll learn for the fun of it, mostly.
Thanks for your answer, miss Syme, g’day!!