As a follow-up to my last post about the GPS test, I'll emphasise several things. This is in order to avoid misunderstanding.
1. My sole focus in the blog was on primary education. It's not a commentary on whether grammar should ever be taught, or when it should be taught. The GPS was devised for Year 6 students.
2. My focus has also been on the justification for the test. It was never justified or argued for on intellectual or pedagogical grounds. I think that's shoddy educational practice.
3. It was introduced solely on the grounds that it was necessary to assess whether teachers could teach and that this test would be an appropriate way to do it. Why? Because grammar has 'right and wrong answers'. (Bew Report 2011). This last statement is untrue. Grammar does not have right and wrong answers.
4. Arguing about whether the grammar in the GPS is OK or appropriate is skewed by the fact that the grammar being tested has been devised so that it can be tested! In other words, there is a key problem in that the grammar is not being taught on the grounds that it is interesting or important but that it will serve for testing. One example of this: the test is full of 'trainspotting': identifying word classes and naming them. This reduction of 'grammar' to naming terminology is of very limited use or purpose and is quickly forgotten.
5. The test determines what is taught and how it is taught. Written English is hugely diverse. This test narrows written English to one form, and mostly to one genre. This is a misleading representation of what written English is. I have written on this blog of ways in which we live in a world with a huge variety of forms of written English.
6. A core idea in the test is that there is some kind of concrete, measurable difference between 'formal' and 'informal' English. This is not explained or justified, and is, in many circumstances, including in the test itself, untrue.
7. It is often stated that learning the terminology helps children learn modern foreign languages.
a) I've never seen any evidence to prove this.
b) there is no statutory requirement to teach primary aged children a MFL at the moment. If and when there is that requirement, we can have that discussion.
c) it's a big leap to suggest that doing GPS in Year 6 helps children in Year 7-11 learn MFLs
d) some of the terminology used for MFLs is different from the terminology in the GPS. One example, the terms used to describe French verbs are similar to the ones used for English verbs eg 'simple past' 'passé simple', or 'perfect' and 'parfait' but the uses or verbs forms are different. (eg you don't use the 'passé simple' in speech). In effect, when you learn this MFL you have to unlearn the GPS.
8. This whole discussion is beset with the problem that we don't have it on the basis of talking about grammar for 10 and 11 year olds as an intellectual and pedagogical issue - ie on its own merits. It constantly starts from what is an intellectually disreputable starting-line: the GPS test.
9. I'm 100% in favour of having a discussion about why grammar, what grammar, how grammar for 10 and 11 year olds, without reference to the GPS. I hardly ever see that discussion going on. We never seem to be able to get beyond talking about how best to teach the GPS.
10. There is a basic principle involved in learning grammar. Do we teach grammar before, during or after 'competence' (ie how we speak and write)? The GPS has hugely overloaded this matter with the 'before'. And worse: it has interfered with the 'how' by shoehorning in the GPS grammar into the 'expected levels' of writing. There are many absurd examples of this, none so obvious than rewarding the usage of 'fronted adverbials', 'expanded noun phrases' and the like. However, the matter is exemplified by the gov.uk exemplifications of expected levels' where a child's writing is analysed according to GPS criteria. The response by the commentator on the writing by 'Dani', hardly makes mention of what the child is writing about, what kind of effect the writing has on the reader, or indeed what it's for. In other words, writing is drained of purpose, meaning and effect. There is no better example of where all this has ended up: in a place where we talk of writing as if it is merely a demonstration of the usage of curriculum-led structures. This is an absurd and meaningless place to have ended up.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a82d52a40f0b62305b94969/2018_exemplification_materials_KS2-WTS__Dani_.pdf
