[Nobar King]

Kids can learn to spell by themselves:

Learning spelling lists too 'distressing' for kids: UK school

October 3, 2008 -

A British primary school has axed spelling homework because students find it "distressing" to learn lists. Children at the Whitminster Church of England Primary, in Gloucestershire, will no longer be given a short list of words to learn each week because staff believe it can leave them feeling like failures, the Mail Online reports.

Headmistress Debbie Marklove, whose school has just over 100 pupils aged four to 11, has invited parents to a meeting to explain her reasons. Earlier, in a newsletter, she told parents: "You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week. "We have taken the decision to stop spelling as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work. "Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing."

She said spelling lists were sometimes simply tests of memory. If kids were able to get four out of five right at home with the parents, but only one out of five right in the class room, it could lead to a sense of failure, she said. She said the school continued to teach spelling during class. A spokesman for the school said no parents had complained about the policy.

But Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said the decision would come back to back to haunt her pupils as some spellings, particularly irregular words, needed to be learned. "Youngsters will feel a sense of failure more strongly when they go into the world of work and can't produce a letter or a report for their employers," he said.

What will they cut back on next, homework? Tests? Maybe let the parents come to school with the kids to hold their hands?

Maybe the problem is with the teachers. Do they even need to be accredited to teach over there? Maybe it's just some stupid high school dropouts teaching third grade.

I can understand why so many send their kids to Catholic school even if they don't believe in that, just for the education. Just wait, 20 or 30 years from now how English will look in England. They may just have to adopt txtspk to keep everything from falling apart.