Numeracy and Literacy Roll-out

pog it

Can anyone explain to me what this is about? I can't understand how this could possibly be needed and modern languages to be axed from the primary curriculum.

What is behind this? Surely, this is covered by English and Maths- the two main subjects taught in primary schools?

TheDriver

thats where the common misconception is totally wrong, its across all subjects. Take Home Ec, there may be no time spent on measurements and what they mean hence numeracy etc. It all comes from the PISA tests where we are nowhere near as good as we think we are and its down to people not being good at basic reading and counting.
I think in 3 years time, C in hons maths will be required for primary teaching entry and maths content will be taught on the college courses.

Its very wide ranging and not just a narrow area.

gubbie

I want to know how they're incorporating Numeracy into English!
*I've asked many English teachers

implausible

gubbie wrote: »

I want to know how they're incorporating Numeracy into English!
*I've asked many English teachers

I get my students to convert their exam results into percentages. I spent ten minutes the other day explaining why the 17th century is the 1600s. When writing argumentative essays, I give examples of statistics, how to use them and what they mean.

The idea is that ALL teachers need to focus on literacy and numeracy, not leaving it to the English and Maths teachers or presuming that the students know it. A practical teacher in my school recently complained at a meeting about second years not being able to spell 'mortice chisel' and that it was the English Department's fault, while I looked at him open-mouthed. It hadn't occurred to him that maybe he should teach the spelling, correct it when wrong or stick it up in the room as a key word.

TheDriver

gubbie wrote: »

I want to know how they're incorporating Numeracy into English!
*I've asked many English teachers

now thats just pedantic.......

pog it

implausible wrote: »

I get my students to convert their exam results into percentages. I spent ten minutes the other day explaining why the 17th century is the 1600s. When writing argumentative essays, I give examples of statistics, how to use them and what they mean.

The idea is that ALL teachers need to focus on literacy and numeracy, not leaving it to the English and Maths teachers or presuming that the students know it. A practical teacher in my school recently complained at a meeting about second years not being able to spell 'mortice chisel' and that it was the English Department's fault, while I looked at him open-mouthed. It hadn't occurred to him that maybe he should teach the spelling, correct it when wrong or stick it up in the room as a key word.

Fantastic. Fair play to you. Are you a primary school teacher?

implausible

pog it wrote: »

Fantastic. Fair play to you. Are you a primary school teacher?

No. Secondary. We are in a DEIS school, so there has been a big push on literacy and numeracy in our place over the last 2 years.

mick kk

I get a feeling that this whole thing is aimed at the teachers who cannot spell rather than the students

pog it

mick kk wrote: »

I get a feeling that this whole thing is aimed at the teachers who cannot spell rather than the students

It's being rolled out in the UK too it seems. Just a general deterioration overall it looks like.. why we couldn't have kept the modern languages initiative and got primary teachers to knuckle down a bit more as regards numeracy and literacy is beyond me.

byhookorbycrook

Yes, Póg it, you are right, it's all the fault of primary teachers.:rolleyes:

cruizer101

In fairness i wouldn't necessarily say fault of primary teachers, however I think it is a fault at primary level. For years students came out of primary school much more literate than levels today but for some reason, be it something in primary school or maybe even lack of education at home, students are at a much lower level when going into secondary school.
I reckon efforts need to be targeted at primary level, note I'm not saying primary teachers but rather just at that age group that is when numeracy and literacy should be learned in my opinion.

byhookorbycrook

Primary curriculum is overloaded. There are not enough support teachers and now learning support also has to absorb language support.It takes years to get a child diagnosed with dyslexia and then they may not even qualify for support teaching.Very few psychologists seem to recognise dyscalculia and even fewer semm to be able to suggest strategies to help.

Rote learning of tables was almost frowned on for the last 20 years, so now children depend on calculators.Bigger class sizes with so many emotional and behavioural needs also don't help.

No extra time has been allocated for this, it's all sizzle and no sausage. R Quinn has not told us what to cut to spend the extra time on literacy and numeracy.

afkasurfjunkie

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Primary curriculum is overloaded. There are not enough support teachers and now learning support also has to absorb language support.It takes years to get a child diagnosed with dyslexia and then they may not even qualify for support teaching.Very few psychologists seem to recognise dyscalculia and even fewer semm to be able to suggest strategies to help.

Rote learning of tables was almost frowned on for the last 20 years, so now children depend on calculators.Bigger class sizes with so many emotional and behavioural needs also don't help.

No extra time has been allocated for this, it's all sizzle and no sausage. R Quinn has not told us what to cut to spend the extra time on literacy and numeracy.

the revised curriculum was rolled out and teachers were expected to teach ' all singing and dancing' lessons where the child was as active as possible. in fact it was almost discouraged to have children sitting in rows taking in information from the teacher.
parents are also now more likely to barge in the door to complain that' little johnny cant be expected to learn ALL his tables, sure cant he use a calculator? and what on earth does he need to know all the counties of ireland for? haven't we got a sat-nav in the car.'
i think we are now reaping the rewards of this system and are bascially being told to go back to the way things were.

pog it

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Yes, Póg it, you are right, it's all the fault of primary teachers.:rolleyes:

I didn't say that. The majority of primary teachers, yes.

byhookorbycrook

I see a huge disparity between infants starting at school. We have had children coming in reading Harry Potter (seriously!) and then children who have never even seen a book(seriously-and sadly.)

Children are a lot less likely to read for pleasure too.

As for maths, under DES guidelines, you have to take everyone below the 10th percentile in literacy first and then if there is any space (and since the language teaching has been cut,it's unlikely)then take maths groups.

It's amazing the amount of children who don't know months of the year, days of the week, seasons ,how many m=1 km and all the other measures like capacity/volume) ,who can't read an analogue clock etc. The old "Treasury of English " books covered a lot of that stuff, but most of us knew it from home anyhow.We learned to bake and how to weigh things too.

Again, a big disparity in children starting school. class teacher has to try to help the children not getting support teaching, which impacts on all the other children, as teacher has less and less time for them.

Problem-solving is a real issue too. Children very often don't have to think,as all the thinking is done for them,so when they hit something they don't know,they can down tools instead of trying to "Figure It Out" as the old maths book was called.

Library and book grants are cut to nothing,so if the bould Ruairí is actually serious about this,then we need resources.

tomomara

byhookorbycrook, while I sympathise with the plight of the under-resourced schools all over the country, I think many teachers also need to start working with parents more closely to ensure they can effectively support their children with learning outside school.

I say this as I work in the area of literacy and my little girl started school last September. I have been appalled at the lack of communication from her school and teacher around what is happening and being taught in the classroom. Hand written notes are sent home with the vaguest of instructions and often activities are provided for homework without any explanation. Luckily myself and my wife taught TEFL for years so can work this type of thing out. But I really wonder about many other parents of kids in my girl's class.

It's not all about teaching hours, books, technology and money. A little interaction between teachers and parents can go a long way too!

(But as I said at the start, I still believe many cuts are very unfair and tough on teachers.)

byhookorbycrook

Communication is key. If you feel you are out of the loop, make an appt with teacher for a meeting.

happywithlife

i for one am glad it is finally being addressed!

i am tired of being told by students that they "cutted the oinin", they "pealed the potato", or they used 100gramms of milk in a recipe .....
i try to get students to work out the cost of their ingredients and they look at me like i'm from another planet when i calculate say the price of 100g of flour off the top of my head. they cannot understand that they are using a tenth of a 1kg bag, so its a tenth of the price etc...

i correct exam papers as well and find there has been a notable drop in the standard of literacy,especially in the last two years

in the early years, i corrected spelling and grammer as much as anything else, but will hold my hands up and say i let this slip as time went by.
but i do realise that the line has been crossed now and we need to address this problem.

it is easy to incorporate numeracy and literacy into every subject - as one teacher said at our staff meeting, if the english teachers only get the class to work out the ratio of irish poets to non irish poets then it reinforces the message.

lestat21

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

As for maths, under DES guidelines, you have to take everyone below the 10th percentile in literacy first and then if there is any space (and since the language teaching has been cut,it's unlikely)then take maths groups.

Will that still be the case under the new listeracy & numeracy initiative??

I'm giving my brother best friend some help as hes repeating his leaving cert maths this year (Free of charge!!) and I was horrified to realise that he has trouble telling the difference between addition and multiplication!!
Im starting to think that hes an undiagnosed dyslexic!! and he has gotten no support in school at any level...

If they want to improve numeracy and literacy they need to target at risk students with extra resource hours at primary level... but that would cost money...

byrnesy00

came across some no cost literacy resources dat rock! For secondary but you could change and use them for primary. see here

byhookorbycrook

Lesat, it might well be dyscalculia, which is a specific maths difficulty.
Learning support guidelines are as old as the hills, but the DES is doing nothing(again) to update them. Schools get very little in the way of psychological assessments so it's only the very severe cases that get seen.

Children with dyslexia used to get 30 mins resource time but that was cut and now they have to try and fight for space in the already crowded learning support system.Children with dyslexia may score say on the 11th percentile in standardized tests and so are not eligible for learning support.Don't get me started.

birdlake

implausible wrote: »

A practical teacher in my school recently complained at a meeting about second years not being able to spell 'mortice chisel' and that it was the English Department's fault, while I looked at him open-mouthed. It hadn't occurred to him that maybe he should teach the spelling, correct it when wrong or stick it up in the room as a key word.

:eek::eek::eek: How did you keep your cool? I think the steam coming out of my ears would give me away if I had to listen to that!!

Heydeldel

Hi all,

I think this is a really interesting area (i'm a student -teacher of English). I'm trawling through the PISA report on the 2009 literacy test, ( for a project on curriculum issues) it seems we're not as bad as we think - significant factors such as non- English speaking students and the inclusion of more mixed - ability students could have affected the score. Also, the skills Irish teens fall down on are clearly shown in the report. It gives sample questions and shows the percentage of correct and incorrect answers and percentile comparisons.

My biggest worry is that as teachers we are forced to spend so much time on lower order questioning as that's what the exams look for. We are too caught up in teaching content rather than the skills required for interpreting, retrieving, analyzing and synthesizing information etc.

The 2009 test also tested for digital literacy which is pretty much ignored in the Irish syllabus and exams.

I think the teacher training courses need to offer way more in the line of teaching literacy/numeracy skills, but I think this is on the horizon.

Sorry if this sounds incoherent, 96 pages of PISA report does strange things to a brain...

http://www.erc.ie/documents/p09teachersguide.pdf