YOU WERE WRONG

Memory's

Year 3
Age: 8
Maths class :

Through out the lower years of junior school the things they first teach in maths are simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

The method of teaching us our times tables was to use an online singing guy, who had a different animated song and dance per times table. He was called Percy Parker.

I bet you remember him.

I do.

For everyone else it seemed to work. Well it didn't for me.

"Practise singing the songs at home," they said.

Fat lot of use that was. 

Didn't you get it? That method didn't work for me. Did you try anything else? No.

So that was that.

................

Year 4 

Age: 9

Reading time:

We had different levels of reading to help us progress. Do you remember? I can. 

The books would be colour coded. To match the level of difficulty it was. Everyone started on the same colour from Reception. Then as you got better you moved up a level onto the next set of coloured books. The system carried on throughout the years up to year five I think, when we stopped having to read to a teacher. 

The highest level was black, but before that there was dark blue, then purple, then brown, then dark green, then I cant remember. The only thing I properly remember was being at least three or four levels behind everyone else. Most would move up two or three levels a year. 

When we moved up a school year you would ask us what colour we were on and then to go and select a book from that colour to read. 

I remember moving from year three to year four and being asked what colour I was in. 

I lied and said that I was two levels higher than I was in hopes of catching up with everyone else. You noticed I was bad after the first page and told me that I would be moving down a level. 

That hurt. 

I never did complete all of the levels. 

.................

Year 5
Age: 10
Spelling groups:

Spelling was the thing that was most obvious about me. Dam I couldn't spell. It was well known. I had accepted it as a fact even if I didn't understand why I had such trouble with it.
Once a week we would have to do spelling tests. We would go into our groups based on ability and get tested on the words that we had been set to learn using the Look Cover Wright Check method.

To begin with there were three groups. I was in the bottom group. But later in the year you decided that another group was needed because their was still to much mixed ability in each set.

Well guess what? The only two people who got moved down into the bottom bottom set was me and this other guy who had been diagnosed with a couple of learning disabilities. I don't know what they were it was a long time ago.

So you can imagine how I felt about that.

It didn't help with my spelling ether.

..............

Year 5
Same age
Learning support:

Some schools give extra help to those who need it. I had it for as long as I could remember. But I hated it. They weren't one to one. They were in groups of three to five.