Petition · past parliament

Remove pointless learning at Primary Schools, i.e. nonsense words/ parenthesis.

Rejected 13 signatures

What the petition asks

Change what is expected of primary schools. Children should not be taught about nonsense words, parenthesis, phonemes, adjectives, pronouns, adverbials, model verbs etc as all they should be learning is to read and write, not about how language is formed, that should be for GCSE level.
Children should be learning to love reading and writing, and this will only make it less fun and harder. Primary school children should not be expected to learn this, when I didn't even learn it at GCSE. I have never needed to know these things, and it is a pointless waste of time for the pupils and teachers alike.

Why it was rejected

It was not clear what the petition asked the UK Government or Parliament to do.

We understand that you are unhappy with the current English curriculum for primary school students, but it's not clear what changes you want the Government to make.

The curriculum does not include reference to "nonsense words", and grammar and phonemes are referred to in the context of reading and writing, which you want the curriculum to focus on: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425601/PRIMARY_national_curriculum.pdf

If you want the Government to remove statutory requirements for primary school students to be taught grammar and phonemes you could start a new petition calling for this.

Timeline

18 Jun 2020 Petition opened for signatures
3 Sep 2020 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 13
Status Rejected
Rejected 3 Sep 2020

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.