Schools told not to teach ‘i before e except after c’ spelling rule

Generations of children have learnt how to spell by chanting “i before e except after c”, but new guidance from the Government says that schools should stop teaching the rule because it is irrelevant and confusing.

The National Strategies document Support for Spelling, which is being sent to primary schools, says: “The i before e rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear ee sound. Unless this is known, words such as sufficient and veil look like exceptions.

“There are so few words where the ei spelling for the ee sounds follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words.” These include receive, ceiling, perceive and deceit.



The guidance contains 124 pages of ideas for teachers on how to draw up interesting and engaging lessons on spelling. These include analysing television listings for compound words, changing the tense of a poem to practise irregular verbs and learning about homophones through jokes such as “How many socks in a pair? None — because you eat a pear.” While other spelling conventions are useful, it says, “i before e except after c” should be ditched.

Greg Brooks, a literacy expert, formerly of the University of Sheffield, said that the rule was thoroughly misleading. He said there were too many exceptions, including eight, feisty, foreign, heinous, protein and seize.

Masha Bell, who has campaigned for English spelling to be simplified, said: “I before e is not a good rule. There are other sayings that are more useful, like ‘one collar, two socks’ for ‘necessary’. But children are having to fill their heads with this rubbish — because spelling is rubbish. I think the spelling system should be reformed. We could get rid of the silliest anomalies.”