Award-winning children's author Jacqueline Wilson has hit out at British children's writing skills and said that children across the rest of Europe have better grammar and spelling.
Jacqueline told The Independent that the letters she receives from young readers from abroad might not be in perfect English, but their spelling and grammar is more exact than those from British children.
"They're writing in English, and apologising for their English, yet these letters will be more grammatical and spelt more properly than [those from] our own children. It's quite extraordinary," she says.
Dame Jacqueline added that in the two decades she has been getting fan mail, standards have notably slipped, and that she now gets correspondence with 'text language' in it.
"Many children didn't even bother to try to write properly, resorting to 'text language'" she says.
The Tracy Beaker author put this down to her belief that children were simply not being taught how to spell in school.
"Spelling doesn't seem to be something that happens [at school]. I don't think it is being taught," she said.