DS punished for teachers mistake

It depends on how old he is and is it a standard rule not to change/draw/do anything to the covers of books.

He's 8 it's the very first thing the OP wrote. No child let alone an 8 year old deserves a punishment in this situation because they've not done anything wrong.

God no. Then he’d be in trouble for vandalising the new book!

Possibilities I can think of that would be acceptable to me:

• Is there a way that you can carefully remove the cover from the new book and replace or neatly attach it over the top of the old one?
• Is his corrected name on the old book in pencil that can be erased and the new sticker lifted with steam and glued on to the old one?
• Carefully using a craft knife remove the pages he has written on, trim them slightly smaller around each edge and glue securely into the new book
• Write a note to the teacher telling her that you have done this as you don't find it fair to punish your child by making him copy out work he has already done due to her name labelling error. I'd also somehow include reference to the fact that you do not consider him correcting his own name on his own workbook to be "graffiti".

It depends on how old he is and is it a standard rule not to change/draw/do anything to the covers of books.

When I was year 8 we had a very chilled geography teacher. Me and my friend spent the year during boring bits decorating the covers of our books, despite knowing that wasn't allowed.
When we learnt at the start of year 9 who was our teacher that year we sighed and went and begged (paid for!) new books and copied our holiday work into the new book.
We knew that we shouldn't have done it, but when faced with probably a detention at best for doing it, we took preventative action without resentment. It was a fair cop really.

I’m a teacher and I’ve done exactly the same thing as yours on did, when my title was printed incorrectly on a little desk sign for parents evening. I wouldn’t support making him redo the work.

I would also say no to this ridiculous mistake and would just glue the page he’s done into the new book. You could send a note with it to explain that he isn’t writing out all his work all over again due to a mistake he didn’t make

I'd be annoyed. It's hardly vandalism.

And a punishment that OP's son doesn't deserve because the mistake wasn't his, but the teacher's.

Wrong. Re-read the salient point from OP's first post "He told the teacher his name was wrong on the label and was told not to worry about it, he didn't ask and so wasn't told not to correct it but decided to scribble out ‘Tom’ and write ‘Tommy’ below."

I wouldnt want to fuff with the new book at all. If absolutely necessary, print a big aenough label to go on the old current one.

That’s ridiculous of the teacher. Cut the pages out of the old book and stick them in the new one (although the teacher could easily have done that themselves). Hand it to them yourself and explain you won’t be having him waste his time for their mistake. They should know his name halfway through the school year, it’s just rude of them.

This isn't what happened but even if it was; what's that teaching him? That it's okay to ignore errors, not speak up, you'll be punished if you highlight something that's wrong?

The teacher made a mistake, he's right to correct that mistake

I disagree. He was not told not to correct it, so was not ignoing or disobeying an instruction.

@babynot I would return the new work book to the teacher with a note:
"Dear teacher, I am returning this work book as it is not needed. I think language is important, as are facts, and Tommy did not 'vandalise' his work book. He was issued a book with the wrong name on it and when he drew your attention to this you told him not to worry about it. He didn't want a work book with the incorrect name on it, so he crossed out the wrong name and wrote the correct name underneath. He should not be punished, by having to redo his work in this new book, for something that was not his fault, so I have stuck two clean labels on the front of his original work book and written his correct name on it clearly and neatly. I am sure you will agree this is a pragmatic solution. I have to say, given that even basic resources are stretched in most schools, I'm surprised that a work book would be wasted for such a trivial reason. Regards,"

As a teacher that would be so far down my list of worries!

Strange thing for them to get wound up over.

That’s ridiculous! I’m a teacher and I would never do something like that - there is absolutely nothing to be gained from re writing work that has been done! Yes, I might say something about him writing on the book ( although she should have just changed his name on the book when he said it , he has a right to be called by the name he prefers ) purely just to set standards really , personally I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid but I just mean I kind of get that .. but re writing work he has already done is just ridiculous .

It seems like a very old school thing , a pointless punishment - like writing lines !

How very odd. Obviously name needs to be corrected if its wrong. Asking him to copy his work into a new book which is wasting resources is ridiculous.

PS. I never got round this thing with names in the UK. In my home country the child would be named Thomas and that would be put on school books, whatever the child would be called and referred to as.

To be fair I think that last point is the most crucial. It's not September, we're now in March for goodness sake. Surely by now the very minimum the teacher should know about your child is their name.

I would cut the front covers from the books and sticky tape the new cover to the old book. I would also advise the teacher that the mistake was the staff's, not the child's, so a bit of leniency would not go amiss.

If the teacher did intend to change the sticker in due course so the kid's name was right, then she should have told him she would get it sorted and to leave it for now. Her lack of communication is not the child's fault.

I would speak to her and ask why he couldn't correct his own name, why she couldn't stick a good sticker over the bad one, and why after 6 months of teaching him she didn't know his name.

Yes, a stupid instruction. Good for him.

I do not understand why schools/teachers police the children’s names like they do.

My oldest DS has a proper first name but is and always has been called by his first initials. Mostly because I’m not over keen on his first name-I agreed to give him it (family name) on the basis he was called by his initials. His infant and junior school INSISTED on calling him by his proper name. Said they couldn’t consider calling him by his initials. Strangely his secondary school couldn’t give two hoots and have called him by his initials the whole 5 and a bit years he’s been there. They even managed to print his GCSE certificates with his official name and everything despite having never called him it.

The teacher is a twat and I’d not only be not making him copy out his work but I would be having words with him/her as well.

This ⬆️
and the reason I’m no longer teaching!

Absolutely this. What a waste of resources also.

Having labelled books and trays in a primary, I would request a new label to stick over the incorrect one. He has already completed the work and this would be my hill to die on. It is the teacher's mistake in the first place for not checking what name the child goes by. It is something we take a lot of care over because names are very important.