To think teacher should know the difference

They should be getting it right, but I’d make sure you’re 100% sure it’s the teacher who has written it before raising it. I say this as a teacher who often types messages (correctly) onto a Google Doc only to have admin staff type it up (incorrectly) onto a fancy newsletter template rather than just copy and pasting. It’s not ideal that it’s wrong in this scenario, but it’s not the same as someone who may be making slides/worksheets etc for students getting it wrong.

🤣🤣🤣

Come off it. This is not ok. It’s embarrassing. 😆

I think many professions are suffering from the loss of 'secretaries'. I worked in a bank way back and nothing was sent out that hadn't been typed by a secretary. When it all changed to staff doing their own letters, the quality was shocking. Fwiw the secretary was often the most senior and wel paid female member of staff in the branch in those days.

The same has happened in schools. Our HT's PA has just retired. She was an old fashioned executive PA and she corrected all the staff's correspondence without them even knowing (and yes, the HT and teaching staff needed it more than you'd imagine). That won't happen with her replacement.

I think it is worth considering why this is happening:

• Overwork. As a pp mentioned, there are strategies someone who finds grammar / spelling harder can use, but where teachers are massively overloaded, there is no time for checking etc.
• Overload of senior and admin staff. When I first trained, heads and admin staff would have had capacity to check communications. Now they don’t.
• Recruitment and retention. Teaching is not a respected or desirable career, nor is it sustainable long term. So there is in many schools a churn of young teachers with low grades, and a lack of experienced, highly educated ones.
• Lack of money. Young, early career teachers are cheap. Additional staff are axed (I used to get my TA to proofread anything I sent out; my Head asked me to proofread). With 1 adult per class of children who absolutely cannot be left unsupervised for a moment, that checking is no longer possible.
• Parental antagonism. Where a school’s experience of parents us a daily flood of complaints, verbal and sometimes physical abuse, it can be hard, in the presence of a million competing demands, to prioritise perfect communication.
• Proliferation of communication channels. The weekly printed newsletter was manageable. Website; newsletter; Dojo; school social media; e-mail; text, many updated daily - hard to maintain the same quality when it is nobody’s ‘main job’.

As parents , and members of society, what can we do to mitigate these underlying factors?

I know the difference but my SM posts and texts don't always demonstrate that. I swear autotext does it's work inbetween me reading a post back and pressing send sometimes, which is very embarrassing!

I would expect anything posted on school SM to be checked and double checked though.

Grammer?🤔🤪🤣🤣🤣

Teachers (like everyone else) get things wrong sometimes but as a professional you should know your own weakness and have strategies in place to mitigate the impact of them. As a dyslexic teacher, I knew to check and double check my work, use dyslexia friendly software where appropriate and where appropriate have a colleague check things over. I've since left teaching as I'm not prepared to tolerate the bullshit. I try really really hard not to be that parent as I've been in their position, but I have been known to send the school newsletter back, corrected in red pen (I figure the institution is unlikely to be psychologically damaged by my use of the colour red). I will let a lot pass by but what is the point of sending my kids to school if even basic standards are not being maintained.

If you use dictation, then surely you proofread before posting? TBH, I've noticed lots of teachers with terrible spelling and grammar recently. Mostly great teachers otherwise, but the spelling mistakes are shocking.

@MeringueOutang or they thought you were talking about the capital of Peru, although I can't imagine how that would happen! On another animal related note, I love your username.

On a lemur-related note, I was pulled up by someone for saying "leem-yur" instead "lima" once. 🤣 I'm still not sure who's right, I thought "lima" was the American pronunciation but who knows?

Is the teacher frequently making this mistake, or have you seen it only once?

How many teachers quit the profession every year, again?

Can you swear, honestly, hand on heart, that you have never, ever made a small mistake in your life?

I think both parents and teachers have far bigger things to worry about.

Of course they should.

(Yesterdays need an apostrophe, btw. Sorry. Yes, I am pedantic. 😁)

Of course an educator should know the difference between they're, their and there and when to use each. However sitting in the staffroom and listening to some younger teachers speak (examples given already should have/of) it's no wonder they don't know it. I've seen communications to parents and the diction and grammer is shocking.

Shocking. When my son was at grammar school they were told to think of an animal and when he suggested a lemur was told that the teacher hadn't heard of them and didn't believe that they existed.

This! There is a reason why I’m on MN suggesting how you should communicate with schools rather than where I ‘should’ be - in front of a class.

Isn’t this just a consequence of the last decade of teaching being a completely impossible and undesirable profession?
it isn’t pleasant atm to teach. A third of parents (particular to me, different for others I’m sure) expect bespoke lessons for their own child. ‘Bob needs you to get down to his level, look him direct in the eye to make sure he’s concentrating, and visually demonstrate to make sure he learns properly.’ I’m sure he does, but times 30 other kids all with completely different requirements, it isn’t possible, is it. etc, etc
Hiring for teachers now is ‘anyone, will anyone be prepared to put up with this shit.’

I didn’t take it lying down. I found a place for my daughter in another school the next day and went to see the headteacher. It was the final straw at the end of the second year of having the same very poor trainer.

There is no excuse for basic errors like those mentioned in the OP, from a professional educator.

Why would teaching something inaccurate in basic spelling and grammar, be acceptable?

@cantkeepawayforever has it. This will show the school exactly how communications should be conveyed.

I would be tempted to go with this route - the ‘critical friend’ who praises the good but politely, discreetly and professionally points out that something isn’t quite right.

’I have been really pleased with how happy x is at school and the progress she has made this year. I really appreciate the effort that the school makes to communicate with parents, including via platforms a, b and c, especially since all your staff are so busy. However, I have recently noticed some systematic grammatical errors made in posts from Year y. I know that typos can happen to us all, but I know you would want all messages from the school to reflect your overall high standards. I’m looking forward to event z and hope that you and all your staff have a restful summer holiday.’ kind of thing.

Kids will be tested on the difference between there their and they're in SATs so the teacher certainly needs to be getting it right. The only explanation I can think of is the teacher is dyslexic and is using speech to text to write these messages? Otherwise it's unacceptable and I definitely would raise it

Noticed awful spelling fairly often throughout both my children's school years! But their teachers (with the exception of 1) were great so we never let it bother us.

Now, you see, I wouldn't take that lying down. I'm afraid that level of incompetence needs exposing, and to hell with the teacher's feelings.

That sounds like my daughter’s Year 2 teacher. When she marked her work, she crossed out ‘I would have…’ and replaced it with ‘I would OF…’ 😳