English spelling vs American English spelling. Any English teachers about?

[CondorDays]

I have noticed recently that the American English way of spelling something as opposed to the English way of spelling something has become more prevalent. One word that seems to crop up frequently is 'center' rather than 'centre'.
If you are a child in a school in the UK and you spell out 'center' ( or any other American English spelling of a word ) in a piece of work, would that still be regarded as an incorrect spelling ? Or vice versa, if a child from the UK is in an American school.
Are there any English teachers who can advise ?

Oh don't go there... Correcting a child's spelling is cruelty...

I teach EFL but not in the UK. We ask for spellings to be consistent, not a mixture of UK and US.

It's an accepted spelling in a prominent version of English. It's silly to count that as poor spelling.

Just asked DD what would happen if she spelt centre as center at school. She said it would be marked wrong because we're not in America

Am not a teacher, but have to write in American English sometimes and other times in UK English. And it's really made me realise how we access so much more information from across the pond now that it really is becoming more prevalent and normal for the spellings to be interchangeable.

Similarly, random capitalisation is much more of a thing now in the UK. I see it all the time when 20 years ago it was totally not done.

She's 8 btw. I'd like to think that adults would know the correct spelling

The adult might be ignoring it as correct in one version if English. So Centor would be corrected.

Or there might be a policy on only corrected maybe three spellings in one piece of work.

The center/centre thing I read recently was in a British newspaper. Just got me thinking.

It depends on the context, "Center for disease control" uses the American spelling but as it is an actual name I wouldn't change it.

The one that drives me insane is, "driver's license", not only is it the wrong spelling but in the UK we have Driving licences.

I would pick up the spelling but not mark it down, but I'm not an English teacher.

At uni I had English spellings 'corrected' to US a couple of times, and yes I did complain.

I teach in an international school. We allow either system but teach the British spellings and use primarily UK published books. We offer both alternatives on spelling tests but advise that the children need to use a consistent version and that they should favour the U.K. English version unless they are from a country that uses predominantly US spellings as these are what they will experience most at school.

I teach teens and adults and I point out Americanised spellings in feedback given to them for a piece of work, although I don't expect them to correct it if the content submitted is correct.

Secondary English teacher - yes I would mark it as incorrect and point out that it was the US spelling in the margin. I do also teach it explicitly if I'm teaching a class an American text (not at KS4 obviously, Gove got rid of those ). They generally find it really interesting.

There's no such thing as "American English" - there's English and there's wrong.
A PP mentioned driver's license / licence, license is a verb, licence is a noun.

@ChinookPilotsGoVertical that’s not true. Of course there is American English (and Canadian, Australian and many others). We teach and use British English in British schools as US schools will teach and use US English, neither form is intrinsically better or more correct than the other. The verb / noun difference in license / licence etc is a feature of British English which is not reflected in the US variety just as they have different vocabulary (trash can, sidewalk etc) and spellings (color, realize etc). It is pretty narrow minded to insist your version of a language is the only one in existence despite vast amounts of evidence to the contrary.

In UK schools the written word “center” is an error.

My DC are in 3 different schools and they would all definitely have US English corrected which I am totally fine with. I was less fine with their (correct) English spellings being ‘corrected’ when we lived in the US. If we’d been in a large public school I would have kind of understood it, but they were in a small private school where the teachers def knew they were British and only there for a few years.

My DC do still have quite a few Americanisms in their speech and I don’t get worked up about them - they are normal to them and as we are still so regularly in contact with friends in the US I don’t mind - spellings on the other hand...

As an American I always find these arguments a bit silly... Same as Mexican Spanish Vs Castilian.

American English spelling is fine... if you are in America.

I'm not a teacher, but I would expect English English to be taught (and spelling marked as such) in England.

The clue is in the name

It is pretty narrow minded to insist your version of a language is the only one in existence despite vast amounts of evidence to the contrary.

It was pretty silly of Webster to invent new spellings that ignore the origins, history and changes to a language.

I mean 'vise' for 'vice' - if you are going to do that why not ise instead of ice?

Isn't American spelling meant to be more phonetic? Center to my ear sounds like we say it. I personally don't have a problem with different spelling approaches as long as I understand the meaning.

If in the U.K. use U.K. English spelling (unless it’s a title XYZ Center). Or should we use American pronunciations too (aloooominum/aluminium) or words (gas/petrol)?

What do international schools in the U.K. teach?

Well if this is a spelling thing, can someone please explain the difference between "nice" and "naice" ?

I attended school in the US and uni in the UK. At the UK uni - a prestigious one if it makes a difference - they did not correct American spellings or grammar usage as long as it was consistent.

Isn't American spelling meant to be more phonetic?

Indeed. Put aside nationalist feelings and ask yourself if which is easier to teach a child to spell:

centre vs center
colour vs color
mould vs mold
realise vs realize

There are historical reasons we spell the way we do in the UK but the American spellings make more sense from pronunciation.

Naice is a tongue in cheek reference to fancy/posh/pretentious things.

It comes from a shopping list an MNer found (at Waitrose, I believe) on which one of the items was ‘naice ham’.