Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

To send a letter back to school with DD's name corrected?

58 replies

MarioandLuigi · 08/02/2011 20:53

DD came home from school with a letter today and her name has been spelt wrong. The letter has to go back so would it be wrong of me to cross it out and put the correct spelling? I am not a massive pedant and spelling mistakes dont usually bother me, but this is the 3rd time its happened and I had to say something about her peg badge being spelt wrong.

Its not a kerazy spelling or anything, although it is a traditional Irish name and we are in England.

OP posts:

quitescared · 08/02/2011 21:48

MavisGrind I would definitely, definitely correct this!

gaelicsheep · 08/02/2011 21:50

I have never heard of another name where the spelling everybody uses is totally WRONG. It drives me blardy crazy!!

jugglingjo · 08/02/2011 22:08

I think it's generally surprising how often names are misspelled (sp?!) on official letters.

So few people and organisations take the time to find out how to spell people's names !

And yet it's something that surely everyone will really care about when they're on the receiving end.

My name has been misspelled at work, & at church. My daughter's new school asked for our titles but doesn't use them (DH is a Dr. (of fossils) which I'm a bit proud of )

Other school calls the vicar (a governor of the school) Mr on the entrance list.

These things matter to some people.

And please spell the children's names right

A1980 · 08/02/2011 22:08

I would!

ErnestTheBavarian · 08/02/2011 22:08

To add insult to injury we live in Germany, where the letters 'ai' are pronounced 'eye', so everyone calls him 'Eyeden'

Grrr

gaelicsheep · 08/02/2011 22:13

I have zero tolerance of this, having gone through life suffering every imagineable variation on my name. Even now it happens so often that I'll send an email and a reply comes back addressed incorrectly. Read and copy people - it ain't that difficult!!

kensworth · 08/02/2011 22:15

Both mine and dh's parents spell a selection of our dc's names wrong I give up what can you do hey!!!!!

kensworth · 08/02/2011 22:17

Ps children are now late teens so it's not like they haven't had time to practice and not unusual names!

troisgarcons · 08/02/2011 22:18

Not everyone uses mail-merge from the database ... some people do still 'copy' type.

Take a fairly innocent name such as Rachel/Rachael or a name that has a far wider variety of spellings: Leigh/Lee/Lea - factor in Ashlea/Ash-lea/ashlee/Ash-lee/Ashleigh/Ash-leigh and that is without getting into the daft name brigade.

ThatllDoPig · 08/02/2011 22:23

Definately send the letter, and tell them too. I'm sure any decent teacher would want to know.

My dd is called Maeve and when she started school her teacher had written Mauve on her peg and all her books! I just pointed it out (in a friendly kind of way) and it didn't happen again.

But important for your dc that you do something about it. Name recognision v important at this age.

gaelicsheep · 08/02/2011 22:24

The clue's in the name there. Check and "copy". Not make it up or guess.

ChippingInSmellyCheeseFreak · 08/02/2011 22:35

No YANBU, not at all. I would also put a note on it - each and every time.

muminthemiddle · 09/02/2011 00:22

Definately correct it. The teacher probably doesn't even know it is mis-spelt.

kaid100 · 09/02/2011 01:00

Children are expected to spell correctly, so the teacher will understand if you tell her.

Catnao · 09/02/2011 01:15

People mistake the correct "e" for the wrong "a" in my son's name all the time. It does make me cross, as his name is spelt in the traditional way and there aren't any mainstream alternatives. MY name is often spelt with a "K" - that's OK as many (maybe most, I don't know) people spell it with a "K" - but a weird spelling of a trad name is annoying! So you ANBU in my view.

ErnestTheBavarian · 09/02/2011 06:42

My ds started to spell his name incorrectly, after being able to write it for years, because on birthday cards, school stuff, people's pronunciation was so often incorrect, he in corrected himself, :( so I would def write just a small friendly note, think post it is good idea, as it seems less formal, so more of a friendly 'by the way'

tyzer2001 · 09/02/2011 08:16

I received a letter from DS' teacher once with no fewer than fourteen spelling mistakes (although they had got his name right ). I was so incensed that the people who were supposed to be educating my child were practically illiterate that I corrected it in red pen, wrote "2/10 must try harder" at the bottom and posted it back to the headteacher.

It was never mentioned.

PassTheTwiglets · 09/02/2011 08:19

My DD once wrote the word "favourite" in some school work - the teacher crossed it out and 'corrected' it to "favorit"

Blackduck · 09/02/2011 08:20

Dp handed ds's school report back and siad 'you might want to correct the speling of his name'. This was after a year of her sometimes getting it right and sometimes getting it wrong. He went over to the Juniors, same issue, I nipped it in the bud in week one :) It's about respect in my book...

Blackduck · 09/02/2011 08:22

spelling AHHH!

AvengingGerbil · 09/02/2011 08:41

jugglingjo, not to be too pedantic, but the correct title for a vicar (if male) is Mr. At a pinch, I suppose, you could use 'The Reverend Mr Smith' (as if on an envelope). But 'Reverend Smith', for example, is incorrect.

Blackduck · 09/02/2011 08:44

Ds's spelling list for the week came home with (you guessed it), one of the spellings spelt wrong lol!! And then in one list they usefully highlighted the silent letter, except they highlight the wrong letter....

slug · 09/02/2011 09:25

Ahh, one of my favourite moans. DD went to nursery in the local school. It was in the middle of a sink estate and has the reputation of the dumping ground where the local Council sent all the students expelled by the age of 6. Never the less, it was close and a nice little place. However, the spelling on the school notes was atrocious.

DD has a fairly normal, regularly in the top 50, long standing name. The children's names were on large banners in the nursery and were written everywhere. The nursery also insisted on calling her by her full name, not the contraction she is usually known as (I would have forgiven them that as there are different ways of spelling it). Her work would consistently come home with her name spelled in any variety of ways. They had her confused with a city, a boy and randomly inserted a 'b' once. School notices would frequently come home badly misspelt, with the sort of grammar that made me wince.

I used to get out my red teacher's pen (usually while after a few ) and correct them and send them back. I'm a teacher and I have no shame about doing things like that.

The main nursery teacher once admitted to me that half the problem was the work experience students they had from the childcare courses at the local college. to a person they were barely literate, something I could acknowledge as I worked in an FE college and knew the exact sort of student she was talking about.

bonnymiffy · 09/02/2011 09:28

One of my first days at primary school the class were all given cards with their names on to copy out. My name was spelled wrongly so I copied it out correctly! My name has been constantly spelled incorrectly since, and what winds me up is people typing my name wrongly in an email when not only is my name in my signature, it's part of my email address!! My name really isn't that unusual either..
So, back to the original post, no YANBU!! I would definitely correct it.

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 09/02/2011 09:34

I had this with our surname when DS1 started school - it turned out it had been entered wrongly on the records in the office, and so when teachers and TA's were copying from their printed list (from the office database) they copied what they saw.

Mind DS1 also had his full first name on his peg, but learnt to write the shortened version first. (which isn't just staight "take a few letters off).

Flip

1 2 3