To expect my DCs' teachers to send out school reports correctly punctuated?

[Peppin]

Was looking at last term's school reports this morning. They included the following statements:

"Its good to see X progressing so well"

"theres a good reason for..."

and a few other howlers.

I have also noticed when looking through the DCs' school workbooks at parents' evenings that various spelling mistakes/grammatical errors they have made have gone uncorrected.

AIBU to expect teachers to (a) know how to use apostrophes and (b) take sufficient pride in their own professional image to ensure they check the spelling and punctuation in school reports before they are sent out?

YANBU, I would find that annoying.

You should send it back with all the mistakes marked in red and write 'see me' at the bottom

YANBU and I'm a teacher! However we don't correct every grammatical/spelling error; depends what the focus is.

YANBU

YANBU.

There will be people who aren't in the slightest bit arsed or don't realise they are mistakes. Then there are people like you and me, Peppin, who will be really annoyed.

I mean, teachers who don't punctuate or spell correctly? Really? Unacceptable, in my opinion.

I'm an English teacher and check punctuation, grammar and spelling obsessively on my reports. But you would be horrified but not remotely surprised by the number of teachers who genuinely don't recognise when they are making a mistake.

The worst was when I used to teach in a classroom after a colleague of mine (also an English teacher) and saw all her spelling mistakes on the board.

YANBU.

When I saw the uncorrected errors in the schoolwork at parents' evening, I said to the teacher "Oh, I see [DD]'s missed an apostrophe there", and he just said "oh yes" and carried on, like it was not an issue he should have corrected!

I feel embarrassed to raise this as a serious issue because it's rude to make people feel so aware of their failings but really, if you can't bloody spell and use apostrophes, don't become a teacher!

It is frustrating but typos and spelling mistakes can slip through the net. They are very time-consuming (I averaged about 2 hours of my own time on each, not to mention the four hours I spent on some in the beginning, again in my own time) and my reports average 2000 words. Times that by 30 kids it is a lot of work. I read the reports through and now my TA is doing the same for me. I'm very lucky that I have that luxury. It is a little different to seeing a mistake in a short sign or quick note or a paragraph of a report that some schools issue. We are human after all. I've seen some howlers in letters from parents and reading records. Having said that I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation myself

As for marking each error, that the emphsis now is marking to support with the next step. It's pointless to correct every last error because few children will be able to retain that amount in one go and it's demoralising.

Do you like that I left a few bits for you to pick up there too?

YABU they probably have a lot to write, let's get some perspective here. With all the things wrong with our world and what some families are going through right now, you are bothered by punctuation? Are you kidding me?!

Everyone makes mistakes. If this is what worries you then please, let's swap.

YABU , I really don't like it when people correct my grammar and punctuation.

If you are precious about it , you sit down and teach your DD the correct way

Demoralising? Not enough time to correct mistakes? Er...Teachers, what's going on?

Being able to write and spell correctly is pretty much crucial. I had someone work for me once who sent out an email with FIVE spelling errors in it. Shall we just say that she never did it again and quickly understood the necessity to spell correctly in business.

If I made spelling or grammatical errors in my homework, the mistakes would were marked in red pen and I would have to write out CORRECTLY the phrase or word 3 times. Sometimes the whole page had a lot of red on it and I managed to grow up unscathed.

I went on to get a 2.1 in English and now have a part-time job as a copywriter.

mistakes were marked in red pen - see?

200 reports at a time for some teachers. Typos happen.

Teachers are human too

YANBU. This really bugs me. I've seen it with secondary school teachers too. There's no hope of our children being able to learn to spell and punctuate correctly if their teachers can't do it. Unfortunately we seem now to have a generation of teachers who were badly taught themselves, so the cycle continues.

In another role, a colleague sent out a letter introducing the company and its services.

Fair enough.

One of the recipient companies sent back his letter with his grammatical and spelling mistakes highlighted.

The boss went CRAZY.

And...apparently, he hadn't realised that "all that spelling stuff" was important.

I teach small children. The current curriculum says their spelling should be "phonetically plausible" as they are learning to spell. As time goes on you correct the spellings they should know. If a five year old in my class has attempted the word 'melancholy' in a story I'm bloody ecstatic at the vocabulary being used and look beyond picking holes in spelling and grammar which any averaag Joe GCSE English could do. Obviously as they get older and more able more mistakes need to be corrected. The teacher who didn't mark the missed apostrophes above should've at least given a reason why.

Also well done you for learning through copying however most kids won't learn this way. Especially if they are already poor at spelling and punctuation. You maybe unscathed but there are many, many adults out there scared to read and write because they were put off by unhelpful marking. Plenty of research to demonstrate this.

No where has anyone said teachers don't have time to correct them. As I've said I've actually spent a HUGE amount of my own time writing reports to ensure they are detailed, factual, personal and provide clear information for parents.

I could point out your erroneous capital letter but it's just a way of being petty and picky in my eyes and would miss the far more important and bigger picture.

But you've already mentioned it, though (shock)

I am just grateful these days if the child they are talking about is ostensibly the correct child.

D S 2 has had several reports saying how well SHE is doing in various subjects.

and sadly for one teacher who took him for two subjects I noticed before she did that for separate subjects she had written word for word the same, with a variation in the sentence order. You'd have thought she would have had the wit to realise that recycling reports is best done on a wider basis.

It is reasonable to expect accuracy from all teachers as long as you are aware that everyone makes mistakes occasionally. However, no teacher, even of English, should be marking every mistake as not only is it likely to inhibit writing but, crucially, pupils should be being taught to find and correct their own mistakes. If they can't learn to spot errors, how can they edit their own writing when they no longer have someone looking over their shoulder? Also, it depends on the context of the work. A final, polished essay should be error-free but a few quick notes may well have mistakes which there would be no point in picking up as the success would be in being concise and recording everything required, not in using full sentences.

As for reports, the Teacher's contribution is usually read by someone else and discussed with pupils in my school so any mistakes should be pickled up long before they get sent out to parents.