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?

A lot of the reports I wrote recently (I work in secondary) went out looking awful - sentences had jumbled up and there was random punctuation everywhere. Although we have someone who proofreads then, they still managed to reach the kids' reports looking terrible and making no sense whatsoever. When I refused to give them out to my class (knowing that I had not made such stupid mistakes), I got told off by the lady in charge of checking/collating reports because the fact that I had used a semi-colon had messed the reports up - apparently the electronic system we use "cannot cope" with semi-colons.

Can't believe this type of system got through testing without anyone realising that this problem existed; just goes to show how many people actually use semi-colons nowadays. (see what I did there!!) :)

The occasional typo or error is of course to be expected and not a big deal. But repeated grammatical errors make work look sloppy and can be confuse meaning. What concerns me is that some of the teachers (at my DCs' school) don't seem to know the basics of grammar/punctuation eg, the possessive apostrophe. I expect my 7 year old to have some inkling of this, never mind someone with a degree.

This is not teacher bashing but a criticism of our education system - I wasn't comfortable with grammar at all (barely knew what an adverb was) until I studied for a TEFL. But goodness, I would hope that a teacher (or any other adult who needs to communicate as part of their job) who was aware that they were lacking in this area would be willing to take 5 minutes to look it up.

We moved our DS at 8 (end of Y4) to a the very well regarded prep department of a competitive London day school. He was regarded as exceptionally bright and very well ahead of his peers, especially in English. I had always thought the primary poor at maths but he was behind and had to catch up significantly in English. We were shocked at how behind he was compared to the boys who had gone through the pre-prep and been at the school from 7. It was a real eye opener.

I think our children are now often (not always, obviously) being taught by a generation of 20something and 30something teachers, who just never, somehow mastered the basics, and then went on to second rate degrees at third rate universities.

Well...that's a sweeping generalisation if ever I saw one! I'm presuming then that a lot of this generation also went into accountancy, retail, law, medicine...??! Lequeen for what it's worth, I have a first class degree (1995) from Nottingham University, and a PGCE from Manchester University - is this considered 'second rate' from a 'third rate' establishment? ;)

cherrypie..I am appalling at proofreading - Literally, the words just merge onto the screen. I need someone to delegate to. Oh no....wait...I have no one to delegate to!

Can't remember who asked me - but in reply to 'Do I think I am limiting children if I only correct mistakes I believe they should know for their age?' I will confess to the following.....If they are bright (and/or show willing!) I push them and correct more, much more. Unfair? Probably. But I am human!

I WISH we could go back to the days of handwritten, genuine reports. Given that the system we now use is 'cut and paste' (in design), you would think that this would make it easy. No, it does not. As a teacher, I also object to how impersonal it makes it, and so always put a 'Final Comment' on the end which I write from the heart. Personally, I think writing 2000 words per child is completely unnecessary for primary aged children. A waste of my time. Time which could be better spent on assessment and lesson planning. :)

Most of the reports that I got from school where unreadible, it is much easier to spot mistakes when they are typed up.

Just wanted to chip in, my DD's year 4 teacher recently wrote to inform us that the children would be studying math's (presumably instead of maths?)

The same school also sent out a letter advising parents that children would be grouped in one's, two's and three's. I have loads more but I am meant to working ...!