...to roll my eyes and sigh heavily at this mistake in my son's school report?

[Tokamak]

Final Parents' Evening of the year last night. DS has done really well in Reception and has exceeded expectations in nearly all areas. This produced a warming glow of paternal pride in the old chest.

He also got a glowing report. However on reading it, I saw this is in the section on social development: "...he is aware of the way his behaviour effects others."

I did think about pointing this out to the teacher, but as she's really nice and DS has done so well and been so happy in her class, I bit my lip. I used to be a primary school teacher myself and am well aware how easy it is to make a typo in reports, so maybe I can give her a pass on that; but if she really doesn't know how to use 'affect' and 'effect' correctly, it's a bit saddening.

O Tempora, O Mores.

Arf at 'Inner Sanctum Of Grammatical Purity'.

YANBU

I just sniggered at civil's grammar mistake too something

your own impeccable mastery of the language, hmm?

Hehe, no not really, it's hardly that, I'm fond of language but I'm no expert .

I just have the notion that teachers are charged with passing on the English language to the kids in their care and should be able to use it properly themselves. I would've thought that was an acceptable view?

I don't think it is unreasonable to roll your eyes (in the privacy of your own home) at mistakes like these but it could genuinely be a mistake.

Teachers make mistakes and its not necessarily because they do no know correct spellings or grammar but unfortunately poor spelling and grammar seems to be increasing (I have inherited a team of 9 staff, 90% of them have terrible spelling and their grammar is equally as poor) but they are excellent at their job and fortunately, although it is in childcare, they are not teaching the children literacy so it is not an issue.

If a YR teacher is awful at spelling and grammar then I would be concerned that they are teaching my child but I am not sure that is the case in this instance, however the difference between affect and effect should come naturally really to them.

I await my DS's school report to see what copy and pasting, spelling and grammatical errors are on there I am hoping he is a he and not a she like his best friend was last year!

I don't think it is unreasonable to roll your eyes

I may have tutted once or twice, too. I'm sorry.

As long as you don't storm into the assembly and read out the teachers mistake you can tut or roll your eyes as much as you like! I would probably tell all my friends and have a moan just for a laugh but unless DS is coming home reciting incorrect spelling or grammar I wouldn't be too worried!

I actually feel like correcting peoples spelling/grammar on FB but I know that would make me very unpopular with my friends

Loving "inner sanctum of grammatical purity" and all of Tokamak's other posts too tbh.

inner sanctum of grammatical purity

It has an altar to Athena*. And a stuffed owl.

*NB: not the high street chain.

I skimmed past your boasting first paragraph and missed you say 'paternal'.

This would really piss me off. I would expect someone teaching my child to know the difference between "affect" and "effect" and, after much eye-rolling and tutting, would probably wonder to myself how on earth they passed the relevant A-levels to get into teacher training college in the first place.

I wouldn't say anything, though, on the grounds that - dodgy grasp of the English language aside - they could be a great teacher.
Also, in my opinion, writing lots of reports and being in a rush is no excuse. Everyone makes mistakes, yes, but this is the WRONG WORD being used rather than a typo. Grrrrrr!

See OP you have attracted like-minded sticklers onto your thread. A title like yours will do that.

My DD isn't old enough to go to school yet, but I will confess to feelings of horror and distress when I got the contract to sign from her creche and discovered that it was riddled with grammatical errors. I am not in the UK and am not even a native speaker of the language it was written in, but they literally jumped off the page and clawed at my eyeballs. Well, maybe not literally. But like 50shades pointed out regarding the very competent, though somewhat illiterate, childcare team that she manages, it is nonetheless a very good creche, where they do a fine job of looking after my precious DD.

Still though, a legal contract . Don't think you would have recovered from that, ehTokamak?

I agree that writing lots of reports is no excuse as they have it a lot easier now as they can use a PC unlike when I was at school when everything was handwritten.

However there are difficulties with this in the way that the schools are required to structure their reports with certain aspects having to be included which make it somewhat generic. Copy and pasting these requirements lead to all sorts of issues and gender transformations

I do have this ongoing disagreement with my 'teacher' friends and they are of course very defensive about it. There answer is that they have to complete the reports in that format etc and that there are so many of them to do.

Something luckily the administration staff at my pre-school are very good so at least the contracts etc are good and hopefully correct. The parent link books are another matter but I have had to learn to live with it, at the end of the day the parents are getting information about what their children have been up each day to so I guess that is more important at this stage in their education/care. I still find it frustrating - but thats just me!

YANBU. It would bug me too.
We received our DS first school report last week, and his name has been spelt wrong (with an apostrophe in it instead of a hyphen). I have to confess to being a bit rankled by it at the time (and I still am :)). But like you I haven't and wouldn't say anything because in the grand scheme of things it seems a bit petty to mention it.

I'm not sure you can be a "great" primary teacher (in an English-speaking country) if you have a dodgy grasp of English.

A good standard of literacy and numeracy would seem a basic requirement if the role.

I bet even the pedants on this thread have at least one error they keep making. What are the chances anyone's English is perfect?

If you don't think you make any, consider this: you keep doing it precisely because you don't know about it!

Agree with OP. It is important. My daughter has a spelling challenge every week and came back with a certificate saying: "Congratulations! Your a great speller!" :)

I win, I win!!! DD won the English prize at school this year. At Prizegiving, she was awarded a book. The certificate inside says:

"Little Tawny Hair - Year 5 - Engish"

no - not unreasonable to eye-roll at that mistake. But, I also would not actually say anything to the teacher - my reaction would be identical to yours ie worry about it to myself and feel cross that the teacher may not know the difference, and hope that it is just a typo (but actually I think it is more likely to be a matter of ignorance, sadly).

DS2's name is spelt wrong all the time, there are many different spellings of it so we went for what we thought was the easiest but it is spelt wrong by many of the staff at both pre-schools he attends.

I am going to check his report tonight as didn't notice if it was spelt correctly on that or not. I am not being awkward but he starts in YR in September so it would be nice if its spelt correctly from now on.

I am sure there are many mistakes I make with regards to spelling/grammar as I am guessing everyone picks up bad habits but I use spell/grammar check all the time (except on MN) so I would imagine most errors are corrected.

Am tempted to send DD back with the book in September to demonstrate 'Irony' to the class

I teach in an expensive private school and i would say that 30% of the children write 'our' as 'are' even after umpteen corrections. In fact, I've had several children flatly refuse to believe how it is really spelt!

Bombus and Tawny these mistakes are definitely up there with the best!!!

Actually tawny although it is both ironic and funny, that error is undoubtedly a typo or oversight. Unlike the children's book I recently bought for DD, only to discover that the title read as follows: "The magical rainforest: discover it's mysteries". No excusing that one I'm afraid.

As Lynne Truss would say "No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.?