To red pen this and send it back?

[nevermindthecrocodiles]

DD came home today with the half term newsletter - which informed me that she's been learning about "the country Africa" and that "homework will now be handed in on Thursday's"

I know this topic has been done to death but this kind of thing drives me mental!

It really astounds me what people will approach the head teacher over before speaking to their class teacher! No idea how people would cope when their children head off to secondary where the school is 3 or 4 times larger.

A decent head teacher would refer the parent back to the class teacher unless it is a regularly occurring issue.
And not so great heads will make bold claims as to repercussions that will probably never be followed up.

You will get FAR better results speaking to the child's teacher face to face and politely, than going to the head or red penning a letter. Depends on what results you want - to pull the teacher up and highlight their errors, or to improve education for your child I guess.

I think you would be justified in speaking to the teacher as those are pretty bad mistakes.
My dd (year 11) was shocked that one of her young teachers, her words, had never heard the phrase "let them eat cake."
Another one asked dd "Who was Anne Frank?"

My DS's teacher would tell you to go to the Head anyway as it's not her department.

We feel the same way about an official letter home about GCSE's.

To be fair, susan, Marie Antoinette didn't utter the infamous phrase.

I didn't know that What. I assumed that everyone had heard it though like "Kiss me Hardy," which isn't actually what was said iyswim.

Sorry. I just don't believe the "capital city of Africa" one. It was misunderstanding.

If it was said by anyone, it was said by Marie Therese, about 100 years prior to Marie Antoinette, who was actually a much more sympathetic figure than people give her credit for.

DS3's teacher used to send his reception letter sounds book home with alphabetically-appropriate superlatives such as "niftey" and "awsome". On one occasion I crossed out the erroneous version and replaced it with the correct spelling. The following week my handiwork had been covered with a giant, glittery "Nice Work!" Sticker .

Pupils do the newsletter in our school.

If it is a primary school I would never say a thing. For me, the main job of a primary school teacher is to be kind, nice and caring. Geography of Africa can be learnt from a political map, which usually hangs in a child's bedroom, and spelling picked up from reading.

DD's teacher told the class the other day that 'infamous' meant 'really really famous' .

Am letting it go, as in most respects she is a fab and diligent teacher.

Am treating this as an abberation .

I would forgive the '

but the whole Africa as a country thing BOILS MY PISS!

The whole of Africa is... All Africans are...

It's a massive bloody continent Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Morocco...

It's not one country or one culture or one standard of living and I am sick to death of the whole 'Africa is' thing

It shows a high level of ignorance, tbh. It's lazy and it's wrong.

I like the idea of posting it anonymously. Highlight the errors.

Ds1 once pointed out a spelling mistake a teacher had made on the white board. He was 8 or 9. The teacher argued he was wrong. He was indignant! He still remembers it and he's 15.

'Trouble is teachers do get huffy when wrong.'

Some teachers might get huffy, I give merit marks for people who spot an unintentional error I've made, transferable from parent to child if necessary.
I agree, Hecate, generalisations are rude and ignorant.

The reception/admin ladies do the news letters in our school. And any other letter.

it's annoying but then why let yourself become stressed? many people cannot spell thanks to texting, i know that it is kept short for a reason but to use it in real life? a bit naff actually.

When I was in year 3 I used to correct my teacher's spelling . She was a lovely woman and a fantastic teacher, I adored her, but she couldn't spell for toffee ('mony' instead of money was one howler).

Luckily, because she was so lovely and fantastic, she made it into a running joke and used me as the class spell checker :) Miss Carroll, if you're out there, you were great!

alma, Miss Carroll sounds fab.

I'd be pissed off about the apostrophe, but saying Africa is a country is really ignorant. Does the person responsible never notice any news, not even online?

I still remember the following classroom conversation with a teacher when I was ten.

Teacher: you never find three vowels together in English.
Me: what about beautiful?
Teacher: shut up, Tryingtoleave.

DS came home from Year 4 seething because the teacher had told the class that Alaska was not part of the US. This was 4 years ago, in the run up to the last election. DS actually said to her "So how can Sarah Palin be running for Vice President then and be governor of Alaska?", but she was adamant.

In my experience teachers always admit when they're wrong, apologise and try harder next time

They certainly don't argue that it's you who doesn't know how to spell your surname or comment that in their opinion your daughter's name is just mis-spelt version of a Swedish name (I exaggerate not) so their mis-pronunciation is fine.