for expecting my son's school work to be marked by someone with a higher standard of english than him?

[mostlyhappywithsomelowpressure]

My 7 yo son has lots of homework and one of the things he has is to make sentences from this week's spellings. It's a fun task and, though he gets wound up when he can't think of anything he works very hard at it and comes up with good stuff.

The work was initially (I believe) marked by the teacher and he was praised for using speech marks in part of it once, which I thought was a nice comment. But a few weeks in the writing changed. One week his name was spelt wrong (though it is on the front of the file the work comes in) but it is spelt unusually, a k instead of a c, I know it's confusing! Then another week it said 'be careful with you writting' WRITTING. I didn't say anything to that as my husband told me to leave it.

But today she has put 'Be carefully with your punctuation' and crossed out his speech marks which were in a totally relevant and acceptable place. Then she has put "can I come in" by way of exemplfying the correct use of speech marks. Now, if the use of speech marks is something they want to get away from so-be-it but 'be careFULLY' and to then not put the correct puntuation on her example of speech!!!!

I feel bad to criticise this woman but she is making my son feel like he's doing his work wrong (when he's just trying to do something a bit different) and she's really in no position to be doing so when she can't spell or use the correct tenses!!

And in case anyone thinks I might be slighting the abilities of a TA, I'm not, I am one and I would, rushed or not, make sure that if I were correcting or commenting on work, what I wrote was correct.

Shall I write to the teacher or just let it continue??

I would get very cross with the teacher in this instance. If you teach maths I can forgive spelling errors, if you teach French I can forgive poor Spanish, if you teach English you really ought to have a firm grasp of spelling and grammar.

As for deleting your account, do you think we really give a shit? Just do it, don't announce it, in the hope of "oh please stay, please don't leave the site because of pedants" pleas.

Greenbananas - the teacher 'asking' your niece for spellings before writing them on the board was most likely a confidence booster and teaching tool for your niece whose needs stretched far beyond the early years curriculum.
Of course as you know, being a TA, being a very advanced reader does not necessarily mean you are an advanced speller too

Greenbananas - the teacher 'asking' your niece for spellings before writing them on the board was most likely a confidence booster and teaching tool for your niece whose needs stretched far beyond the early years curriculum.

I understand what you are saying, but in this case that wasn't what was happening. The teacher used to spell things wrong on the board quite regularly, and my niece used to point it out. Eventually the teacher started checking 'difficult' words with her before writing them. Letters to parents also contained lots of spelling mistakes. The teacher was a lovely woman, and a good teacher in other ways, but spelling was not her strong point!

I can't imagine the op has deleted her account because people corrected her spelling and grammar. It's more likely that she deleted her account because she posted a question as she was concerned about the ability of the person marking her son's homework and other posters took it as an opportunity to be rather smug and display their superior spelling and grammar skills.

I imagine few of us know a significant amount about medicine but we would still reserve the right to complain about our doctor if we thought his standards fell short of what was expected. Why shouldn't the OP complain about the teacher/TA's marking abilities, irrespective of her own abilities.

Please feel free to correct any spelling and grammar mistakes I may have made, if it will make you feel better.

I corrected teachers' spelling on multiple occasions when I was at school. But mainly just to be a bit of a smart-arse, really. I do think that teachers ought to have a sufficient grasp of spelling to cover the words they will be using in their job, though.
I had a young-ish English A-Level teacher who, according to her, was not teaching us, but "learning" us. And she wasn't lending me a pen, she was "borrowing" me one. We also had a bit of a falling out once over how to spell "jewellery". I mean, she was a smart woman and I'm sure she knew what she was talking about, but how can someone who has spent a sizeable chunk of her life wanting and training to teach English still be making mistakes like those?