To wish teachers had to take a spelling proficiency test before qualifying?

[ChwatFeechers]

DD, 11, is in her final year of primary school.

Yesterday she brought her books home from year 5. I was gobsmacked at the number of spelling mistakes which had been missed, whilst others had been marked in green pen. It wasn't an oversight either, as the same mistake was made often without being corrected, for example Febury for February.
There were also some grammar corrections to things DD had written correctly.
This isn't the first time I've noticed mistakes either.
AIBU to wish teachers had to prove they can spell adequately?
[runs]

sulphur is now spelt sulfur???

Wow OK I clearly know nothing. I had no idea. I would definitely spell it Sulphur.

Is this like the Centigrade / Celcius thing - changed to better represent the person who invented / discovered it?

So is the national curriculum built with this in mind? Just looking at Scissor's link again and I can't see it lists the alternatives but I may be missing something there. The recognise thing I mean.

Sulfur/sulphur I am googling - all very interesting!

People just aren't taught how to spell any more

Except they are taught how to spell. They might just not be any good at spelling.

How clear do you want it to be made?

I didn't know about sulphur either.

Re preference over comments on form and on spelling, I guess it depends on the age. But the point I am making is that I think teachers have so much time taken from them in other ways, I have concerns around the whole model.

Whirlpool, I don't think you have any reason to feel bad.

Now reading about aluminum vs aluminium, cesium vs caesium and all sorts! Interesting stuff, good to be aware.

It's hard to be aware, isn't it.

(Ps don't tell Americans it must be spelt aluminium, they can get quite upset )

Inflammable and flammable mean the same.

It's sensible that flammable is now nearly always used because people think inflammable means fire-proof and I can see why they'd make that mistake.

I am a bit of a pedant but in emergencies I'd rather we were all on the same page

The National Curriculum really isn't designed for any form of conversation and debate, that all happened in the time spent writing and re-drafting, the "Master" version is the one that is the done deal, not the "Final" version as they altered that one.

The spelling lists are there for all to read as an open access document, it tells you all that your child must be taught, sometimes through what method it should be taught and, though not as prescriptive as earlier curricula, where it takes a stance teachers must adhere to its direction.

As the curriculum states on page 50
"The word-lists for years 3 and 4 and years 5 and 6 are statutory. The lists are a mixture of words pupils frequently use in their writing and those which they often misspell."

That's very interesting Shipwrecked, thank you. I'm having none of it mind but still

Me neither...(Shhh!)

Sulphur is what is used in GCSE and A Level exams.

At our school green pen is used for ' response time',teachers mark in blue. Spellings are indicated by 'sp' in the margin and it is up to the child to find out the correct spellings and write them ( in the green Biro).

Are you sure it is the teacher's writing?

not by AQA, it isn't. Nor has it for a long while although I think if a child used 'sulphate' they would not be penalised. Most students I teach would not think to spell it any other way than 'sulfate'

This is the syllabus

Check out, for instance the spelling of copper sulfate on p16.

It was a controversial move by all the exam boards and here is a newspaper article from the year 2000 about it

Here is the exam paper from 2014

Have a read through question 4...

IME, yes, private schools do correct every sopelling.

Not in my experience. Maybe ones which are very selective do. But ones with a more varied selection of pupils, tend to apply similar rules when marking infant school aged children's work ime.

When I asked him who had marked them, it turned out it was 'Peer marking' - they swapped books and marked each other's tests

Gosh I was in primary school in the late fifties and early sixties and we always did peer marking. As we were caned if we got more than two spellings out of twenty wrong, it was seen as bad form to be too dilligent in the marking. One day I had to sit beside the swot and she refused to lenient in her marking, I of course also decided to mark her strictly. That was the day when the teacher decided to check how we were marking. The whole fucking class was up getting caned by a very angry teacher, except for me and the swot.

You're out of date inthenddotcom. OCR, Edexcel and AQA (I assume the other exam boards too) all use "sulfur" at A level and GCSE. I hate it having grown up with "sulphur" but as a previous poster says they wouldn't be penalised for spelling it as I would.

I teach secondary. I've always been good at spelling. If I mark written work, I will underline all errors but only correct subject specific language, and then only once per piece (eg if "monologue" is incorrect 4 times in one essay, I'll underline it 4 times but only actually correct it the first time)

DH is not a teacher, he is a management consultant. This week, he ran a course at work about effective writing. This covered a number of things, including spelling and grammar. His "class" ranged from people in their 20s - those in their 50s, and across a number of pay grades in the large company in which he is currently placed as a contractor. This is not the first time he's run such a course, but the need is there and so his client asked him to run it. Schools cannot be blamed for everything! It's perfectly possible that the people DH was working with (all educated to degree level) were fine with spelling etc at school but people get lazy - I have certainly forgotten a lot of stuff I was taught at school. Perhaps writing skills disappear too if not used frequently.

If teachers are poor spellers it would be good if they stay aware of it and not be ashamed to use a dictionary. It would be useful if children who are poor spellers were encouraged to look at their work once they had written it to see if they can notice any errors and maybe put a wiggly line under anything they think they may have spelt wrong. Unless children become a little more aware of errors, it is going to be very hard for them to learn to spell. It is the lack of awareness that is worrying.

God forbid a child might feel a bit discouraged by having all their SPAG mistakes corrected.

Far better to only correct a small percentage of their SPAG mistakes and let them feel really good about their piece of writing which is littered with errors

Because they won't feel remotely discouraged when their poorly composed CV gets binned or when their line manager bollocks them for not being able to write a decent business letter/email.

No, not discouraging at all. I'm sure they'll feel really good about having weak literacy skills.

"Because they won't feel remotely discouraged when their poorly composed CV gets binned or when their line manager bollocks them for not being able to write a decent business letter/email.

No, not discouraging at all. I'm sure they'll feel really good about having weak literacy skills."

but that is about weak literacy skills - far, far more than spelling - rather than spelling alone. Good spelling alone does not make an effective business letter!

Imagine that you have a new job, which is hard and has many different aspects, and for which you may or may not have an aptitude. You are given daily feedback on your performance by a trainer.

Trainer 1 concentrates on a few aspects of the job each day, and tells you what to do to improve in that area. In the meantime, they do not comment on all the other aspects of the job that you might be struggling with or making mistakes in, but they also give you specific training, away from you doing the job, to make you better at an aspect of the job that you may find hard.

Trainer 2 tells you, every day, everything that you are doing wrong, and expect you to get better at everything as a result.

Trainer 2 is doing what some on this thread want teachers to do - telling pupils, every day, all that they are doing wrong. Modern teaching practice is much more like Trainer 1 - specific phonics / spelling teaching, often away from the main English lessons, and correction given only in specific aspects of English each day.

DD is just finishing Yr4. The grammatical errors in her report have to be seen to be believed.

Yeah, but at least if you were properly corrected about your spelling and grammar whilst at school Trainer 1 would have one less area of your abilities to negatively assess you on.