Aibu regarding bad spelling & grammar in DD's report?

[ItWentInMyEye]

As the title suggests, my DD received her school report last week and it is littered with bad spelling and poor grammar. I'm quite annoyed as A) my daughter's teacher is capable of these things and B) that the Deputy Head has supposedly signed it off! (Implying she has read and approved it, however the signature looks printed to me) So aibu to comment on these things in a polite way on the form I have to return tomorrow? I've put it off because I'm torn between looking like an arsehole and the fact that a teacher should -in my eyes at least- be able to spell and write sentences correctly. Help!!!

Would you genuinely not be remotely offended to receive those comments? I'm very conscious of not wanting to cause upset. Thank you for suggestions though

I would be embarrassed - but that's because I ought to be embarrassed, as either the school or I have messed up. However, I would want the opportunity to rectify the mistake, rather than the mistake staying 'out there' and affecting how you and others saw me / the school. Does that make sense?

The thing that would make me happier with the feedback would be reassurance from you that you had been absolutely happy with my teaching and with your child's learning - ie that the feedback was confined ONLY to the report, and you still thought that your child had had a good experience in my class IYSWIM?

Yes I agree with Teacher. I would be embarrassed to have my mistake pointed out to me- who wouldn't it sounds like it was VERY poorly proofed. However I would want to learn the lesson from a nice parent who is also complimentary about the good things I have done (which sounds like the bulk of the year in this case), rather than learning it from the totally rude and horrendous parent who might point it out if I made the same mistake again.

I always use passive voice when I want to point out a mistake without being accusing. "The document didn't seem to have been proofread," rather than "you don't seem to have proofread the document." Or blame it on the spellcheck/IT and take the teacher out of it entirely, as others have suggested.

I'd send a photocopy to the Head with the mistakes corrected in red! That's just shoddy and rubbish on the school's part to allow that to go out. What does it say about the school and their expectations?! Disgraceful.

ISWYM, I thanked her for an honest and truthful report in the comment section, as it's a warts and all type of one where she clearly knows my DD and has outlined things she needs to improve on. I'd rather receive this than a sugarcoated report using generic phrases -as some past reports have been- but after reading some of the responses on here I was worried that my initial thoughts of seeming petty were justified.

I think the examples could be spell check/typos and the last example, looks to me like the teacher conflated a couple of phrases that then didn't make sense.

In my experience, class/subject teachers write reports, they are checked by a colleague and then checked again. It's not foolproof though and we do all make mistakes, however hard we try not to. I don't think there is an excuse for 'diffrent' though and when I typed it, it auto corrected.

There's a school of thought that thinks spelling and grammar are more or less irrelevant in this day and age. I don't subscribe to it and find it very irritating when text is written with little or no punctuation, paragraphing and poor spelling.

I don't think that any report should be sent out with sufficient errors to make the reader focus more on those than the content. I often, in my head, correct spelling, grammar and syntax in official letters and I did point out to House of Fraser that their very large sign saying 'Homewears' should have read 'Homewares.' They agreed but have not changed it.

Maybe the OP could say how pleased they are with the content of the report, but as they would like to keep it for the future , would it be possible to correct some of the errors.

Yes, teachers are human, but if the errors are multiple, I can quite see how parents can be irritated.

She is likes to draw and use diffrent colors

That is pretty shit. How many errors can you cram into a 9-word sentence?! If the rest of it is like that I think I would say something. How about:

'I was disappointed that my dd's report was littered with spelling and grammar errors. It doesn't give a good impression of a school, especially as you place so much emphasis on the children learning correct spelling and grammar.'

It sounds like a first draft. That's what mine look like when I write what I'm thinking quickly - mistakes everywhere, I then go back and correct the mistakes. Doing mistakes as I go stops my thought process, so I just write.

Is it possible she wrote the first draft and then forgot (or thought she had) to go back and edit it?

She wouldn't be a teacher if her writing was so bad.

The fault IMO lies with the person who ok'd it. The mistakes should have been picked up by the head, at least.

Me writing a sentence or two is different to typing out a 5 section A4 piece of writing!

There is absolutely no reason - given the number and length of the posts you have made this morning - that you could not have provided us with all the mistakes from the report verbatim. I don't understand why this discussion has to take place without all the available evidence.

Why would we need to see the whole thing?

I think that what Op has posted is enough tbh.

This is true after my children left for school, however I accepted that it was uneccesary to comment on my worries and so there is no need. It is also quite identifiable as my DD should any of the staff she works closely with be on here.

acasual,

Tbh, even the very limited number of examples given would be quite enough to have me (as a teacher) wanting feedback.

A single typo or an obvious autocorrect error in an otherwise correct report - absolutely normal. Regrettable, but normal.

More than that - so just the examples already given to us - would be sufficient to know that something has gone wrong, justifying feedback. It doesn't mean that 'the teacher is illiterate' or 'the school is bad', but it does mean that an incorrect report has been allowed to go out, which there should be processes to prevent, and now a process to rectify.

I'm a teacher, my workload is ridiculous, I'm tired at this time of year but I think that providing a report littered with errors is entirely unacceptable. Yes it takes time to proofread, but it's a basic courtesy.

I always say that we ask the students to work hard for us all year, and the very least we can do for them is to provide a thoughtful, personalised and accurate report. I would use CocktailQueen's wording.

acasual,

are you a teacher & you think that it might be you?

...the examples already given to us - would be sufficient to know that something has gone wrong, justifying feedback.

The OP has quoted one sentence and two words as evidence. 25% of the report as a whole, it is claimed, contains errors like these. I think it would help to know what they are and can see no good reason for not quoting them.

diddl I am a retired teacher and it has been some years since I wrote a report.

acausal, why? Why do we need a more extensive list?

For me, it is binary:

• One, or at most, in a long report, 2, absolutely clear typos or autocorrect errors (so not, for example, the misuse of practice / practise): no feedback

• More than this: feedback.

The examples already given would go above the threshold for feedback.

she wouldn't be a teacher if her writing was so bad

Unfortunately this just isn't true. I'm a governor so have a vested interest in such things. My child's home work diary showed a clear lack of understanding of the apostrophe as well as a failure to understand difference between your and you're. I raised this with the leadership team as it shows a massive training need in that particular teacher and resulted in a part of an inset day being set aside to train on basic grammar. The teacher never knew the training was directed at her as she was certainly not alone. This was a year or two ago, before the massive hike in the SPAG requirements, so it is even more important now that our teachers understand the principles that they are supposed to teach. More widely I also pointed out grammatical or syntax errors in notice board displays - it gave a poor impression of the school. I had to explain the difference between an adverb and an adjective and why they had used the wrong one in a particular scenario. Again, it may have seemed pissy at first but it's bloody important - you are teaching the basics to a blank canvas and every mistake will be adopted by at least one or more of your flock. There have been huge improvements in our school as a result of me raising this, and I have been thanked for pushing for better standards on this issue.

As to the typos, that isn't on. I totally appreciate that teachers are shattered, but similarly their job is to practise what they preach. It's sloppy to have any typos in a report, but several is unjustifiable, and poor sentence construction to boot seems to suggest they don't give a shit. 30 reports is a lot, but they go through several levels of scrutiny and if none of those people have picked it up then there is a problem. You can say it nicely though, you don't have to be rude, you can simply express surprise that it had so many grammar/syntax and spelling errors and you wanted to make them aware if it so it could be addressed, couple with some positive comments about the year's teaching if you can to soften the blow.

For those of you who think this pedantic, I have been involved in the recruitment of professional staff for many years. These days, applicants are so highly qualified and are so numerous for so few positions that one way of weeding out candidates initially is to bin any CV with a typo or grammatical/spelling mistake. It cuts numbers significantly, and frankly, if you can't be arsed to check your CV or you don't know how to use the apostrophe, many professional doors will close for you pretty quickly. Computers do not make literacy redundant.

acausal, why? Why do we need a more extensive list?

I've explained this: I want a discussion informed by all the evidence. The few mistakes quoted are, apparently, "the tip of the iceberg". I don't understand why I'm not allowed to look at the iceberg itself. The evidence would be easy to provide so why not do it?

A casual, of course she can't, it would identify her child and be totally irresponsible. Don't be so silly.

The chances of her child being identified are negligible and you know it. It is you who is being silly.

I would be miffed at receiving a report with mistakes like those. That said, it would be wonderful to receive a report with a whole page of comments specifically written and personalised to my child. That sounds like an absolute dream, and I'd be very impressed that the teacher found time to do such a thorough job.

The fact that the OP considers it would be unreasonably time-consuming for her to retype the text here so we can see the standard is telling. Imagine how long it must have taken to write thirty or so such reports from scratch!

My feedback on the report would reflect how grateful I was for this effort, the fact that it reflected well on the relationship the teacher had developed with the pupils - and the fact that it was disappointing the result was marred by a lack of proof-reading.

I wouldn't C&P my child's whole report on MN

And of course literacy matters, and there are too many teachers who aren't up to scratch

I'm not asking the OP to copy and paste the whole report.