To expect school teachers to actually educate my child?

[ICancelledTheCheque]

Maybe I'm being a bit PFB but this has really irked me.

DD is Y7 in a big academy secondary school. She showed me some work she had done - in three paragraphs there were six spelling errors and five grammatical errors. The teacher didn't mark up a single thing and just put big green ticks and irritating smiley faces on her work and wrote "excellent work" at the end.

But it wasn't excellent work. How is she going to learn if they don't flag this stuff up? Is this the norm these days? Doesn't bode well for GCSEs if so!!

Bottom line. Spelling and grammar can be corrected by a well trained assistant - male or female. These are relatively low level technical skills. Don't complain to me for saying this look at the facts.

In depth creative or analytical thought is highly valued and sought after. You child could potentially check the work of other's or actually do the in depth creative thinking. I know what skills I want my children to value.

How many well paid executives send out reports that haven't been checked by a secretary? None. Who gets paid most the secretary who can spell or the executive who can think!

The jokes about professors, doctors and executives who need help with spelling and handwriting are not jokes. However, these people are valued more for their thinking skills.

Spelling and grammar are important but other skills are much more important.

Who gets paid most the secretary who can spell or the executive who can think!

Basically irrelevant if we're not teaching any of them to spell, isn't it?

No we are teaching them to think so they get the good jobs.

You can check their work for them.

Anothermoomin: What, every child in the country will be an executive with an ex English teacher PA??Apart from the obvious issues with this plan, when all the English teachers are dead, who will have learned to spell so they can get a job as a PA?

We are aiming high for all are pupils. Isn't that what parents want?

Anothermoomin: 'our' pupils, surely?

I did it on purpose so someone else could correct it for me.

It was a sophisticated attempt to be ironic.

Trifle excellent work identifying my subtle use of linguistic techniques to highlight the argument.

I'm a secondary school teacher, teaching over 100 children. If I spent a mere 10 minutes per book per week that would add up to well over 16 hours per week just marking. 45 hours per week working in school. And that's before I've planned lessons, and that's pretty important.
I make a policy of highlighting up to three spelling mistakes per marked piece of work. Many children - without dyslexia or learning difficulties - just cannot be bothered to check spellings and copy them accurately.
I'm a parent too and I tell my children to check spellings on their homework and make the effort to use a dictionary if they need to.

loubyjh Sat 28-Jan-17 19:10:33

My ex has just started working as an English teacher in Rotherham and he is dyslexic!!
He had a dispensation on his degree that said they shouldn't take into account the spelling and grammar!

Ok, you have to be kidding me!

And what exactly will his role in teaching English be if he can't get spelling and grammar correctly?

Gosh, you really cannot make this up! No wonder kids graduate from school illiterate - the system just doesn't care. Everything is just about funding and money and nothing about PROPER education. I am more than apalled! Absolute waste of time.

Lets say I have desire to supplement my child's school hours with lots of home help in every possible way. Lets say that I sacrifice the time because I value education. What bothers me the most is that I will have to steal time from my child's childhood in order to correct the school's mistakes. There will be no time left in the day for anything else! What is the point in them going to school then? Might as well stay home and learn things properly from ME. As I don't want to raise a neither a robot, nor an illiterate.

Might as well stay home and learn things properly from ME.

You know that this is an option, right? Though you might want to learn how to spell appalled and brush up on your grammar before commencing delivering this perfect education to your child.

Though you might want to learn how to spell appalled and brush up on your grammar before commencing delivering this perfect education to your child

This is the problem, isn't it? People are so convinced they would do a better job than the teacher. Acrualky, it's pretty normal to make the occasional spelling error. No-one needs to be tarred and feathered for it, including English teachers. What we need is sufficient time to mark work properly, so that most children learn to spell most words correctly.

I had a parent on the phone a couple of months ago, demanding her son was moved to a different class because he was 'devastated' the teacher had corrected a word wrongly in his book. I had to ask the mum: when the next teacher makes a similar error, will you want him moved again? How many times will you wish us to move him? Needless to say, these questions were rhetorical - not a chance of me moving a child because of a spelling mistake!

I think when marking they mark according to criteria like was the subject understood, even with mistakes did they convey what was needed.

I know this is the idea during primary school, so if writing a story they focus on what has been achieved story telling wise, not spelling and punctuation.

Since you understand that mistakes were made, you could take the time to do extra work with DD. Education is something that takes part at school and home. Any help you can give will be for DD's benefit.

I really feel for school teachers. They used to be able to plan a lesson, deliver a lesson and mark the work. The demands on their day now leave little time for quality planning and marking. I literally wouldn't do the job for a million pounds.

MargaretCavendish, thanks for pointing my mistakes out. How else would I know I made a mistake and learn from it, if you hadn't told me?
In any case, I think my English is brilliant, considering it's not my mother tongue.

Also, I'm of the view that learning to spell well should happen in KS2. Old fashioned lists and tests, words learned at home. By KS3 there is too much content to get through and a child with insecure spelling will make the same mistakes over and over again, but without the time to correct and learn them. By KS4 it isn't just a bit late, it's an absolute waste of time trying to correct it.

So many parents on here are outraged at the idea of homework, though, that I know that very few of the children will actually learn their spellings at home. Then when the kids get to secondary and start failing, the parents start blaming the school Far too late by then. Do the homework while it has some chance of having an impact.

We are obsessed with spelling. It is a skill that does need to be taught but really it is not that important. Once someone can spell adequately it is a lot more important to focus on other skills.

What professions require excellent spelling in handwritten work these days? Most jobs communicate via email and word process documents. Once your spelling is good enough to use a spell checker correctly does it matter? Assuming you can use and spell subject specfic vocabulary where does handwritten spelling matter?

Doctors, nope they use IT. Engineering, nope IT. Computer industry, nope IT. Nursing nope. Chef or catering, nope. Retail, nope. Commerce - yes but most communication uses IT. Tech publications - all done on IT. Journalist, they rely on copy editors.

Lawyers - to pass professional exams you still need to write exams longhand so spelling would count. Secretaries, they need to be able to spell. Copy editors, although they mainly use IT.

So perhaps we should be teaching students how to effectively use a spell checker? Unless they want to be a lawyer or a secretary.

I had a parent on the phone a couple of months ago, demanding her son was moved to a different class because he was 'devastated' the teacher had corrected a word wrongly in his book. I had to ask the mum: when the next teacher makes a similar error, will you want him moved again? How many times will you wish us to move him? Needless to say, these questions were rhetorical - not a chance of me moving a child because of a spelling mistake!

Mmmmmm - teaching children that having a mistake pointed out is part of life and the path towards growth would also assist.

I have been told if the lesson is on punctuation-- then that is what they mark and look out for rather than the whole piece of work iyswim.

I don't agree with it but maybe thats how they do it.

YetAnotherSpartacus: Who, me or the parents?

Anothermoomin: It is part of literacy. Spelling words in various ways can change meaning. Being able to recognise this helps you to understand the text - locate it in terms of time and geography, culture and intellect of the writer, etc. You are advocating the most threadbare, utilitarian approach to education I can imagine. It robs our children to say they can just rely on spell check.

Mmmmmm - teaching children that having a mistake pointed out is part of life and the path towards growth would also assist.

I agree with you absolutely. But failure is not an option for schools is it. I can't see how they can marry this mindset with the pressure of SAT performance etc. Kids are essentially being trained that failure is bad.

It is a skill that does need to be taught but really it is not that important

I just think inference, analysis, creative writing, reading and writing for pleasure, poetry, theatre, being able to spot bias and comment on it etc are more important than spelling.

Far from utilitarian my classroom has theatre and joy and poetry because we love it.

Anothermoomin: Those things are important. Spelling is important too.

Trifleorbust - EVERYONE! :). But both parents and teachers for a start.

Actually at my place of work, we dictate for audio typing and then check and correct the secretaries' work... a secretary has never checked or corrected my work!

In fact there's a lot of value to be placed on a good secretary. Frankly when we had a 16 year old apprentice that failed to understand even basic spelling and punctuation it was a nightmare!