To think that letters home from school should not be hopping with typos, misused words and bad grammar?

[ReanimatedSGB]

I was annoyed enough with the Momo letter anyway (yeah, thanks for including a picture of the fucking thing, DS had nightmares) but it's riddled with bad grammar and spelling errors. Now the school newsletter announces that 'Exam's' will be starting next month.

AIBU to email them a notice of my hourly rates for proofreading?

I'm a stickler for spelling and punctuation so this would drive me absolutely insane. I'm not sure whether I'd say anything for fear of being 'that parent' but it doesn't set a good standard.

Send it back by return of post with corrections in red pen. Add that detention will be on Friday at 4pm

Send it back with the errors corrected in red pen. Go on, you know you want to...

I'd send it back corrected but would post it so they didn't know it was me!

I couldn't get over the bairns EHCP. It's wincing territory reading that thing.

We had one a while ago about 'Sport's Day'. Did aged 8 was delighted when that letter came home. They'd been told to look out for rogue apostrophes for their homework. Part of me did wonder if it was wrong of me to allow her to take it back into school to show her teacher but the devil in me won. She got 5 house points for it anyway!

as a publishing professional this drives me nuts. It's so unprofessional. Though our school types everything in Comic Sans...

I always wince at this!

It's all too common now sadly. When I was teaching the old headteacher wouldn't let any letter go out to parents without checking it first. She also proof read all children's end of year reports and would change commas she didn't agree with.

My mum was an English teacher and head of a department.

My school was known for sending letters home due to trivial matters (one example being the same trousers that were approved on the Friday, suddenly being unacceptable to the same teacher the following Monday!)

She was known for sending letters back to my school that she had corrected for them.

Nightmare 😂

I must say these comments are great, whenever there have been threads like this in the past the usual response is normally along the lines of 'well, they're really busy and it doesn't really matter anyway'.

My DDs school once sent a letter asking them to bring Willies to school for a trip...

My daughter’s teacher sent a letter that the childrens’ “draws” would have to be emptied. My eye is still twitching.

Absolutely OP any letter home should be a well crafted prose, on vellum

It really annoys me that every letter school sends home is littered with spelling mistakes. The last newsletter was two full sides of A4 and didn't contain one single comma.

One of the other parents did correct one once and send it back covered in red pen. I thought that was a bit twattish tbh.

I'd correct it and send it back. But I wouldn't say who it was from 😀

Seriously though, teachers should be getting this stuff right. They're supposed to be teaching it after all.

I know a head of English whose grammar and punctuation is appalling - official emails, letters, teaching in lessons etc

Exam's what?

Why does it matter? These people producing these letters aren’t professionals and as long as you read and understand the message, what’s the problem?

Absolutely with you OP. In addition to the poor spelling and grammar, I can’t bear the sloppy presentation of many school letters I receive. I’m not expecting a beautifully formatted masterpiece, but sometimes these letters seem to be random snippets of unrelated text in different fonts and sizes just stuck on a page. I’ve worked in publishing so perhaps I’m a bit over sensitive but surely a quick proofread is in order before they send these letters out?

It would really get on my tits too. So far we've been lucky but if I ever get the chance, I will correct it

ivykaty44 the problem is the people producing the letter are professional secretaries/receptionists. I am a secretary/receptionist and I would be hung for these sort of errors. Sometimes I do make errors outside of work through rushing etc but in work I couldn't send out a letter with errors in!

We get a weekly newsletter every Friday and it's just so badly written, drives me mad!

I used to send back the letters corrected with red pen and I made sure that they knew who did it. On one famous occasion, I was asked to go on the school trip (I always went, due to DD's allergies). I replied that I did not know what I would be doing on X day in 4 years time. I knew when the trip was, and the date and the year AND the day were all wrong. The head was very cat's bum mouth when he got my note.

The school secretary was a lovely lady, but had less than no grasp of grammar or spelling. The head was a lazy bastard and never read anything that went out to the parents. When the inspectors came, I gave the school a really bad rating, and included copies of the notes sent home. Of course, the school had done nothing apart from stuff solely to impress the inspectors and so got a good pass.

The next head of that school was even less able than the original one and I removed DD2 to a school which was much better. Pity I hadn't done it earlier.

Bunnybigears I was always told by the professionals I’ve worked with that to be a professional you need to have studied extensively to achieve your qualifications.

School receptionist are lovely and do a great job but I think people are expecting far to much from them and it’s unfair.