...to expect school to communicate in decent English?

[MargeSimpsonMyAlterEgo]

My DSs attend a secondary school which is one of the best in the country for GCSE grades, but the headmistress can't construct a decent letter to save her life. I have just received a notice to attend their Fireworks night which is "Formally held at D%$ School". It is obvious that it should be "Formerly held at D%$ school" whereas now they are holding it on their own grounds. How can we expect our kids to pay attention when the teachers don't? And it's not really about grammar, it's about caring whether something is correct and leading by example. Call me picky if you like - yes, I am!

I remember being MOST put out when my teacher corrected my "Sindy doll" story of what I'd done at the weekend with "Cindy doll".

That was when I was 5. By the time I was 8, I was finding alternate definitions for words and using them to taunt the teachers with. We used to have to write a sentence for each spelling to describe it (oh kill me now) - so a sultana was "a sultan's wife". I got a cross for that too. Until she looked it up

I was a pedant from BIRTH, I think.

I had a word crossed out from one composition in yr6 even though I'd seen it written in the school prayer book (forget what the word was now!). The teacher said that it wasn't a word. I wish I'd had the courage to point it out to her at the time - it wasn't til much later I got bolshy.

You shouldn't be so wimpy bookofthedeadmum. I wrote to my old English teacher several years after she'd corrected me for saying "going to go" in one of my essays. She got a belated bollocking.

So I should just write to her now, "Dear Mrs Toothpik, in April 1976 you wrote in red on one of my....etc, etc,.....so perhaps you would change the marks awarded at your earliest convenience."

I have just read this on a school website:

"Visitors to the school are struck by the disciplined yet caring atmosphere and the mature relationships between pupils and all who work and live in its attractive grounds. There is a sense of real purpose and harmony based on Christian principles and our traditions, and revealed in such personal qualities as consideration, service and endeavour."

Oh dear - that is a bit dire.

I work as a school admin officer - I don't like school secretary - it sounds like I just type and make the tea. Here the secretaries, if you must, are very pedantic about correct grammar and often correct (or completely re-write) the teacher's letters. I'd be mortified if that letter went out.

And be kind to your school secretary - it's good to have her onside, honest.

I went to a family centre last week that had a 'litrcy corner'

how about this:

'Just a note home to say your child XXX feal over durning PE today and burmped head. ok. bathed'

FEAL over????
DURNING PE???
BURMPED his head????????