To think teachers should be able to spell

[Brieandcamembert]

I have increasingly noticed recently teachers (often of primary age) who make very basic spelling and grammar errors. Surely having excellent basic skills in this area is an essential criteria for teaching it?

I'm really concerned that we are raising a generation who will have appalling literacy skills.

I have seen the classic "of / have" confusion
I have seen "been" used instead of "being"
I have also seen phonetically similar words interchanged with one another.

There are no excuses for poor spelling, when you are a teacher

The ability to spell is not particularly useful if you teach maths. It’s a nightmare trying to recruit and retain decent maths teachers. Why would you exclude poor spellers?

Teachers are overworked and underpaid. Sadly the pay and conditions do not attract well.
If you want “better” teachers you need to pay them more and reduce the workload.

@CallmeHendricks

Your OP might have carried more weight with me had you not split an infinitive in the first sentence.

There isn't any infinitive in the first sentence.

@user1471427614

It has been meantioned but to teach all teachers need at least a C in gcse english and maths and also have to pass a skills test in both

A Grade 4 or 5 at GCSE does not require very high levels of accuracy with spelling and grammar. Passing a skills test is no measure of a high skills level in written English. You could train an 11 year old to pass it.

@donquixotedelamancha

Unacceptable and lazy to teach students the wrong spellings.

The problem with saying it's unacceptable is what do you do about it?

Sack them? Good luck finding a replacement.

Provide additional time and training or supervise them more? There is just no time or resources to do that.

Calling all teachers who make mistakes lazy is just silly dick swinging.

If the teacher repeatedly fails to pre-check and correct their own written work AND repeatedly fails to correct a child’s work AND repeatedly teaches children an incorrect way to write and spell ….then it’s not a mistake. It’s poor teaching. They’re not suited to the job. Not because they’re dyslexic but because they are lazy and unmotivated.

Don’t know what to do about it though. The answer is to make teaching more attractive so you get more motivated people coming into it…how you do that is a whole other story.

I once sent a worksheet back to school with corrections all over it as it was riddled with errors, along with a note asking if they were purposely there as it was a reading exercise.

I don't think I was very popular after that. But it was a teaching assistant that had created the sheet, not the teacher.

I think people who proofread books should be able to use correct spelling and grammar too, but I’ve rarely read one recently that is accurate.

We can! It's just that publishing companies don't hire us any more.

Btw I’m not talking about maths or science teachers.
I’m talking about primary teachers whose job it is to teach children how to write and spell.

I worked in a school where all outgoing communications were proof read and "corrected" by the office manager. Unfortunately, she was less literate than I am and letters would go out with my name on which showed a tenuous (or what she would refer to as tedious) grasp of punctuation and grammar.

Are you saying I should just accept my kids being taught incorrect SPAG or not being taught it at all because their teacher might be dyslexic?

Unless you are comfortable with people being discriminated against because of a disability, then yes you must accept this

Absolutely not true. Schools can certainly employ teachers with dyslexia, but that does not mean parents then have to suck up their children being taught incorrect grammar and spelling and potentially being penalised for life as a result. What should happen is that the school puts adjustments in place to ensure that pupils are not adversely affected, e.g. PAs (which can be funded through the Access to Work scheme) to check written material the teacher produces.

Yes, I do think they should, as spelling mistakes are contagious. I marked a whole class set of essays once where the students had written "dutchess" because that's the way their teacher had written it and they adored her, even though it was clearly spelled correctly everywhere else.

I also appreciate that sometimes people make mistakes and when schools are short staffed, teschers become overworked and things like proofreading get rushed or not completed.

People coming in to teaching are mostly highly motivated. Then then lose their motivation and good will due to the incessant need that the public have to blame us for all of the ills of society.

Teachers are humans and humans make errors 🤷‍♀️.
Their probably all knackered too and don't need criticism from overzealous parents.
After homeschooling my child through lockdown I've realised just how hard getting a child to learn is so x that by 26 I've got a new found respect for teachers and I don't sweat the small stuff .

Don’t know what to do about it though. The answer is to make teaching more attractive so you get more motivated people coming into it…how you do that is a whole other story

Reduce workload. But to do this you would have to hire loads more teachers. And I’m not sure where you would find them. Or how you would pay for them.

Spelling is not a sign of intelligence so I don't put too much value on it in every day life. But of course a teacher has to be able to teach the correct spelling.

I have never seen a primary teacher make mistakes with could have/of, been/being etc. It is not a problem I am aware of and I would notice.

Is this in a work setting? Ie on homework or reports? I would be disappointed. However if it is on Facebook or some other personal setting I wouldn't be that interested.

@MrsHamlet

But it does mean that the school should have adjustments in place such as checking their communications, and particularly checking things like classroom presentations Who do you propose checks my colleague's 26 "classroom presentations" and 200+ marked books a week? And when?

That's what Access to Work grants for disabled people are for.

The first piece of homework my son had at school was to learn a song. Ten little monkey's sitting on the bed [sic]. Friends advised that I still had a long way to go with the school so not to die on this hill, but who the hell uses an apostrophy for a plural?

I have to check the reports that go out to parents as part of my job. You’d be surprised how many times they spell the kids name wrong or write the wrong name. I spend hours doing this as sometimes they write gobbledygook.

To those saying that teachers need to pass Literacy and Numeracy tests before starting their teaching course, this is no longer the case.

Apparently it was too big a barrier to recruitment of new teachers.

I think it's madness, how can anyone teach Literacy and Numeracy if they can't do it.

There's also a confusing message in it being too anxiety inducing and difficult for prospective teachers to do a timed test but absolutely fine to put yr 1s through phonics assessments, the timed yr 4 multiplication test, as well as yr 2 and yr 6 SATs.

www.cumbria.ac.uk/blog/articles/professional-skills-tests-scrapped-for-2020.php

I remember a large notice on a classroom door at DD's school saying "Standing on the shoulder's of giant's". I could understand one teacher making a mistake, but how on earth did none of the other teachers walking past it regularly fail to pick it up?

Part of the reason the skills tests were scrapped was because they were not a good test of the skills teachers need in real situations.
They were also scrapped because they weren't doing their job - when they had to be done BEFORE starting a course and with a finite number of attempts, you could argue that they worked.
Once it became "any number of attempts" and before the end of the course, you could have trainees passing the PGCE with QTS but failing skills tests and not being allowed to teach.

I don’t know of any teachers of primary age OP! Perhaps you need to check your grammar and punctuation in your first sentence.
Don’t worry though. As I tell my class, it’s okay to make mistakes - that’s one of the ways we learn.

@Thereisnolight

Btw I’m not talking about maths or science teachers. I’m talking about primary teachers whose job it is to teach children how to write and spell.

Your post lacked clarity. So I criticised it.

Now imagine you are a teacher. And you’ve made a mistake on a kids book, because you know - you are human. Does that teacher deserve hauling over the coals being they made a mistake?

I made a revision booklet for my pupils. I did proofread it, but I’m shit at proofreading.
As we went through it as a class. We had to correct some errors as we went (grammar, spelling and some actual inaccuracies).

We corrected it we went and all was well. But if a parent read that document, they probably would conclude I was shit at my job.

—The booklet was written over half term holidays. It had to be done in a rush and no one is available to proofread the thing—

@annabell22

Some teachers have dyslexia- it doesn't mean that they shouldn't become a teacher.

Depends what they're teaching really.

I'm a teacher and I agree. Anyone can make a mistake while rushing but when the same teachers are making constant basic errors, it's worrying.

I don't think dyslexia is an excuse. Use a dictionary or a spellchecker. Your own difficulties with spelling shouldn't mean your pupils are short changed. An occasional error on the board is human and a good teaching moment. Repeatedly 'correcting' spelling errors that were correct in the first place is not on.

But just look at how easy it is to train as a teacher now. A friend's dd has been accepted onto a PGCE with two Es at A level and a degree in something obscure that she did over many years at OU. She is openly going into teaching for job security and holidays. She has never worked a day with children in her life. She may rise to the challenge and be fantastic, but I feel the odds are against this.

Even five years ago you needed decent A levels, a degree in a NC subject and at least two weeks experience in a school to even be considered at the same college she's going to. It's a shame. But good teachers are leaving and talented people are not choosing it as a career any more. People should consider why that is.