AIBU to ask DS' new teacher to spell his name correctly?

[Jorvik1978]

Pretty much as the title. DS' new teacher (Y3) is spelling his name incorrectly. He says it's on everything. It's certainly incorrect on his reading record.

On the one hand, it feels petty, but on the other, it's just a common courtesy to get it right....

Mention it and don’t feel bad, when my ds was in nursery they spelt his name wrong in his peg, I just informed his teacher and it was correct the next day.

Thanks for your post, Clarich Birminghamham.

Names like Mohamed have a few variations and if all the Mohamed's spell it a different way then I would understand not remembering.
My very female name is spelt similar to the boys version apart from one letter - think Simon/Simone Louis / Louise - and I cannot believe the amount of people who get this super common name wrong.

Definitely let them know it's wrong - I'm sure they'd rather fix it as soon as possible.

I was told by a class that I'd spelled one boy's name incorrectly. I was pretty certain I was spelling it as on the list I'd been given, so I asked the boy which was the correct spelling. It was a Bengali name, and it turned out that his mother transliterated it one way and his father another way - the lad himself was quite unbothered by which was used.

I teach and I'd be mortified if it was wrong - tell them!

It’s not a small thing. It’s his name and should be spelt correctly. I’m a teacher and would want to know and also the mother of a Freddy - endlessly spelt ie. I don’t mind if people haven’t seen it written down but v annoying in situations where it shouldn’t happen. Now he’s older he’s gone for Fred which has solved it!

NC (obviously!)

I'm a Deborah, in the 70s my mother went down to school & really raised the roof after the teacher changed my name to Debra and wouldn't change it back when I told her it was wrong! It was a church school too, so she made the point that it was a biblical name and the teacher should have known better. Her parting words were "and don't even think of calling her Debbie"

Obviously, I changed it to Debs when I was a teenager 🤣

My proper name has been misspelt my life a & e wrong way round, double letters G not J different name but similar....as a child I got so confused I didn't spell it the same way....now I give up and go by Jan ....mention it.

Seriously, OP. This is the biggest none deal ever.

I'm a primary school teacher.

I quite often have to check the pronunciation of a child's name because I've taught children who pronouncd the name with the same spelling differently. I still sometimes get it wrong and the child has corrected me again__. I apologise every time.

I've also written names incorrectly either because I've spelt it wrong or it's been written down incorrectly for me to copy.

All that happens is the child says, "Miss, you say/spell it xyz" and I say, "Oh, I'm sorry!" and correct it.

In year 3, I'd probably be a bit surprised the child hadn't corrected me themselves but you wouldn't be that parent at all!

A good teacher would appreciate being corrected; it's respectful to the child to spell their name (and pronounce it) correctly.

My dd is in year 3 and told me her teacher had spelt her name wrong on her tray. She had already told the teacher it was wrong!

Im a teacher and I couldn't remember one of my kids names today! And I taught her last year as well! Mind blank! I just apologised and we laughed about it!

I would want to know if I had got it wrong.

When dd started school they had the name spelt correctly but thought she was a boy and had everything labelled up with tractor stickers. Common enough name, e.g. Charles/Charlotte.
Anyway, she was quite miffed when they insisted on swapping the tractor stickers for fairies 😂

I had to do this with the mispronunciation of one of my DS's names. It was fine, they took it well. I was polite and simply said btw it's this (not that). Obviously don't say it in front of other people, let them save face.

I think schools, at least in a lot of areas, are used to all sorts of names now with so many Polish people, Sri Lankan etc etc with names that can be very difficult to pronounce for English speakers.

Tell the teacher, but I’d assume it was given to her incorrectly and the mistake was made in the office.

"Dear teacher,

My son's name is spelt Jaydenne, not Jaden, or Jaydon, or Jaydan, or Jay-don, or Jay-den or Jay-dan,. I particularly liked to spell it differently than everyone else and find it annoying that you cannot spell it correctly!"

I feel for teachers with the multitude of spellings they face. Obviously @Jorvik1978 your child's name is merely Sam and the teacher is unable to spell.

YANBU to expect that your child's name is used and written correctly. Just have a word with the teacher, most likely a genuine error and they haven't realised.

Lovely bit of judgment there. There are lots of people whose names are have variations and the aren’t (as this forum loves to label them) ‘unique’. And so what if they were! What difference is there between Jayden/Jadan than Claire/Clare?

It's likely to be wrong centrally. Teachers copy the names from a class list printed by the office. The clerical staff input the names from the registration applications.

I don't know why you'd think it was petty to bring it up.

Just tell them. It isn't even an issue.

It's not a small thing at all! It's fundamental..It's your child's identity!

I taught in a very multicultural town, and the first thing I did when I met new parents (most of the children in my class were non-verbal so I couldn't check with them) was to ask them if I had the correct spelling of their child's name, and was pronouncing it correctly (or as close as is possible for an English speaker). It's really important and respectful to get a name right.

It infuriated me when some of my colleagues mispronounced children's names.

So yes, tell her there's been an admin error. And you don't need to apologise for anything.

I had several years of this - think Sophia v Sofia. Actually caused problems as I would get wrong books home as in same class. They may have had similar names but didn’t look the bloody same!!

Absolutely bring it up!!!

I am going to give some advice and I promise I mean this kindly. You say your son doesn't want to rock the boat, and you yourself are hesitant to bring it up. In order to teach our kids how to advocate for themselves, they need to see us being able to speak up. It sounds like you struggle with rocking the boat as well, and I think your son is probably following your example.

Goodness me, in what world would you be unreasonable OP?

It's a shame you have to ask such a question and that your child sees it as 'rocking the boat'.

I think you need to speak to him about that and ask him what he actually thinks it means?

If it is wrong on everything, it is probably wrong on the main data base, so needs to be changed, nothing to do with "common curtesy" just a human inputting error