Please tell me how in this day and age we can let this happen ?

[sleepwalker]

I have been to my ds's secondary school tonight for a parent help group in English and Math ( how to help your child at home ) this is great i find out how to help the kids with out confusing them.
When i asked about spelling this is not really covered cos its only 4 marks of the sats and hand writting they are not intrested covering but surly hand writting is important

Is surly hand writting what large-fisted grumpy lawyers do?

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Lol @ Monkeybird..

OP, I have to agree with you. DS's spelling is awful and when I asked why they didn't correct his mistakes, I was told that they didn't want to 'discourage' him, and also that it's not worth bothering about because spelling only comes into one paper in GCSE (out of 4, I think) and is only a minor part of that.

It seems to me that they expect this to be covered at primary school, and for spelling to get better with reading practice, which it will do. Also I suppose there's more reliance on computers now, and they've got so many other things to cram in these days.
But, it's a shame.

Yes i can see all that but you still have to write a cv fill in an forms etc etc

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IMO spelling is important. Handwriting, not as much. Apart from making notes in my diary and ocasionally signing cheques I hardly ever need to handwrite.

i know i have had to write 1 by hand but i had to show i could write neatly

maybe i should give up and stop making a big thing about it and strap a laptop to my ds for the rest of his life

No, you're right, of course it's important. It's just another skill that seems to be no longer valued, like knitting and making pastry. They used to teach those at school too! My advice is to make him write as much as you can - I get my son to write at every opportunity 'If I shout out what I need at the supermarket will you write the list?' etc & have done since he was little.

He had very little confidence in his reading, and I got a teacher friend to assess him. She said he just needed practice. I was nearly in tears the other day when he was able to read to me the lead article in The Telegraph, with no mistakes apart from a name which I wouldn't have known either. We have been practising his reading every night and AT LAST he seems to have got there!

Both my dc's have weekly spelling tests throughout Junior School. Dd is now in Yr 6. They also have incentives for neat handwriting (being allowed to use a pen).
No surly handwritting here!

Tbh I am not sure this lack of attention is something that has come on suddenly in recent years. The spelling in some of the above posts (not just you, sleepwalker) doesn't seem to bear this out. And a more general study of Mumsnet suggests that these problems go back a fair old way.
IME experience middle-aged academics struggle as much as school children.
My husband, who went to Latymer's, still needs me (a foreigner) to proof-read his articles.