My job share teacher has poor spelling

[Frustratedteacher1]

I'm a part time KS1 primary who has been working with a different partner for a few months. I've noticed that her spelling is not good... Some examples...

'defiantly' instead of 'definitely'
'scalf' for 'scarf'
'breath' for 'breathe'
'hibinate' for 'hibernate'
'to' when it should be 'too'

And then just general lack of apostrophes and commas.

I'm certainly not perfect but I feel these are pretty basic spellings for a primary school teacher and it's making me frustrated that children are being shown incorrect spellings.

Am I being picky? Would you be bothered if your child's teacher was making these mistakes?

I am a year 1 ta and my class teacher immediately pulls me up on any spelling or grammar mistakes (fortunately it doesn't happen often!) because it's so important!

I thought teachers had to take and pass maths and literacy tests as part of their training before they fully qualified? Has that gone by the wayside?

Pretty embarrassing for a so called professional. Is she 12?

Up until a few years ago prospective teachers had to pass the Literacy and Numeracy test before getting QTS, but apparently that was an unfair and unnecessary hurdle preventing good teachers from getting into the profession so it was removed.

Anyone else think that was potentially actually a useful hurdle?

Seriously, this so illustrates what a lack of knowledge some people have regarding dyslexia..🙄

When I trained you had to have English and maths O Level (plus others and A levels).

That was early 80s.

It's because your SPaG doesn't need to be perfect to pass a degree and most people are only as good as their own education in this area. The government did introduce literacy (Inc SPaG), numeracy and science subject knowledge tests as part of teacher training but they only lasted a few years before they were abandoned.

People often don't know they've got it wrong. Other people don't always recognise they've got it wrong..

No one's perfect but if I was consistently making the same mistakes, I'd expect it to be addressed. It's one of the teacher standards.

In the OP's shoes I'd either raise it with the teacher herself or raise it with the phase leader.

Of course no one here was going to say it was fine and they wouldn't care.

How? To teach spelling you need to ensure you are spelling correctly yourself.

Me.

You also had three attempts to pass them so I wasn't convinced of their efficacy anyway

I changed my kids school because I was appalled by the class teachers spelling and verbal poor grammar.

@FlabMonsterIsDietingAgain it absolutely was a useful hurdle that would have kept out people of a low academic standard from the profession.

When I did my tests (in the driving test centre!), the girl on the computer next to me was in floods afterwards because she had failed the literacy test for the third time and would now not be able to pursue her course. I couldn't help but think that if you couldn't accurately use your own native language, then teaching probably wasn't the right profession for her.

Now practically anyone with a pulse can train - particularly in primary, where you can still do BA degrees to enter the profession, for which you only need very low A level scores. No longer requiring the literacy and numeracy tests means a lot of people are slipping through the net into the profession who lack really basic skills that they are then unable to teach properly. It's very worrying.

Every year I've had to unteach the mistakes a lot of my Year 7 students' primary school teachers have taught them. The number of students who come to secondary school thinking a comma splice is a writing technique fills me with despair!

@IAintNoMissHoney the 3 attempt limit was bought in after the tests had been running for a few years, before that it was unlimited attempts and I knew of people who didn't pass till they were in the double digits. The first 3 attempts were free if I remember correctly then after that they had to pay.

I worked with a dyslexic guy who was head of English in a primary school. He was aware that spelling was an issue for him, and would often ask me in front of the children if he had spelled something correctly. We used it as a learning point for the kids, demonstrating how it’s fine to ask if you don’t know, and showing what strategies you could use. It worked because he was upfront about it, and so was I, and we often involved pupils in our spelling discussions.
Conversely, I’ve seen letters sent out from the head of a different schoolcontaining grammatical errors, and when this was done often, I thought it gave the impression that the both the teaching and admin in the school was slapdash, and in fact it was quite anti- intellectual. This was a school where children reading for pleasure, curling up in corners with books, were mocked by teachers, and where they got rid of the library! It was felt that one small bookcase in each classroom provided an adequate supply of books for 30 children.

Pay to pass? I've heard it all now!

I'm not disagreeing about the need for work to be of a good standard for teachers etc. The op would be better off speaking to her colleague rather than bitching on here.
What I am pointing is that dyslexia (being dyslexic myself I have first hand experience on this) is not just about spelling it's much more - people with dyslexia obviously can use spell check etc. But they can write something and not always see the mistakes in it. As I said it's more than spelling.

Well she shood be getting reported to the lyne manajur🤣🤭

Seriously though, definitely don't approach your colleague yourself, it's best handled by management.

If my kid's teacher had those issues it'd make me quite concerned about the education they're receiving. In this day and age of spell (and grammar) check there's no excuse for mistakes like that.

Your examples are mostly from the Y2 and Y3/4 spelling lists and appendices so, yes, that's pretty awful. Honestly, I find teachers who can't spell infuriating as it makes the profession as a whole look bad. How these people can manage to teach Y6 EGPS is beyond me.

You compile a file that shows these errors.
you won’t actually need to say much. The spellings speak for themselves surely.

Disagree - going to line manager first is not good for the team. I would feel quite put out if my colleagues ran off telling my line manager first, without giving me the opportunity to do something about it. Who knows why the work isn't up to standard etc. In teaching like this, they are suppose to be sharing the preparation so it isn't a big deal to raise the issue. In fact your line manager might even wonder why you felt you couldn't.

Surely that would be ....to me and to them?

@EnglishBluebell nope: the single “to” does the job for both.

Surely 'Joe and I' would be correct in most instances? I was always corrected as a child if I ever said "...and me"

In fairness, I'm guessing the removal wasn't for the teachers' sake? The teaching industry here needs anyone and everyone.

I'm from an Asian country where teachers are revered and earn more than most white-collar workers, and while I don't personally subscribe to teacher worship, it's quite surprising how teaching is seen as a bottom of the barrel profession here. Shit pay, poor working conditions (potentially also because of the state vs public school dichotomy), etc.

Indeed. 'To me and them' is grammatically incorrect and more oral, colloquial phrasing than something you'd actually use in written English. If you are using 'me and them', you need a double preposition as the only reason you'd be using me and them in this context is to emphasise the parity of the two groups of people involved.

If you weren't emphasising this difference, you'd just simplify it entirely by saying 'to both of us.'