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?

No it doesn't.

Subject and object have different rules. Many people get it wrong.

The trick I was taught as a child is to remove the other person and see if the sentence still makes sense... "I" is usually the subject (at the start of the sentence) and "me" the object (towards the end of the sentence)

If you take out the other person in the sentence, you can test if it's right to use me or I.

'Joe and me went to the shops.' Take away Joe, and you've got 'me went to the shops.' Obviously incorrect.

They gave the sweets to Joe and me' - take away Joe, and you've got 'they gave the sweets to me' - correct.

A lot of people have been taught to say 'and I' in all circumstances, just as a lot of people seem to have been taught to say 'myself' when not using reflexive verbs. 'Contact myself if you have any questions' - it's like someone sticking pins into my eyes!

“Were you speaking to Joe and I?”

””Do you think you think you could take Joe and I along?”

It’s like a foghorn to me.

@EnidSpyton source?

Currently, the job isn't attractive, and people don't want to do it. So you don't get many good quality applicants. But the roles need to be filled, because all children in the uk are entitled to an education (rightly so). In order to fill the roles, you have to accept people who are maybe not getting roles in more attractive areas of work, or who want to teach but dont really have the necessary skill set i.e. people who you wouldn't even interview normally. It's straightforward economics really.

Thanks everyone. @northernerinthesouth2000 I'm not bitching, I'm asking for advice...

Not to drip feed but there are reasons why I feel like I have to ask about this - mainly my headteacher often putting me down and making me feel I can't ask anything. So I want to be sure this is something worth addressing before I do!

I was thinking of compiling a list of the mistakes I've noticed and giving them to our English lead (who is also head of KS1) and asking her what I should do. I do worry that she will laugh and pass it off as nothing. But I want teachers to be taken seriously and paid well and it really annoys me that there are teachers making these mistakes.

As English Lead (and SLT), I would probably already have picked up on this after book looks, and spoken to the teacher concerned directly. It seems that this may not have been the case in your school though?

As a 'partner teacher' myself, I would absolutely HATE this! I would speak to SLT if I were you, and suggest that they offer support to the teacher concerned (how this support manifests is up to SLT, but in your shoes, I would have to insist that my marking is not judged alongside hers/his as a 'year group problem' and was judged solely as a 'partner teacher problem').

I feel for you as I've been in a similar situation, whereby I was 'lumped' with the other teacher and labelled as 'part of the problem', when in fact I had zero to do with it!! Wasn't even in on those days, and despite working in the same class, didn't really even know the other teacher, as we only ever met on training days 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@Frustratedteacher1 I totally understand where you're coming from, both with the concern and with the worry about how it would go down. Personally, I don't think going in with a list of things that are wrong is going to endear you. By all means compile it and have it in reserve. But I would start softly softly.

@Frustratedteacher1 ok fair enough you're asking for advice, but seriously they are your teaching partner and if you can't speak with them, then that's a sorry state of affairs - teaching is all about team work. Going to a 'manager' might make things worse. As you've just said the head has form for making you feel like rubbish why would you want to potentially inflict that on someone else?

How would you speak with them? Tell them they're illiterate?!

@Piglet89

My English degree, 2 X English MA degrees, and 15 years of teaching English are my sources.

We don't use 'me and them' in that context in English without a double preposition or just saying 'us'. It's a convention rather than a specific rule. It's like saying 'the black fat hairy cat' - in English we have a convention that places adjectives in a certain order, so you'd never say that phrase in that order, you'd say 'the fat hairy black cat'. It's an unwritten rule.

This:

This.

A friend of mine has been mentoring student teachers for years. For the past 5 or 6 years she has bemoaned the quality of trainees coming through for all manner of reasons - poor subject knowledge; no work ethic; lack of resilience. She says that there are teachers gaining QTS now who never would have done previously.

That's not to say they're all bad! I work with some incredible ECTs. Just that there are some getting through now who never would have done so previously.

My eldest’s teacher (primary KS2) is an absolute shocker for apostrophe usage and capitals in the middle of sentences. Every week she sets homework on Google Classroom and there are at least 5 mistakes in the two short paragraphs explaining what it is. She writes maths as math’s and Good afternoon as Good Afternoon for example, every time!

She’s completely lost all credibility.

@twentysevendresses
I have no idea how it hasn't been picked up by now, as she has worked here for a decade! We don't really have book looks regularly, and we're not expected to write much other than 'well done, so and so' in KS1.

I'm actually new to job sharing and I don't want to be judged on something that's not me! Argh.

Yes it absolutely does. Do you have to say 'to John and to Fred'? No of course not. A preposition can be used to apply to two subsequent nouns (or indeed pronouns) without repeating the preposition.

@Depressedbarbie Thank you. I won't go in with the list but I'll keep it in case they ask for examples. It's so hard to think how to say it without making myself sound bad!!

Not in this context.

They gave the prize to me and the stunt men is absolutely fine without the second preposition, as you have named the second party.

They gave the prize to me and them is not fine in this instance because the 'them' is unspecified. Without the specificity you need the second preposition to make the sentence work, or you need to say 'us'.

Or did you mean that it's only wrong with thosee specific pronouns? 'To us' sounds neater than 'to them and me', but surely the latter is not actually incorrect?

I (re) learnt most of my grammar from teaching year 6 SPaG many years ago! I’m not perfect with spelling and grammar but honestly, what you’re describing is not good enough. During a school tour I went on once, the head said ‘Mrs X and myself…’ 🙈 along with the letters we receive with incorrect punctuation or comma splicing etc. If they expect year 6 to be able to do it then they should too!

They gave the prize to me and them is not fine in this instance because the 'them' is unspecified. Without the specificity you need the second preposition to make the sentence work, or you need to say 'us'.

Well yes, but why are we assuming that the sentence would be used without context?

@AllProperTeaIsTheft yeah she explained it’s a convention, not a rule. So not, strictly speaking, incorrect. And not capable of enforcement either, if not a rule - although I’m not sure what the sanctions are for breach of grammatical rules.

But they’d be bloody harsh ones, were I in charge. Loss of a fingernail for every single “I would of gone…”.