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?

Op I'd speak to her first. Tell her to use spell check. Assuming your using standard MS Word, Excel, Outlook etc.
Word & Outlook can be set up to automatically spell & grammar check. Excel you need to remember to run it.

But one of the best lecturers / teachers I ever had was dyslexic. Back in the days of handwritten actitate overhead projector sheets.

His ability to teach and get a point across was first class his spelling maybe not. One of the other lecturers borrowed his sheets one day and was - Hem I only borrowed these, you might be able to guess who wrote them!

I totally get dyslexia is a thing and not all dyslexics are the same. I can normally tell a word doesn't look right. But that doesn't mean i know how to fix it. I worked with someone recently, I'd say "that doesn't look right" the stock reply was "I don't know I'm dyslexic".
The tools spell & grammar checks are there - use them. They'll find 95% of the errors.

OP is right to be worried. This previously unnoticed situation could hinder pupils’ progress. It is NOT ok to assume that it doesn’t matter if children are so young. It is NOT ok to make allowances a la ‘maybe leaders have other things to worry about’. See standard 3 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a750668ed915d3c7d529cad/Teachers_standard_information.pdf

If the job-share has been working at the school for ten years, this should have been picked up by leaders already. If I were the OP, I would be doubling up on spelling emphasis in my own teaching and sensitively broaching this with the HT at the next line management/progress meeting.

Spell check is useful but doesn't distinguish between your/you're as per your post which I'm assuming is down to auto-correct which also gets things like this wrong. Spell check will also not flag up a their/there/they're mistake or discreet/discrete etc.

Yes I've worked with a teacher who struggled with spelling before and she was fab, she was constantly modelling how she dealt with it, making lists, modelling how to check in a dictionary etc. Her class knew there was no shame in not knowing the spelling of a word and could utilise a range of strategies. I often copy off her in the hope it has the same impact and I think children benefit from knowing that the teacher doesn't just know everything.

Not, it's not ok. However, as you say, it should have already been picked up on. The fact that it hasn't, says to me that management may not be great. Sometimes, you do not do yourself any favours by trying to improve other people with not great managers.

Word which is what I'd assume teachers are using will pick up some grammar errors.
I don't get to excited about my spelling on here although I will occasionally ask for some to give me the spelling if it's too wild for my phone to autocorrect.

I'm sure a teacher does actually know which version of your / you're they need to use as that's not really a dyslexic issue that's a grammar thing.

They should pick it up if they read through and correct their work. I'm a retired teacher and have noticed poor spelling and grammar from ex colleagues and, particularly, from letters home from my grandchildren's schools. I have seen rogue apostrophes on teachers' displays in a secondary school.

Edit: I wasn't specifically talking about teachers with dyslexia.

What is it with 'defiantly' - you see it all the time!

It doesn't even read as definitely, say as in there/their, to/too

CaptainMyCaptain · Today 14:02

I have seen rogue apostrophes on teachers' displays in a secondary school.

I'm relieved to see that you apostrophised teachers plural correctly!

Top marks for most patronising comment too 👍

Of course 😉

There's a large poster at work with the correct spellings of tricky medical words, and their definitions, for the admin staff to use to spell the words correctly on patients' notes. There are three spelling mistakes on it 🙈

It's fine to be a teacher with poor spelling if you know you are and make sure you have a list of required words or check, or get a student to check, but it's not ok to guess.

If you're a teacher of a subject that's not English, Literacy or languages, yes. I teach languages. It would not be ok for me to be bad at spelling French, German and Spanish words.

If that was in my office I’d be getting out a thick red pen and correcting it! 🤣

I typed out a list of commonly used medical words to put on the notice board as they weren't being used correctly. After a year I took it down because no-one referred to it as mistakes were still being made. A colleague flew at me and angrily said "you're not the only one that works here" and she redid the list, including spelling mistakes like prostrate and exema! My Manager told me not to say anything and words are still being spelt incorrectly.

I'm dyslexic and spell check doesn't help as much as you would think. I can look at the suggested words and not know which word is correct and easily end up with a correctly spelt but completely wrong word. Same with predictive often my attempts at a word are so bad my phone has no idea what I mean. A physical dictionary is brilliant if you know the first 3 letters but useless if you don't. I dictate a lot but this leads to more mistakes as it's all spelt correctly there are no wiggly red lines to draw my eye to things that are wrong.

I love kids. Love helping them learn. I would have loved to be a teacher. I have a degree and high enough grades to do a PGCE and become one. But I never did it because I know I can't spell. Yet I know I'd be accepted. I work in early years. Phonics I can do 😂

YADNBU. I’ve sadly come across more than one primary school teacher like this. It actually makes me angry that people like this are able to make it through the hiring process in the first place. Even my 10 year old knows how to use spell check.

I have a ancient electronic dictionary that is my friend. If the computer gives me words and I'm still not sure electronic dictionary or Web dictionary usually help.

I haven't needed to resort to my pre-e-dictionary tactic of changing the sentence/ paragraph for a heck of a long time.
My light bulb moment💡 was finding "certain" in the electronic dictionary OMG 😲 it found it for me. Not a chance of this earth was I ever going to find it in a paper dictionary.