AIBU to expect my child's Year 1 teacher to spell correctly?

[PerkyShark]

DD is 5 and currently in Year 1. Every Monday, we get a new spelling list for a test on Friday, which I think is a great idea in theory. However, nearly every week there seems to be a glaring spelling mistake on the list.

A couple of weeks ago, "tarpoon" appeared instead of "harpoon." Last week, we had "Artic" instead of "Arctic." I brushed these off initially, but this week, THREE words are incorrect: "micture" (mixture), "nuture" (nature), and "murcury" (mercury).

I approached DD's class teacher politely to point this out, assuming she'd be mortified and promise to ensure it wouldn't happen again, but instead she shrugged it off, saying "human error is to be expected."

I'm also starting to worry, as these spelling lists are the only written examples I see regularly. It makes me question whether the teacher is consistently spelling things incorrectly during lessons or, even worse, not picking up on spelling mistakes my child might be making in her work.

AIBU to think that consistently misspelling words on weekly spelling lists undermines the purpose of the tests and possibly the children's learning? Or am I just being overly precious about something that doesn't really matter?

It's dreadful.

How can they learn from incorrect words.

If teacher has dyslexia they need to utilize a spellchecker and pay due ial attention to cross referencing their written work.

I would be irked and be rewriting the spelling list.

And I would’t be trusting any spell checker. They all seem to only speak American no matter how much they try to pass as English.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. Ten years ago I was 'that' parent who went in and spoke to two separate primary school teachers about things like this. They at least recognised they were wrong and needed to spell things correctly.

Surely this can't be true I refuse to believe that are giving children incorrect words to spell and not being bothered about it

These are not words that a child in Year 1 would be given as spellings, and I cannot believe that a list with such spelling errors would be sent home. This link shows the words that children would be expected to know in each year.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7ccc06ed915d63cc65ce61/English_Appendix_1_-_Spelling.pdf
If the list had been printed, then the errors would have been underlined.

We had this in Y5. At least one word every single week. I pointed this out to the teacher who said it wouldn't happen again. Except it did.
Even worse if the kids didn't get 7/10 in the test they got a break time detection. So you basically had to encourage your child to spell words incorrectly.
I went to the year head after speaking to the teacher twice and just asked if someone could ensure the spelling list was correct. No more mistakes after that.
My child's list was printed through and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they didn't use a spell check in the first place.

I would be unhappy about her brushing off these errors, especially since they are frequent rather than a one off mistake. It’s a spelling test for crying out loud. Some children won’t have parents who will be able to spot these mistakes and those children will simply learn the wrong spellings. And what if she marks incorrect spelling as correct?

I would put together a list of the words (with dates) to show this is a frequent error, and raise it with the head of year. If you are worried she might take this out on your child, I’d rope in some other parents who have similar concerns and raise the issue as a group.

Who are the ‘they’ you’re referring to?

YANBU - we don’t get incorrect spellings but the shocking SPAG in the weekly newsletter make me seeth. They also say “We be doing”. “we be doing Maths this week.” WTF

The spell checker obvs

Some of the SPAG errors on letters and newsletters from primary school do make me wince a bit, although honestly I’ve never dared point it out. We are where / were last week.

Spellcheckers don’t speak or claim to be any nationality 😂😂

This. These aren't suitable words and not words that year 1 would be learning..so obviously the teacher should be able to spell but what is with this list?

@Soontobe60 I assume she means that you can set the language to be British English or American English. That poster is saying that even if set to British English, words are corrected to American spellings.

Of course MN can turn a simple thread about spelling into a pronoun debate (about an inanimate object).

Is this a private school OP?

I assure you it is true! I am happy for MNHQ to contact me and I can share the spelling book and email from the school saying "human error is to be expected". Would be a very odd thing to lie about!

Yes, it is a pre-prep. The teacher did say that they stretch the class and some spellings are not in the year 1 list, but surely even then if she is setting them she should ensure they are spelt correctly.

The list is handwritten in pre-cursive writing every week. It isn't typed so these are not typos or autocorrect errors. I think the fact some of you can't even believe this is true is telling me that I am not being unreasonable! Thank you.

That posters clearly meant the spell checkers, as well you know

Yes, we have a similar problem. DD's Yr4 teacher isn't a qualified teacher or TA, and they don't have a degree in an unrelated subject. From what they've said, it wouldn't surprise me if they hadn't done A-levels either. The stuff they post on the class App demonstrates a very poor grasp of SPAG. 'we was learning about...', 'Can you the list their names in French using the correct version of 'my' in French.' - typos galore, poor structure, regularly using a full stop at the end of a question, forgetting to capitalise the start of a sentence, crap grammar... English Language wasn't my strongest subject at school, so I can't help thinking if I'm noticing glaring problems and finding them jarring, it must be pretty bad. Goodness knows how the DCs are supposed to learn and improve when their teacher isn't competent.

This would really annoy me. I expect teachers to know how to spell and to make sure the list is checked beforehand. I would go and see the headteacher.

That's not normal spellings for a year 1 child. Spellings are normally typed out.

I think teachers should be able to spell.

I think the most important thing in a list for a spelling test is that it should have words with the correct letters and in the correct order. On the basis it is a spelling test.

I think a teacher should check what they are giving to their class to learn. Particularly the spelling of words in a spelling test.

Seems a pretty basic requirement to me.

I pointed out spelling mistakes on the sheets sent home to learn from. They were also hand written.
I was horrified when DC2 started getting spellings that they were given exactly the same sheets with the errors still there!
Some of my DCs primary school teachers didn't use correct grammar and frequently made spelling mistakes when writing in front of the class.