Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 9 10

Original poster

to put a note in dds homework pointing out the teachers errors

236 replies

brook1 · 13/12/2009 20:30

My dd did some comprehension homework last week and brought it home on Friday after it had been marked by the teacher (or possibly ta).

One of the answers my daughter put to her question was "they would have been fed to the sharcks".

The teacher has crossed out fed and replaced it with feed and has crossed out the "c" from "sharcks" and replaced it with an "e" so it now reads "they would have been feed to the shareks".

We are not allowed to speak to the teachers in the mornings about any issues unless they are urgent so we have to make an appointment. I didnt think it was worthy of wasting an appointment but I do feel like it needs pointing out.

DH thinks I will look stroppy if I put a note in.

AIBU.

OP posts:

Vallhala · 13/12/2009 22:34

I know that nobody is perfect but, CM, if I'm honest I'd be a bit miffed to discover that the person teaching my DC was a bit lacking in an ability to spell. it would particularly concern me if my DC were at an age where they might not yet be able to spell well themselves.

I have been known to correct my daughters' work which has been marked but where mistakes in spelling/punctuation hasn't been addressed as I feel that they need to know where they've gone wrong in order to improve. I don't know if this has ever offended teachers and it has never been my intention to do so but I feel it is important enough to take that risk.

Vallhala · 13/12/2009 22:37

A bit lacking in the ability to spell, I meant, together with a capital letter for the start of the next sentence!

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 22:42

Janeite - what a silly silly comment. If my daughter had an operation that wasnt right, would I have to be a surgeon to justify my complaint?

I am not a teacher, nor am I paid to teach. But I expect a teacher to correctly mark my dcs homework and not to change words that are not wrong in the first place.

OP posts:

piscesmoon · 13/12/2009 22:45

But the word was wrong in the first place! She was probably stressed at the time-give the poor woman a break!

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 22:46

Feed wasnt wrong!! If you read my original post you will see that she corrected 2 things. She changed fed into feed (incorrectly) and changed sharcks into shareks.

Are you a teacher aswell? Maybe you should be marking instead of on MN lol.

OP posts:

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 22:48

Sorry, meant fed wasnt wrong.

OP posts:

thirdisbest · 13/12/2009 22:48

I would have written a note. But then I write a note for everthing that annoys. Surely they cannot afford to get it wrong? I am very fickle on things like this. I get really annoyed with my DD's school. She will write an essay and it is littered with spelling mistakes but the teachers comment will be glowing... and not one spelling mistake corrected. I write a note!

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 22:50

piscesmoon - if the word was wrong in the first place, are you saying that its ok to correct it with another incorrect spelling. How does that help my daughter?

OP posts:

ravenAK · 13/12/2009 22:52

Well, if you had the wrong leg cut off, then yeah, that'd be worth complaining about.

Teachers make mistakes. The important thing is the response - if it's a one off slip, no biggy. If she genuinely can't spell 'shark' or determine whether to use present or perfect indicative in a straightforward sentence, then arguably that is an issue.

I'm a pedant - I'd expect the teacher to know better - but I'm all too guilty of slip ups when marking. By book 20, if it's routine 'flick & tick', my brain's in neutral. Quite happy to be pulled up on it.

MavisEnderby · 13/12/2009 22:52

APOSTROPHES.

OrmIrian · 13/12/2009 22:56

Well brook, I guess your DD only had one set of hw to do.

However it doesn't justify it. It explains it. I think a little understanding might be the best thing.

Or of course you could 'mark' the teacher's work, attempt to get one up and ensure that your child feels that she and the teacher are on opposing sides from now on. If you think it will help.

piscesmoon · 13/12/2009 22:56

I think that you can see how it is so easy to make a mistake, brook1! Luckily you noticed yours, but unfortunately the teacher didn't. I don't teach full time because when I have, ALL of Sunday is taken up with school work and trying to cook meals etc in between. I expect the poor woman is trying to get organised at home for Christmas, doing school plays and giving up her evenings to perform them-not to mention other end of term things. I expect she was tired when she marked the homework. If you want to mention it I think it could be kindly done as a joke as in 'I can tell that the end of term is getting to you-look what you did here!' However , unless she generally makes mistakes, I wouldn't mention it. Be kind for Christmas!

TheFallenMadonna · 13/12/2009 22:56

I corrected DS's homework sheet once. I was marking books at the time, and DS asked for help and I was on autopilot. I was mortified

I agree with Raven btw. I find it hard to believe she really thinks that spelling and that tense are correct. If she does similar again, then there may be something worth fretting about.

MavisEnderby · 13/12/2009 23:00

Only just come to thread and am reading it.

Am on high horse tonight.

FGS if it was just a one off let it go.(Work in public sector,not teacher, and am fed up of being totally villified if not 100 percent.(People are human they have the odd off day).

All of the teachers I know work REALLY hard to do the best they can.They are beset by targets and SATS and OFSTED.Many volunteer in theri own time for after school activities an dsuchlike.Out of hours work is a lot.(Did adult PGCE AS PART OF ONGOPING TRAINING FOR JOB)lesson planning marking etc.

If it is an ongoing issue, justified.If it is a one off ,petty and uneccessary.

piscesmoon · 13/12/2009 23:01

'"they would have been feed to the shareks".

I don't think that anyone could seriously think that she thought this correct!! She made a mistake-who knows what distracted her at the time? She made a mistake and didn't notice. If you really feel strongly about it get your DC to show her the book.

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 23:01

Raven, I totally get the routine flick and tick. Which is why I understand the fact that loads of spelling mistakes have been overlooked. Are you a teacher? If so, could you perhaps answer or understand the following:-

In this homework, there were about 10 questions. My dd answered all of the questions herself and made about 7 spelling mistakes. If my daughter asks me how to spell something I help her but I dont correct every spelling mistake she makes because I do I think its important that the homework is done how she thinks it should be done, rather than with me correcting everything so that its perfect. I dont want the teacher thinking she is better than what she is.

However, most of the spelling mistakes were either overlooked or deliberately ignored by the teacher (do they do this in order not to demoralise the child? ((year 2)). So the ones that were corrected were incorrectly corrected.

OP posts:

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 23:11

Mavis - I used to work in public sector for DWP. If you ask me, public sector workers like to be exempt from critisism on the basis that they are public sector.

Everyone else is open to critisism so why not you. Its got nothing to do with being public or private sector workers. You are paid to do a job, if its not done correctly you cannot expect not to be critisised.

OP posts:

MrsEricBana · 13/12/2009 23:12

Only just come in on this. Seems to me that while teacher could easily have made a mistake because tired or whatever, it seems a real shame for your daughter to have things that aren't actually wrong (fed) corrected AND things that are wrong (sharcks) "corrected" incorrectly. Agree you don't want to upset the teacher or make things tricky for your daughter so I reckon best thing is just to write the correct sentence underneath and initial it and leave it at that. Having said that, I did once cheekily put a red ring round two spelling errors that teacher had made in my dd's reading record, put "Could try harder" and a smiley. Dd took it to school and I was mortified at what I'd done but luckily she took it in the same spirit and put "Oops, sorry!" in response and all was fine - phew!

nbee84 · 13/12/2009 23:12

With the word sharcks could the teacher have been crossing the c out and that made it look like an e to you?

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 23:16

nbee, no, she crossed out the "c" and above it she wrote an "e" but she wrote it like a back-to-front number 3. Which also irritated me because thats not how they are taught to write "e". This also leads me to believe that it was the ta that marked it. I find it hard to believe that the teacher would do this.

OP posts:

MavisEnderby · 13/12/2009 23:19

I fully agree we should be open to criticism.Obviously we are monitored on an ongoing basis similar to teachers,lots of audit and so on,which I agree is a good thing,but on the negative side the amount of time spent on evaluating performance somewhat detracts from the nitty gritty one was trained to do,like teach or whatever.

I am with you,as I say,if your issue is ongoing,I also take the option of letting dc1 do his own thing re homework without correcting errors,or else how else would he learn if I did it for him.

I think,as I sadi you are justified if this is an ongoing issue,but if it is a one off,then I think that it is important to remember that teachers are just human,too.

nbee84 · 13/12/2009 23:20

I think I would just write out the sentence correctly for your dd (in the book) but not leave a comment for the teacher. If she did it she'll just blush and think oops! (one would hope ) If the TA did it she will decide whether or not to speak to her about it.

CardyMow · 13/12/2009 23:22

When my 7yo DS was in yr1, he was getting differentiated spellings sent home. He must have been 6.1 at the point this happened...One of the words on his list to learn was 'seeside'. He personally took it to the teacher and quite pedantically said "How do you expect me to learn the correct way to spell these words if you are not spelling them correctly on the sheet I'm supposed to learn from". I knew none of this, I had been in hospital (and not done his spellings with him.). First I knew about it was when I got called to see his teacher as he'd 'been rude'. How is it rude to point out something to a teacher that, although pedantic, was not untrue...She shouldn't be teaching children how to spell if she can't spell correctly!

puffling · 13/12/2009 23:26

Brook1 - is your post a joke? Teachers aren't gods and TAs aren't morons. Do you really think they though shark is spelt sharek? As someone pointed out on page 1 of the thread, the 'e' is almost certainly for error.

Original poster

brook1 · 13/12/2009 23:34

puffing - if you would care to read more of the posts you would see that the teacher has corrected other spellings thus proving that the e is not for error - she has not corrected other spelling mistakes with an e.

And no-one has said that teachers should be gods, or that TAs are morons. All I would expect is that a teacher or ta can spell if they are teaching my child to spell. Its not a great deal to ask is it.

Are you a TA by any chance, you are rather defensive.

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 9 10

Swipe left for the next trending thread