Should teaching staff speak standard English?

[Goblinchild]

I'm just genuinely curious as to what everyone thinks,
www.metro.co.uk/news/842899-teachers-portsmouth-accents-fail-ofsted-inspection
Does the fact that they are TAs rather than teachers make a difference to people's opinions?

I think an accent is fine as long as kids can follow what you are saying but you need to use standard English as much as possible for a model for kids. Otherwise they may copy or think a non-standard form is standard. Kids need to have an idea of what is standard and therefore more acceptable/understandable to other people they might meet outside their immediate setting.
I'm surprised the TAs English was so full of dialect, they should have realised it wasn't very good for kids to have a non-standard model in the classroom.

By that I mean they should have been aware that their dialect wasn't really appropriate at all times and should have been able to change into standard English. I think if you haven't got staff with an awareness of the difference then you are going to struggle and the kids won't get a good enough model.

You do need to demonstrate correct grammatical forms. The TAs shoudl know that and be aware of their own level of knowledge. You are at school after all!

The story is sensationalist. It implies that the TAs accents were the problem when it was actually poor grammar.

The OFSTED team failed them issued a notice to improve after hearing things like, 'I likes football!' Not after hearing them say, 'I like football!' with a Portsmouth accent.

Poor grammar is unacceptable and has nothing whatsoever to do with accent.

My son's nursery teacher had an awful London-style dialect "He done you a pitcher tday", "the book what he read" etc. It was truly awful and we are still in the process of trying to correct and eliminate said mistakes from his own speech now. So yes, I think anyone working in an educational setting should be able to model correct speech and grammar patterns, regardless of accent.

Especially as many TAs do not merely wash up paint pots but are often delivering lessons.

In the dc's school the TAs are usually former teachers. People are wrestling each other to get TA jobs - I can't understand why a school would appoint people whose skills are clearly not up to an acceptable standard.

It can't just be the Portsmouth accent, isn't it a Portsmouth school?
I think, like myredcardigan says, it's the grammar.

Sorry Portsmouth people (dh included!) but the Portsmouth accent isn't too good. Unlike a Hampshire burr, it is a rough, sarrf Londony accent but without the charm.

That aside, it's not the accent that is the problem, it's the poor grammar. You have to give children every chance, and if they are faced with someone speaking incorrectly in an educational setting, that is unacceptable.

Had a very nice teacher of dd refer to the school as cafolic which made me cringe at the time. Don't have problem with accents but surely it's not too much to expect teacher to correctly pronounce 'th'.

Is it 'poor grammar' or is it dialect?
Fair enough to say no to dialect in the classroom.
Bit harsh to judge dialect as 'poor' IMO.

Dialect uses non standard grammatical forms, so it probably was dialect at play. However, there has to be a common sense attitude when you are using forms like 'I likes football'. The TA must know that is not appropriate in a classroom setting and if they don't then they are not qualified to do their job. Yes allow dialect but be very clear about its approopraiteness to certain social groups, activities etc. Don't say that in a literacy lesson where kids are supposed to be learning standard forms of everyday verbs such as 'like'. However, if the TAs were saying it in a more informal setting I'm not sure it's that serious...

It's important for kids to be proud of their dialects but at the same time they need to be able to master standard forms of English, especially for written work and more formal situations and not highlighting that difference to them is doing them an injustice.

As long as the accent can be understood I see no problem (although on a personal level I hate very strong regional accents) but I would expect correct grammar from those teaching my kids.