Would you point out a spelling mistake in a handout from the teacher?

[emkana]

We had a note in the book bag today -

"We will be making Christingle's next week."

Aaaargh!!!!!
It really bugs me - but should I let it go?

i pointed out the 2 mistakes which 2 posters made earlier, including the OP because I would like to remind people that those of us in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

teachers are human, teachers work under incredible pressure. i for one couldn't deal with 25 8 yr olds yapping at my heels for 6 hrs and get all my spelling straight.

i wonder how many parents here who are taking the spelling high ground would survive a week in the classroom.

Grrrrr at private school teachers being better educated. Am trying to smile at it rather than hit the roof but it's made me very cross!

And if the teacher is continually making spelling mistakes, then, yes, I think it should be pointed out. But anybody can make a typo (as proved on here all the time and I'm as much an offender as anybody) - it doesn't mean they're stupid. And I'd be very wary of saying anything that undermines the teacher in the eyes of your children - setting up for trouble later by doing that I think.

You can stay on it forever, if you want to do so, but in practice, most school will encourage you to get qualified. If for no other reason that the pay is even worse than the qualified reg!

To put this in persepective, I did two terms of teaching practice (PGCE) in a school, they had an job vacency and offered it to me for 2 terms on the Unqualified reg, then they gave me a terms sabatical, and I finised the PGCE, then went back to them on the qualified reg.

I have worked in the same school ever since.

Out of interest, can one find a job teaching with a Dip HE in Primary Education?

I don't know, because i work in secondary. Most of the people that I know working in primary have B Eds rather than the Degree/PGCE route.

Can you do a primary GTP??? that might be a good way in, training 'on the job'?

I dont know any unqualified teachers

Most primary teachers these days have a degree and a PGCE IME

doing a gtp in a school doesn't provide a job in that school. for a while now primary jobs are hard to get in many parts of England. even qualified teachers are finding it difficult in some areas. so unless you are in the SE don't bet on it.

There are so many of these threads so often. Lovely posters like MB and YG and others come on and quite reasonably point out that, like the rest of us, teachers are fallible human beings. (Thanks Kiskidee!)I just shake my head and close the thread. But for once I would like to say.. quite loudly,

"IT'S JUST A MISPLACED APOSTROPHE FGS.." Get a grip and start worrying about something really important.

I suppose starting off on the unqualified register is a good way of finding out if teaching is really for you, before committing to the PCGE or B Ed course.

Hmm....

Oh, according to ds1 (4), all teachers have to have long arms too...

I started a BA qts honours degree which was 4 years long and left 3 months before my finals/dissertation, etc. For my time I received the Dip HE. I wanted to go back to it but I would have to take an entirely different route as only the BEd is on offer now. I haven't looked further into having been stumped at the first hurdle, as it were.

Mind you, not sure if my grammar and punctuation are up to it...

I was actually 2/3rds of the way through my PGCE before I spent 2 terms on the unqualified regester. The advantage for me was the school was offerening me a full time, permanent job then, with a term off to finish my PGCE.

I knew I liked the school, they knew they wanted me.....we'd both had a trial run!

The department thought it was hilarious that I was officialy 'unqualified' in spite of having taught undergrads at Oxford, Edinburgh and St Andrews universities! And I still can't spell! Whatever!

I disagree Snowleopard - firstly because the liklihood is that the mistake came through doing something quickly and that if they had the time to think about it properly the teacher would most likely know the answer. Even if he/she didn't, you're not there to educate the teacher, the teacher is there to educate your child and hopefully they are able to do a good job of this even if they don't get every aspect of their grammar right all the time. I expect having to deal with parents pointing out small mistakes in their handouts only makes their job harder and gives them even less time to do a good job with your child. All this aside though - as a parent, I would find picking up the odd grammatical error to be secondary to teaching my child that it is not polite to draw attention to another person's mistakes unnecessarily when it may humiliate them.

All very well Ellaroo, except that a child isn't going to know that they are mistakes, generally speaking, because they're there to learn stuff. And if they're being taught stuff that is wrong, and we can't say anything about it because it's rude - well, then we will all end up uneducated. I agree sometimes a mistake is just a slip, but there are many teachers out there who don't know their basic grammar and punctuation at all and I, like some other posters on this thread, am shocked if no one tells them.

Yes, it's rude to correct people's spelling and other little mistakes in everyday life. But I think in the workplace, people's mistakes are generally pointed out, if they affect the job they're doing. This is an example of that.

what do you do for a living snowleopard? and do you mind me dropping in to critique? nah, am not bovvered.

you are assuming that this 'teacher' you have in mind mispells a great percentage of her words wrong and consistently does so which is why it would be impacting on your 'child's' education.

fgs, get a life.

Message withdrawn

[surely this is another example of xenia being a stirrer and poss a troll as well - noone could seriously believe that crock that she's just spouted do they? Say something contentious and run away. I'm starting to think she's a regular MN who's taking the piss and a few others are in on the 'joke' so they tell others that she's genuine and to leave off]

anyway, that's an aside! I wouldn't point out an error unless I saw it used regularly. Everyone can make a mistake once and esp if they're in a hurry. A friend of mine kept seeing 'Excellant' written by the teacher in her dd's home-reader. Eventually she plucked up courage and wrote a little note 'Hope you don't mind but I think you'll find that it's spelt 'Excellent'. Regards etc'. The home reader came back that day with the message 'Thanks very much - your quite right' !!!!

I would completely agree with it in the context that Snorkle wrote about - of course you shouldn't reinforce incorrect spelling or grammar. However, the op mentioned a handout that seemed to be addressed to the parent rather than the child. I think if I was a teacher and going to the effort of making 30 Christingles and someone came and corrected me hoping that I would learn from it and seeming to imply that the right thing to do here would be to reissue the note saying that I had learnt from my mistake...well I think I would put a stop to the Christangles that are partly for the benefit of us as parents to ooh and aah over anyway, and make let the children do something that required less effort on my part.

Well, I write for my living, and if someone pointed out a literal or spelling mistake in my copy, I'd accept it. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect teachers to care about spelling and punctuation. It's part of the job, surely?

i think though it is unreasonable to expect infallability. which is the tone of many posters here. surely the majority of decently educated people will spot a teacher's mistake now and then. it all gets blown out of proportion on self righteous theads like this one.

I think it's reasonable to expect teachers to care about this kind of thing, no?

This 'it's terribly rude to point out an error' attitude is presumably why the general level of written English in this country is so appalling.

it is a bit disingenuous to suggest that teachers don't care about spelling and grammar. i suppose the majority of them do. we can all come here with a story of how a teacher cocked up and the size of the list will make teachers all look incompent and cackhanded.

no the reason why teachers and the rest of the generally sensibly educated populace is crap at grammar and spelling is that the DFES threw out grammar and spelling out of the curriculum in the early 80's.

excuse my misspells - bawling baby around

Spellign erros in formal letters home grate, but I think that any parent goign in to correct the teacher on this would be a loon. And I would feel very sorry for their children too.

If however I thought that the teacher was not up to the job then I'd ask to see the head. But a misplaced apostrophe doesn't relaly tell me anything. For all I would know it may have been a TA or the dinner lady who types up the note and got it printed, and the teachers wasn't going to waste resources or time by reprinting it.

Edam re