Year 2 teacher had to be corrected on pronunciation of Pepys

[CheshireSplat]

Interested to hear opinions on this.

DD's class are doing the great fire of London and their teacher was talking about the diary of Samuel "Peppis". DD's friend told him it was Peeps in the inimitable style of a 6 year old.

Should I be worried. New teacher to the school. I don't tend to interfere but I would've thought that was pretty general knowledge.

Then when he gave them times tables he did 2 x 1, 2 x 2, 2 x 3 etc which is the wrong way round.....

Happy to be told to wind my neck in!

By 'interfere' are you seriously considering going into the school to complain that the teacher pronounced the name of a seventeenth century diarist differently from the general norm? I'd love to be a fly in the wall during that chat.

It's not Ancient Greek. It's a commonly known pronunciation that anyone who has ever studied the Great Fire of London would know. Which includes small children doing topic work.
The teacher would plummet in my estimation if they did this.

It’s less common to make such mistakes now we have YouTube and documentaries at our fingertips; but anyone who taught themselves from books is likely to have lots of mispronunciations. I loved myths as a late teen and it was years before I heard some of the names on TV or radio. Laughing at mispronounciations suggests to me a person who has never taught themselves anything from a book!

English is my third language and I had no idea how to pronounce Pepys. Just asked my 12 year old and he said quite confidently Peeps. It's not unusual for teachers to have been educated in another country and have learned to pronounce some words incorrectly in English. At school (in France) we learned about Greenwich and all our teachers pronounced it 'Green Witch'. You'd be laughing your head off to know how my mum used to pronounce Worcestershire sauce.

As others have pointed out, many, many teachers will not have studied the Great Fire of Bleeding London at school. I don't think many primary teachers would claim to be 'superbright'. It isn't a requirement of training to have Einstein levels of genius, but they are professionals who are trying to do the very difficult job of teaching your children and they'd probably cope better without all the sneering from the sidelines evident in this thread.

A quick google of the pronunciation gave ‘Paips’ as a suggestion. I’ve always gone ‘Peeps’ but you live and learn eh?

the teacher would plummet in my estimation ...Well you’ve certainly gone down in mine.

What about DD’s Y4 teacher who pronounced “choral” as “cho-rle” with the ch as in cheese, when reading out words for their spelling test? And when a couple of the pupils said “do you mean choral?” she said “no, cho-rle”.

I was actually joking about studying the Great Fire of London at primary school - since it was in a lesson about this subject that the name came up.

Everyone has different levels of knowledge about different things, so of course people not brought up in the UK might not have heard of Samuel Pepys or might not know how to pronounce it. I think someone teaching it ought to know how, but if they'd only ever read it, they might not. But it's such an everyday piece of knowledge for me that it did initially seem surprising. It goes without saying there are lots of things I don't know, since the universe of things to know is vast and ever expanding.

Thanks everyone. Really interesting to catch up on the thread.

The reason I brought up the times tables was because I'm sure there was a big fuss last year or the year before in some sats because children who put 4 x 3 = 12 rather than 3 x 4 = 12 were marked wrong. As a PP said there's a big difference between 3 packets with 100 things and 100 packets with 3 things.

DD is loving school which is the most important thing. Not sure how he took being corrected, I'll find out.

This has taken me back to a job interview in 1998 when I pronounced genome "g'nome" instead of "jee-nome" because I'd read about it rather than being taught. furiously checks post for typos

But 3 x 4 and 4 x 3 both equal 12! That’s a different question than whether three packs of four things is the same as four packs of three things - no it’s not, but you still have 12 things in total both times.

4 x 3 = 12 and 3 x 4 = 12 is different. If they write the answer wrong way around, they didn't read or understand the question right, as Wigeon says. Nothing to do with how they learnt times table.

Yes, but when you're learning 3 times 4 you're learning '3 groups of 4' and when you're learning '4 times 3' you're learning '4 groups of 3'. You're learning two different things which have the same answer. Of course in time you need to know both but children need to understand what they're learning.

There is so much you teach in primary - it’s impossible to teach that number of subjects without making a silly mistake somewhere along the line. Multiple mistakes, sure, mention it to the Head but this doesn’t sound like a big deal to me. If it’s really bugging you just drop into conversation “x has loved learning about Pepys” and hope that your pronounciation plus the comment from the 6yo gives him pause for thought!

When learning times tables, children should be able to recite them either way along with the associated division facts and repeated addition. Otherwise they are compartmentalising learning and this can hold them back later on in their mathematical understanding.
As for being so critical of the pronunciation of a tricky name - get over yourselves! I'm not sure why some of you bother sending your precious moppets to school at all!

Onto, if you are learning 3 times table, whether you do 3 x 4 or 4 x 3, you are still learning 4 sets/groups of 3. If you don't get that, you are just rote leaning without understanding concept.

That's not how it works linguistically ie when you say the sum. 3 times 4 means 3 lots of 4 - 3 fours. 4 times 3 means three lots of 4 - 4 threes. And indeed children often learn to say the tables as one four is four, two fours are eight, three fours are twelve. That is different from four ones are four, four twos are eight. That's the opposite of rote learning - it's conceptualising what you are learning.

3 x 4 to me would be 3 timesed by 4. That’s how it’s interpreted linguistically by me and everyone I know and how it’s taugh in schools here. It means 4 lots of 3.

@JimmyGrimble - a teacher who didn't have enough intellectual curiosity to wonder how an unusual spelling might be pronounced doesn't strike me as a good teacher. The children will have had The Great Fire of London as a year 2 topic. Obviously his name will have come up in preparing the materials- loads of creative writing, dressing up and history opportunities. It's a topic regularly studied in that year group up and down the country. Why wouldn't a half decent teacher double check?
I don't expect everyone to know and wouldn't judge someone if they didn't. Unless they were a teacher. Teaching that topic.

Yes, as OvO says, that's how I leaned, and how they teach in my country. I never got confused.

The thing you are overlooking in your horror about the mispronunciation of the name of a long-dead man, is that as far as I can see, primary school teaching is a vocation. It is stressful, badly paid, insecure and unappreciated. I feel like thanking my kids’ teachers on my knees when they present them back to me at the end of the day, happy and smiling and all fired up about whatever shit Biff and Kipper have got up to that day. THEY DO THIS EVERY DAY, EVERY YEAR, so some precocious 6 year old can pipe up and correct them in class.

I think we are very lucky to have such excellent, free education. I think if you are worried about the poor influence this teacher is having on your child you should probably home school.

And I’ve got 4 degrees including a PhD and I’ve never studied the great fire of london. Hasn’t held me back.

And the thing is, when I saw that they teach times table different in England, I didn't think it was confusing either. Because multiplication is commutative. Either way works fine, as long as you get the concept.

Who the fuck is Samuel Pepys?

Times tables were taught in sets so 2x1 2x3 2x4 then 3x1 3x2 3x3 which makes way more sense than the opposite way round?

OK, well, it was taught the other way to me and to my kids and was explained as I have done. Of course you have to learn that it's commutative, that's not the issue. But first you need to understand what it actually means - two groups of six or six groups of two. Anyway, I have exhausted my not very great interest on this subject now.

I’m going to start saying “peppis” in solidarity with this poor teacher.