Bad grammar on year 1 newsletter

[MumNWLondon]

Slightly shocked that DDs year one teacher wrote in the year 1 newsletter "in math's we have been...." surely maths does not have an apostrophe - slightly worrying that someone who is teaching my daughter grammar isn't aware of basic rules herself.

Is this common (ie primary teachers making grammatical mistakes? Do I mention it at parent's night on Tuesday? DH joked that I should send it back to school with DDs homework on Monday with red circle around the mistake!

Point it out, how is anyone supposed to learn anything if no one points out errors?

intercoursethepenguin - do you also use the name "fiordgirl"? I ask as your incredibly insulting comment is almost identical to some drivel posted in another section a couple of weeks ago.

OP - mention it, but don't expect the person you tell to thank you.

Much as I'd be tempted to get the red pen out, I think I'd let this go. I would point out any mistakes in a list of spellings though.

I'd cringe at it - but I'm the pedant who discreetly rubs out superfluous apostrophes on restaurant chalkboard menus while waiting to be served and seem to be on a single-handed crusade to re-establish the fact that just because a word ends in an s - you don't need to carpet bomb it with apostrophes just in case it needs on in there!

Having said all that - I'm a primary teacher and am definitely not thick (I had repeated IQ tests done growing up as I had behaviour issues as a result of being bored out of my skull to prove it)... some aren't the sharpest, but not all - so I'm going to join those feeling offended.

Those curriculum newsletters though are generally dropped on you last thing on a school day, so you're trying to write them while still reeling from the new bunch of kids landing on you with the annual shock of just how far you've got to get them to send them on like your last bunch at the end of the year, having the cleaners hoover around your legs (I wish in my old room - they seemed to be allergic to cleaning) etc etc - and people are human so mistakes happen.

Recently been on a secondary school open evening and there was a lovely display on one of the school walls with important information for prospective parents. There was a glaring spelling mistake on the lead in display page. The teacher in the room directed us to the commentary on the display wall and advised that we 'ignore the spelling mistake'.

Two things that immediately sprang to mind that both myself and DH thought - why on earth not remove the page in question as it was not essential to the display and secondly, this school is only just emerging from being placed in special measures by Ofsted!! Say no more.

I'll tell you what annoys me, (sorry, bit of a tangent) is when you have a reply slip on the back of the letter so when you send it back you lose half the first page! GRRRR!

Euphemia - makes you wonder why she didn't look it up in the book before she set it for spelling!

so her name wouldbe Collins, therefore her desk would be Miss Collins's desk?

fancy not being able to spell your own name

We used to get a lot of "remember to practice your spellings ....." in ds1's reading diary. I must admit it did make me cringe, but I'd never have tackled it directly. I just used to write "ds1 has practised his spellings as requested" and hope the teacher would get the hint - she never did.

We also had a couple of year 2 spellings set incorrectly by the same teacher. I just made sure ds1 learned the corrected version!