Words fail me

[Guest sn0wdr0p]

I have a male 21 year old playworker who works in our out of school club for 9 hours a week. He is really good with the children and with previous sports coaching experience the boys love playing outside with him. However after a week when we have all thought about GCSE Maths and English for staff I thought I would share this with you.

 

Last week we were preparing an area for the children to do woodwork in and whilst I copied up the risk assessment we had done with the children to display on the wall he offered to do a poster for the area. I came back 10 minutes later and he had left to help collect the children from school and I spotted his poster. Which I quote directly here spelling mistakes and all. "Do summit wiv wood"

 

My chin must have hit the floor. I am still laughing about it but still rather shocked. Strange but that poster disappeared before he got back with the children.

[sunnyday]

Dear me......

[catma]

Unfortunately that rather plays into the Govian/Truss view of the world. Innit.

[Mouseketeer]

Lol you have to laugh....or I'd cry when I read some of the spelling and grammar that some staff use :-/

 

Incidentally I've signed staff and myself up to some food hygiene training (free...someone phoned and said there was allocated funding for in house training for this and infection control, tutor comes to setting over 8 week period for 1 hour a week at time to suit you) but when paperwork came through its actually called 'food hygiene with numeracy' ? (Wondering what I,ve signed up to now ..maybe they think we won't be able to read fridge thermometer) has anyone else had this training

 

It's by NCC skills

Edited February 3, 2013 by mouse63

[Guest tinkerbell]

mmmmmm reminds me when a few years ago I ran out side to stop the council from spraying weed killer on our hedge which we have been growing and adding to each year...it is growing in between the field and car park and a great source of minibeasts...anyway I asked the chap what he was doing, he showed me his docket which said ...spray edges.,,,I had to be really tactful...and we had to replant.

[Guest tinkerbell]

Back to the original post ,that could be my sons writing! he is brilliant at practical things and has a great memory but dyslexia can be a real confidence crusher.

[Rea]

Why has this happened? Why cant our youngsters read, spell, use grammar, even speak!? Is it worse than 10, 20 years ago or more?

[sunnyday]

I dunno :lol:

[Guest]

Yes, we've had similar experiences - everything now has to be quality controlled, very very time consuming and now everyone thinks I'm a control freak!!

A slight appeasement is that info from parents has similar issues!!

Unfortunately there seems no fast fix and lots of contributing elements: speaking and pronunciation, listening skills, text speak etc

 

On the plus side his target group would probably have read and understood it perfectly!

[Guest]

I think definitely worse Rea!

[louby loo]

 

On the plus side his target group would probably have read and understood it perfectly!

 

..............and would have possibly found it much more exciting than come and - 'make something with wood' ::1a

 

Whilst I hate text speech with a vengeance, I think we have to accept that it is here, and let's face it we no longer all talk and write like shakespeare. If it were me, I would have somehow got the lad to maybe change the poster to make it look like a text message? Perhaps with a 'correctly spelt' caption/statement underneath. Especially as this was with an OOSC- so slighter older children.

[Rea]

Text speak, while not my favourite way to communicate, at least has its own universal spellings which are recognisable by those who use it and even I can work it out if needed. Basic spelling in English, punctuation and grammar is dire amongst more and more people and the mistakes are not universal!

[Guest]

I sent a piece into the local paper last week about a school reunion I am organisng and wrote in the third person so the opening sentence was ' Mrs ****** and her peer group left school in 1979 etc' . The paper in its wisdom decided to make it a direct quote from me and so published it as 'Mrs ****** said "me and my peers left school in 1979 etc" They were then surprised when I rang to complain about the grammatical error

[apple]

I'm sorry but I disagree with the text speak in this context - we should not dumb down standards just to fit in with the idea that such spelling patterns are here to stay - of course it serves its intended purpose for use on mobile phones but in a public place, on a written poster/note in an educational setting hmmm! After all if you read the Truss report it is exactly this type of poor spelling and grammar that needs addressing... that's my opinion and something I feel quite strongly about.

 

Blimey I am going to have to watch my spelins from now on

Edited February 3, 2013 by apple

[Guest sn0wdr0p]

Quite so Apple. I think there is a time and place for text speak and although I am sure my OOS children could have understood it perfectly how on earth can they learn to spell correctly if they never see the correct spellings around them. I am a little bit tough on spellings here and believe that as a professional standards should be maintained. I recently had to ask a staff member to amend a poster about a listening walk on which she had written "what did you here?"

 

We are trying to get more parents to sign their children up for nursery education with us rather than go to the council nursery school and as a parent myself I know that if I had seen such spellings I know which nursery I would choose.

[SueFinanceManager]

Did anyone see QI this week where Bill Bailey said he overheard 2 girls talking and one said something amusing and her friend actually said LOL.....she didn't actually laugh out loud or giggle or even smile very much just said LOL :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:

 

I hope that I never become so modern that I can't laugh till my tummy hurts

[Rea]

Oh good grief!

I can see me starting to use the same phrases my nan and great aunt used to use...'In my day...', 'the youth of today...', 'when I was a girl...'

[Guest]

I'm terrible if I'm emailing from my phone/iPad as it's so easy to forget that you aren't 'texting'

 

- and as I've got older, for some unknown reason, I'm getting mixed up with the 'here' and 'hear' words - I know them, I say/see them in my mind when I type...and then I type the wrong one!!! Thank goodness for 'the last check'. That never happened before in my 'youf'

 

Guilty already Rea (and have also had those conversations about pop/film stars when you then take stock of the age of the person you are talking to and realise it was 'before their time'!) Never thought it would happen <sobs>

[Guest]

If it's any consolation we're not the only ones having problems

[sunnyday]

If it's any consolation we're not the only ones having problems

 

Oh dear :blink:

[Rea]

It worries me that no-one seem's to want to correct or approach the TA. I'm not sure I like the words 'crowd control'. Are any TAs crowd controllers, thought they were all qualified these days with a role to play in the classroom?