Does spelling matter?

Earlier this week, I was embarrassed to discover that one of my titles (Practice makes perfect) contained a spelling error. I'm sure you can work out which word was incorrectly spelled! Thank you to 'anonymous' for pointing this out.

Does it matter if parents receive a letter from their child's teacher which contains several misspelled words? Should we be concerned if an application form for a teaching job is littered with spelling errors or the title deeds to our property is incorrectly punctuated? Similarly, when a child's annual report is sent to parents, should the school take steps to ensure that the spelling, grammar and punctuation is accurate? During my teaching career I have come across a minority who argued that such attention to detail doesn't matter, but thankfully, the vast majority I have encountered over the years agree that spelling does matter and that we, as teachers, should lead by example.

As Headteacher in my last school, one of the expectations I had of my staff was that at least one colleague should proof read any letters prior to being posted. Gillespie's is a much larger school and, as one would expect, much more correspondence is generated. In the coming weeks, I will be interested to see what the quality of our correspondence is like.

By drawing attention to this issue, I know I will now have to take extra care when writing my blog!