Hugh Reilly: Letting writing rules slide spells trouble for all of us

Over the past few decades, rigid rules regarding the correct spelling of words have given way to a more freestyle arrangement of the alphabet, an empowering, nay, pioneering practice that appears to upset only doddery dominies such as yours truly.

To be fair, it's a matter of perception. At a recent in-service, when I lamented the decline in standards of basic English, a former head of an English department smiled and pointed out that teachers have always complained about the poor spelling of their pupils.

She is right, but back then, pedagogues were upset because a ten-year-old couldn't spell encyclopaedia.

For example, a few days ago, when I marked the jotters of an S1 class, seven out of the first ten pieces of work had spelt assault with one "s".

This is evidence of a systemic failure to inculcate children with the foundations of reading and writing.

A culture has arisen whereby a saddo Sir who has the temerity to pick up on bad spelling is deemed to be a pedant, a martinet who has wounded the precious dignity of the learner.

Under the progressive programme entitled Assessment is for Learning, reactionary teachers are discouraged from emending spelling errors.

The job of the hands-off facilitator is to foster an environment that allows the creative juices of the junior wordsmiths to flow like the Nile in flood.

At another in-service, an S1 pupil's English prose was held up as an example of good work. Call me picky, but the lad had talked of his love of "writing story's".

Starting a sentence without a capital is popular. We employ a common correction code but I'm fed up putting a capital C inside a circle to denote the mistake.

Kids compartmentalise subjects and, more than once my red-ink effort to convince cherubs to conform has been met with hostility: "Whit are you daein chinging ma spelling? You're no a English teacher!" Quite.

Hugh Reilly is a secondary teacher in Glasgow.