Non-job of the week

Councils wasting our money isn’t anything new, but they do keep finding new and imaginative ways of doing so. And they don’t come more imaginative than this new role at Northgate High School in Suffolk: they are looking for a team of “Proof Readers and Copy Editors” who will be paid £14.02 per hour to correct spelling and grammatical errors in the pupils’ school reports written by the teachers.

Here’s the (non-)job description in full:

“Working 15 - 20 days a year. The school reports to parents on a regular basis about how well their child is progressing at school. We are looking to recruit a team to check and amend the electronic reports to ensure that they are well written and complete before being released to parents. The work needs to be completed within a tight timetable at different times throughout the year. If you can be flexible when you work and have a high level of skill in written English, including spelling, grammar and punctuation, are scrupulous about detailed work and have the good judgement to gauge which changes are appropriate, please download full details.”

First and foremost, this is an exceptional waste of taxpayers’ money. It is totally unnecessary: schools have been sending home reports since time immemorial without the need for Proof Readers as Northgate High School seeks.

It is, of course, incredibly insulting. The very existence of the role suggests that the teachers are unable to display the same skills that they are employed to teach the children

And if teachers are unable to use proper grammar and the correct spelling, does it not beg the question as to whether they should be teachers in the first place?Councils wasting our money isn’t anything new, but they do keep finding new and imaginative ways of doing so. And they don’t come more imaginative than this new role at Northgate High School in Suffolk: they are looking for a team of “Proof Readers and Copy Editors” who will be paid £14.02 per hour to correct spelling and grammatical errors in the pupils’ school reports written by the teachers.

Here’s the (non-)job description in full:

“Working 15 - 20 days a year. The school reports to parents on a regular basis about how well their child is progressing at school. We are looking to recruit a team to check and amend the electronic reports to ensure that they are well written and complete before being released to parents. The work needs to be completed within a tight timetable at different times throughout the year. If you can be flexible when you work and have a high level of skill in written English, including spelling, grammar and punctuation, are scrupulous about detailed work and have the good judgement to gauge which changes are appropriate, please download full details.”

First and foremost, this is an exceptional waste of taxpayers’ money. It is totally unnecessary: schools have been sending home reports since time immemorial without the need for Proof Readers as Northgate High School seeks.

It is, of course, incredibly insulting. The very existence of the role suggests that the teachers are unable to display the same skills that they are employed to teach the children

And if teachers are unable to use proper grammar and the correct spelling, does it not beg the question as to whether they should be teachers in the first place?
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