A school in South East London which used to count David Bowie among its pupils has been left embarrassed after it added the word ‘SHCOOL’ to its  main entrance gate.

The error at Downham’s Burnt Ash Primary School was noticed by installers almost as soon as the letters had been put up, but not before a picture was taken and published online.

Leah Crawley, the establishment’s headteacher, explained that the manufacturer had made a mistake and the issue was rectified after around three hours as the workers didn’t have the correct equipment to replace it immediately.

Mrs Crawley did point out that the mistake doesn’t reflect the teaching standards at the school, with students achieving their best ever results last year. The school was also given a ‘good’ rating by Ofsted, with two areas singled out for extra praise.

The areas given ‘outstanding’ ratings were school leadership and the pupils’ behaviour and learning attitudes.

Mrs Crawley went on to say that most of the children who attend Burnt Ash leave after making real progress, with standards much higher than some of the other schools in the UK. She explained further:

“As well as making fantastic progress our children also attain exceptionally well.

“In reading, maths and science every child attained the expected level four, with only four children falling just below this level in writing and grammar.

“We are particularly proud of our very high level five results showing children attaining well above average, especially when compared to all the local schools.”

The incident shows how the smallest of spelling errors can cause embarrassment and even damage a perfectly good, hard-earned reputation. Business owners often work closely with professional content providers to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen with their websites; once consumers begin to doubt a firm’s competency, they’re likely to look elsewhere.

Graeme Parton

Graeme has experience creating content for online sources and for the radio, and at university he studied Multimedia Journalism.