Would you expect to have any personalised comments on a school report?

noble, not necessarily, but I expect the comments to be about their work. Taken from the records that are made throughout the year. I don't really understand what else you would be commenting on. Going just from what you remember about them seems too unreliable and not the point of the exercise I would have thought.

Do you think that when a teacher writes reports they have all that kid’s work next to them, they look at it carefully and then compose their comment?

Two sentences won't tell you anything your child doesn't know already, and probably needs to be couched in 'positive' language (for those parents) so meaning becomes obscured.

I could write DD's report:

French - Tries hard but has learned next to nothing still needs to come to grips with basic grammar and vocabulary
English - progressing well but spelling and punctuation still considerably behind need more attention
PE - has made excellent progress since joining the school but is still hopeless however hand eye coordination is still weak

My primary son had a 3 page report broken down into individual subjects. A lot of it was filler (this year in art we have covered . . .) and some fairly obviously copied and pasted.

I don't have an issue with copying and pasting, sometimes you do have the same thing to say about different children, but it just seems like a massive waste of the teacher's time.

I'd prefer below target/ on target / exceeding target for each topic, maybe a sentence explaining why/how they are below or above, and a brief personal comment. Even with fancy spacing and boxes, less than a page, saving trees and ink into the bargain.

But doesn't their work speak for itself, noble?

It’s not about personality. It’s about knowing the kid. Much easier to write a report about a kid you know well, compared to one whose face you struggle to reliably bring to mind when their name is mentioned.

morewashing you might have to write a report on art that you teach once a week, but you see the kid for the whole week. Much easier to write a personalised comment about any subject when you know the pupil well. You’ll know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to draw on that to comment on their art.

I really would not expect comments about my child's personality, though. Just their performance. What areas they need to work on next to improve their grade. Bringing personality into that surely just adds bias, doesn't it?

Normal.

Even when my DC received "comments" they were 1 sentence chosen from a database and sometimes "odd".
You get personal feedback via patent consultations and email/phone calls/postcards etc.

morewashing you might have to write a report on art that you teach once a week, but you see the kid for the whole week. Much easier to write a personalised comment about any subject when you know the pupil well. You’ll know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to draw on that to comment on their art.

If you see a kid once a fortnight for a year, you barely know them at all.

Ours used to have comments for each subject once a year. Some were more personalised than others. Eg. Some would have areas they needed to work on in the subject. They got rid of this and now just have comments by the form tutor once a year which are personalised. Plus by someone higher up. I don't mind this as if it lessens teacher workload the good teachers might be less likely to leave the school!
We get termly grades for attainment in tests and also for behaviour, homework etc in each subject. I find this useful

I see 282 students as a secondary subject teacher of a core subject . There are about 5 non-attenders in that, and their reports are obviously shorter, but still have to be clicked through. Still time Consuming.

Even if you do receive a written report, it is probably generated via clicking best-fit comment boxes.

My son’s year one report is two sides of a4 but the written comments are in what i assume is the largest font of comic sans they could get away with (14) and one section is in font 16 comic sans. Ive counted the words on the first line and multiplied it by the number of lines to work out a rough amount of words on the whole report. 350. Not becUse i cared, but to give a rough idea for people on here. There are written comments on re english maths and science only. The rest are attainment and effort grades only. Two spaces after a full-stop too. Teacher showing her age there! And finally there are a number of proper nouns with no capital letters. Yet his report comments on his use of capital letters.

His music attainment grade is ‘developing’ yet his dance teachers, street and ballet, and his private musical instrument teachers have all commented at some point about his rhythm etc. He also loves to sing and his notes are good. When questioned, his teacher said they hadnt seen this at school. When investigated further it seems the school places no Importance On music and are actually trying to remove it, starting with individual and small group instrument lessons.

Dont put too much importance on reports. Even secondary school attainment grades throughout the year. They might not give a true picture due to the aims of the senior management team. Everyone on-target is better (even if not true) than people not meeting targets.

We have a one page bank of numbers and grades. A number for working grades, attitudes, behaviour and response to feedback.
We might get a quick sentence from the form tutor but not always.

However we have a great online portal where we can check up on homework, positive lesson 'points' with tiny bits of feedback.

Parents Evenings are always very thorough. Also, if I've ever needed to ask/know anything the response has been very swift and helpful.
I have no qualms.

My DS has just had a report from Primary which was 4 sides of A4. A lot of subjects commented on I know they barely touched on this year because of Sats. They did no Science that I know of yet he gets a full descriptive comment. The teachers paragraph at the end is most key to me.
The Primary headmaster adds a comment that he had trotted out for over 6 years....he gave exactly the same comment to my dd when she was there.

I would never expect these kinds of comments from the Secondary. There's just way too many pupils and frankly the teachers have gone above and beyond already for out of hours drama, evening events and trips abroad, plus numerous other things I'm unaware of.
You can't compare them.

Our secondary school produces a report which is a single a4 sheet, and for each subject lists their predicted grade, whether they are on track to achieve that grade, whether homework is completed on time and whether effort is adequate. It's all on a rating system of excellent/good/acceptable/inadequate.

In a school of 3000 pupils this seems fair. If I have concerns about the report then it's just a case of making a phone call or two, or asking questions at parents evening.

Primary school reports are nice to read, but realistically much of what's written within those is cut and paste.

I'm part time and teach 200 kids in secondary. We do quite a long written report for each subject and one from the tutor. Next year though we're moving to comment banks. So they'll be much less personal, but much quicker to write. We also have an online portal for data, behaviour, homework etc.

Am laughing at whoever said “primary teachers manage it”. Yeah with their 30 pupils as opposed to...er ..around 150 or more in secondary as well as marking, lesson prepping and everything else they have to do.
Much much bigger numbers than in primary so just no time to write lovely personalised comments no matter how much they might want to.

Our school used to. Hasn't this year. We do have the online portal thing which shows assessments grades etc. Thing is I think we really need more information of how grades are compiled (averages, curves & how many assessments go into them) because some of the grades are a bit of a mystery. My D.C. has asked more than one subject teacher how they could improve their grade which usually is constructive but in one annoying instance were 'fobbed off' and told to ask an SLT type person. This irritated me a little but we have decided to wait until next year to tackle any lack in progress. Different teachers also seem to have different ideas over what it means to achieve target too. With a written report you just get more information. Parents evening was good but fairly early on in the school year. We're doing what we can with revision guides.

Actually I said once a fortnight @morewashingtodo I teach English but I am aware of the smaller subjects I've referred to.

It's not just one subject. Our music teachers are teaching another subject because of budget cuts. Art teachers are teaching RE. Because of budget cuts.

I had a wonderful report for my own primary school child. Lots of info on literacy, maths, science, character and personality and overall progress. But nowhere near a 60 words analysis on his religious and cultural awareness, his ability in art, his knowledge and understanding in computer science.

So whilst I think my son's primary teacher is an amazing lady and I'm NOT complaining, from my experience of a brilliant primary school, I don't think primary teacherd ARE doing it much beyond core subjects anyway.

I teach two subjects. I have 5 core classes and 5 others that I see once a week. Say there is an average of 25 kids per class. That's 250 kids a week I teach. If I'm writing even 50 words per child, and filling in drop down boxes, target grade boxes (about which I need to talk to every pupil) and then completing a learning matrix for each pupil which is then recorded by our local authority (oh and I need to evidence those grades on said matrix with at least 9 pieces of work over the year that needs to be marked, moderated and then given back to the pupil with feedback), I could be writing 12,500 words per set of reports. And we do this at least twice a year and have 2 parents nights a year that I also need to prep for. That includes reviewing all grades and assessments and writing up next step. I get 6hrs per year (contractually) for all of this work. Six hours. Oh and I'm a core subject too with mainly senior classes so I have all the associated assessment that goes with that. Eg 60 pupil writing two mandatory pieces of 1000 each and doing 2/3 drafts. Oh and that's just the ones we submit, not the others that we write and don't use. That's approx 300000 that I'm reading and marking and giving feedback on just for two of my classes and only for a writing folio. It does not include any other marking or classes. I get about 6 hrs a week to do ALLof my tasks/ planning/ prep/ marking/ recording/ moderation/ reviewing/ peer reviewing/ target setting. You have no idea the constraints on my time or my own life just keeping up with it all.

Primary teachers spend five hours a day, five days a week with their students. Secondary teachers at best spend four hours a week with theirs.

Dds reports came home on the last day.

Morewashingtodo

It doesn't matter what primary teachers do. What relevance does that have? I am not saying it is an unreasonable desire for a parent to want a report. I am saying that my school has, by this time in the year, far exceeded the demands on my time that they are paying me for, and the time to write said reports would come out of my time with my daughter, into which the school has already made considerable inroads. It isn't happening.

Morewashing We now only write for the core subjects (reading, writing, maths, science and computing), maximum 4 lines of font 11, plus a larger section for general comments.

PeterPiper, 30 students as opposed to perhaps 100, it primary teachers have to write much more and for many more subjects. We've reduced ours massively in recent years from 3 sides of A4 to one, with more data and fewer 'words,' but they're still very time-consuming.