My school reports have made me sad

[helloxhristmas]

I've just read through all my old school reports. I was very academic but pretty much every report mentions that I was anxious, a people pleaser, scared of being wrong, particularly in primary. Also mention that I was very careless, slapdash and could have been 'even better if I applied myself properly'.

It makes me sad as I remember how I felt. It took me a long time to let go of the anxiety but I did. BUT I now see myself mirrored in my daughters' reports. They are query dyslexia, going through screening again but also achieving academically.

I'm wondering if perhaps I am dyslexic and it wasn't recognised or event potentially ASD. I'm also wondering why it wasn't picked up on or was it just not noticed then. I was so anxious in R - Y2 I regularly had uncontrollable diarreah (sp?) I had to get collected and taken home to get in the bath.

@blobbyface my reports were the same. Everyone says I was very quiet but no one helped me gain any confidence. Most teachers didn’t even know I was in their class.
It makes me sad as I didn’t really ‘get it’ until I was in my 30s and realised it was a confidence thing

or the teachers would at least probe deeper into why a child isn't achieving and put in strategies to help

That would be great if it happened in all schools, but as ever, some are fantastic and do this, others are absolutely not going to budge from their one size fits all approach and probably most are somewhere in between.

Similar age to you op. I have just one school report. Written when I was about 13. Basically nearly every teacher states that I am too quiet/I need to speak up more. Suffering abuse at home and ostracized by majority of peers. No-one dug any deeper to find out if there was something behind this.

That’s just awful op.

I came across my book of reports about 15 years ago when I was having a clear out.

It said, Dowser could try harder on most of them.

Do you know what I just looked and thought why am I keeping all this shite.

Dowser was trying as hard as she could. Dowser was spending three hours a night on three subjects for homework that was scheduled for 1 hour a night for all of them.
Dowser had no one to help her at home when she got a bit stuck as Dowsers parents were bright but thanks to the war didn’t have a brilliant education themselves and didn’t do Latin, physics, French, chemistry and biology and maths the subjects that Dowser struggled most with and here’s the best one
Dowser thought she was only average but when I looked at my marks most of them were 7/10, 6/10 and occasionally 8/9 and 10/10.

Dowser was well above bloody average.

I got angry, ripped the shite up and threw it in the bin.
Boy did it feel good.
Dowser could’ve done better..my arse.😡

What an excellent thread this as turned out to be.
Thankfully I did well enough to leave with a good clutch of exams, good but not brilliant
Also I was a much wanted and well loved child so I didn’t lack in confidence.
I also was quite popular and had the ability to make people laugh and had some good friends, so school wasnt all bad
But it’s very upsetting to read that some of you had troubling things going on at home that weren’t picked up.
I was at seniors in the 60s, soyoud have thought they would’ve had a handle on it by the 80s or so

I read my secondary reports the other day and wept.

"Ohalright often seems distracted"
"Ohalright is academically very capable but seems to be struggling
"Ohalright is at the moment unable to apply herself"

Looking back on it, my teachers were very obviously trying to say YOUR DAUGHTER IS NOT OK, SHE NEEDS HELP, SHE'S DROWNING, DO SOMETHING.

My reports said similar. I realised keeping them wasn't making me happy so I binned the lot. Every single one from nursery to University. I do worry that if I have a major brain injury in the future I will have nothing to reconstruct my life but fuck it I will invent a happier one! 😂

@HappyPumpkin81
Absolutely.
Did any of the teachers ask if we needed more help and was there something we would like to go over again?

Did they shite!

@Dowser I ran away from my primary school and turned up my mum's workplace 3 miles away, they never even looked for me! This was about 1990. I would hope things have changed nowadays but I'm not sure.

Old school reports are brutal, they were written back in the day where there were no words minced. Mine were always along the lines of what an unpleasant, stupid child I was who would never achieve anything in life.

Things will be very different for your daughter now as schools are a totally different world to the one they were when we were at school.

One of mine I came first in the class in geography. The commentary says excellent and that's it. Likewise some subjects I was shut in and they say not very good.

The teachers were clearly not verbose. I'm wondering now if why of them were actually bloody qualified.

My reports said similar. I realised keeping them wasn't making me happy so I binned the lot.

I did this in my 20s as well.

Didn't have primary school ones just secondary but there were constant things like me geting 98% in exam top mark in year and yet being given a D for effort and complaining about my spelling and being too quiet.

Looking back I also wonder if us being working class in more middle class school and having an older sibling who did badly at school influenced things against me a bit.

Sadly my parents tended to focus on the negative - though I think primary school had coloured their view of my ablities. They were shocked and thrilled with my GCSE results but then plied on pressue and were disppointed with my A-levels but pleased I got to a good univeristy and did well.

Was later diagnosed with dyslexia and dspraxia at univerity and slowly realised people did like me - the bullying I'd endured and school didn't want to know about had really done a number on me.

Mine say; tried her hardest, needs to participate in class discussions more. Yes, because that is an easy task for a deaf child 😒

@AaronCardigan

Mine say; tried her hardest, needs to participate in class discussions more. Yes, because that is an easy task for a deaf child 😒

Oh ffs @AaronCardigan that's even more awful

A teacher told me she thought my 5yo DD had a "personality defect" and she had no idea if she was taking in the classes because she was so quiet. I was absolutely devastated.

A head teacher friend told me to pay no attention. Teachers were not trained in psychoanalysis or personality diagnosis and if the teacher couldn't find out if the pupil was learning, it was the teacher at fault, not the pupil. From then on, I disregarded these kinds of comments and focused on academic progress and social skills outside of school.

A teacher said to my son that she thought he couldn't smile, no he just hates your class. Bitch.

I had a sixth form teacher who I always felt didn't like me (she told me I was sullen and too quiet). I found some essays from classes with her very recently and all of them I got D or E and negative comments. I really struggled to know how to improve the grade or what she wanted me to change. Even rereading them now I thought they seemed ok and the comments very unconstructive. I managed to get a good grade at A level in the subject and also in essays in a related subject at uni and don't think I changed my approach much so I can see her marking was quite unfair now.
Put them all in the recycling bin, felt very good!

I'm sure all my old school reports will also comment on being too quiet/not contributing in class/not enough confidence. Like others, I don't think my teachers ever thought at all about whether there might be reasons for it, or that they could maybe help with confidence. If I find those reports I might chuck them too!

I had a cry over my old school reports then threw them out. I was undiagnosed deaf and dyslexic the whole way through.

If you're up to it, I heartily recommend throwing bad rubbish away.

Definitely throw them away. It's cathartic.

I had 'campion's work is terrible. There is a complete lack of effort and understanding' grade E for my Physics report aged 12.
As a teacher,I would have been ashamed to write that and it should never have been allowed out of the school. Luckily my parents were more understanding.
But as a teacher,I've always remembered it and tried to write reports sensitively and as positively as I could manage - a challenge at times!

No child should feel defeated by someone's careless words.

I was badly bullied for the last 3 years of school, and very unhappy.

Because of this, my attendance was awful, I missed 25% of school time. I rarely did homework as I hated school, and was depressed.My grades of course suffered.

Every report had a comment like 'hollyhocks would benefit from regular attendance' and 'hollyhocks enjoys the subject in class but what a shame she is behind with homework as this will effect her exams' and 'hollyhocks has let herself down again this year' and 'could try harder'. Not one teacher gave enough of a shit to ask themselves why this bright, well behaved, previously enthusiastic girl had basically given up.

Apart from one form teacher who came across me walking alone down the stairs at lunch and said to me in a faintly disgusted voice, Hollyhocks, do you actually have any friends? I was so ashamed I lied yes, in other classes, and kept walking.

Fuck 'em all.

I had "Aaron would benefit from greater attendance." The only time I had off that year was when I had surgery and was subsequently recovering.

These are really sad to read. I don't remember teachers or reports being so brutal, and don't really want to chance upon my old reports for fear of reading similar.

I hope schools really are better at supporting students who are struggling, for whatever reason, these days.