Have you ever been annoyed/irritated by your child's school report/teacher?

[faithfulbird20]

Not at your child obviously. But more at the report and thought Jesus which clown has written this? Does he/she even know my child? I honestly look at some reports and honestly they're so subjective rather than facts obviously. Even my own reports I used to open them and feel so disappointed as a child at the crap that was written about me. Secondary school reports are okay I guess but primary school ones...not so great. Same with parents day. Have you ever clashed with a teacher or corrected them to say err hang on what are you on about?

I’ve always been pleased with DDs reports. As a former teacher, I know the effort that goes into them. Before I was a DHT, I would spend weeks writing them for my classes. I always felt I knew my little ones inside out though and quite enjoyed sharing nice little stories etc. with parents!

I've always been fairly impressed that they were so accurate and so familiar year after year; my DH and I used to have a bet on how often the phrase 'must learn to focus more' was used . My favourite expression was the word 'loquacious', never seen it used before or since.

I love the way that teachers try to put a positive spin on a negative trait 'it is great that RagwortDS enjoys participating robustly in class discussions but he needs to learn to listen to other people's options' ... ie; shut up.

Thank goodness DS is now at Uni and reports are a thing of the past!

I think we have been quite fortunate with our reports. I can't fault them in the main. I don't think its great parenting to not understand that DC can be very different at school than they are at home. I obviously think my DS are absolutely brilliant but I'm not naive . They have their moments and my job is to support the school to develop them. Ds2 is one of the kindest , passionate lovely little boys put there. He is also a pain sitting still and likes to get involved with basically everything and fully believes his opinion on everything at 5 is far more important than actually listening to anyone else (although he has got much better as we have all worked very hard to change this) It would be silly of me to take umbrage with the school saying that because whilst it's wonderful when he's pootling along with me at home being able to sit still and listen when he needs to is a key skill he has to learn.

Mostly our reports are accurate. I mean the Ed Psych for ASD DS1 made some really large jumps and got very confused about some of his history (my very amicable , co parenting divorce got turned into a custody battle....not sure where that one came from as I was crystal clear that we have always co parented well and never needed a court order of any description.....I just clarified that and it was changed).

Saying that I have never found anything in accurate as such. Uncomfortable to read of course. Inaccurate no.

I mean we did have one that clearly copied and paste the most generic statements on earth (another school mum and I had a smile over the identical reports for both our DC in the same class....one quiet and reserved and one ASD with a tendency to fidget because of his sensory issues with exactly the same report down to the punctuation) but in fairness it wasn't a great teacher and he disappeared after that so all resolved. I can't really say the statements were wrong they were just a bit nothing. He may as well have said DS1 and his friend wore socks. Which was true but not particularly enlightening really.

One of my teachers used to write us all the same report

Ha my parents did with my brother they listened to one teacher who was going about how wonderful he was, how hard he worked, how much he contributes to lessons etc while they looked at each other like this .

Then my brother walked in the room and teachers face fell... "Oh your the parents of this Jack..."

They believed the correct report she then related...

The strangest thing is that parents think they know their kids but the child can act COMPLETELY differently in school

I worked coincidentally for a few weeks in a school where my friends son attended. I was not his teacher (I’m not a teacher I have a social work related job)

He was in her eyes this really quirky, sensitive, different boy who no one understood, I saw a totally normal little boy, who played the same games with the other kids and had a mischievous streak and was a bit hyper, like many of small children in primary schools can be. It was like she had an IDEA of who she wanted him to be. I can imagine she wasn’t happy with reports that said he was a chatty little boy with bang average achievement.

I noticed a change when things started being done on computers. Up until I was in Y7 reports were always written by hand, and there was always something personal in them. From Y8, it was clear that there were just stock sentences/phrases that were clicked on and put together in the report, which made it much less personal.

You have to remember how many reports teachers have to write, along with everything else they have to do anyway. They may not be 100% personal to your child, but can at least give a vague idea of how they're doing.

My son's secondary school didn't do reports but the ones from primary school were very detailed and pretty accurate.

I was rereading mine a few months ago and had forgotten how much my form teacher in the 4th and 5th year (so Y10/11 now) teacher disliked me. Still, it was mutual. And the Home Economics teacher who said in my 2nd year that I made no effort and had no pride in my work (true, I still don't like cooking now) and my form teacher said it was a disturbing comment. Oh well. I guess the HE teacher wasn't wrong, but "disturbing"?

Anyway the reports at sixth form were so different. Funny how you do ok when you don't have to do subjects you dislike or aren't good at...

One of my DC’s names was spelt incorrectly - now that’s bad!

Generally (through 3 dc) reports were fair, and reasonably personal at primary level. Secondary it's very factual about data so occasionally you think something looks a little off, but that normally evens out the next time.

The only time I was irritated by a report was on one of my dd.
In year 2 dd had a few social problems, and the teacher, who was very perceptive on character (she taught all 3 of mine at different ages) wrote (among other things about how well she was doing) about how she was struggling, how to help her, and suggestions directly to her about her reactions with some interactions. It was totally in her voice-you could hear her saying it, it wasn't a prepared report. And it was really helpful.

We have the infant/ junior system here so they moved school, but I do know they pass the reports over for them to see along with some examples of their work.

Now, we worked hard with dd that year to help her with her social issues, and when I saw her with her peers it seemed to have helped and she wasn't over reacting etc as she had been.
So I was quite upset when I got her year 3 report which was saying exactly the same criticisms and comments. Then I put them side by side. It was exactly the same word for word, and this teacher had a very different turn of phrase-this bit stood out for being written very differently.

What I was really upset about was I didn't know whether:

1. She hadn't improved, and the year 3 teacher thought she couldn't say it better than the previous one so thought it was worth saying again.
2. The year 3 teacher couldn't be bothered to write the personal bit, so just copied and pasted from last year not caring what it said.

So I was left not knowing whether it was still an issue. (I don't think it was, or certainly the year 4 teacher didn't think it was)

Just what exhausted teachers need to read at the end of on of the most brutal years in teaching - a thread where people are invited to complain about them.

Secondary reports are never going to be as personalised as primary school reports. I taught students in key stage 3 for one hour per week. Some years I taught up to 500 students. I am only human. I am not going to be able to produce detailed individual comments on each and every one. My exam classes, yes , I saw them far more often.

I also leanrt very early on in my teaching career that most parents do not want to read any criticism whatsoever about their child, so yes they tended to be on the bland side. read between the lines though - 'X can get on with work when given lots of support' (ie if I stand over X they will pick up their pen, but I can't do this for the whole 60 minutes as I have 32 others in the class). 'At times X is well behaved and on task'. Could well mean that 90% of the time they are disrupting the lesson.

Oh, and the previous poster who wrote about their behaviour and attitude in Sociology lessons. You sound very proud of yourself. :(

The only time I got annoyed was the year they slated my DC’s attendance and even wrote ‘with better attendance they could improve hugely’. The only reason they had been off was for chicken pox and norovirus, hardly things I can send them to school with. I phoned the school up to complain because I was totally furious.

@theluckiest

Wow.

I really hope you're not one of the parents at my school.

I spend literally weeks writing reports in between my other duties. Oh, and teaching.
Every single one is personal and tailored to the individual child, proofread, checked and double checked before I sign it off.

So in a word, no.

I wish you taught at my son's school. He was referred to as she/her 8 times in his report this year.

At secondary age there were a couple of times where they slipped into the wrong name or sex, but given they are filling out hundreds of reports I wasn't going to contact them angrily or to mock it as I'm not an unkind dick. I just politely asked for it to be altered.

our primary reports are great. Accurate and helpful. There's a personal comment from the headteacher who clearly knows each child.

Secondary reports have been pretty meaningless. We get a grid with a colour for achievement in relation to their personal target (which is not stated) with no objective information about their attainment level; another colour for effort/behaviour, and a single sentence target that's pasted from the curriculum (so no advice on how to reach the target).

Obviously this is not the teachers' fault. But it would be better IMO to have 1 x annual report that's meaningful, as opposed to termly reports that aren't. Or just bin them off and stick to parents' evening, which is where the truth emerges!

Not in the slightest. DD just finished Y4 and DS Y7, so one in primary and one in secondary - the same school as it's private, going from 3-18.

Both have been specific, personal and detailed. DD's refers to individual pieces of work in each subject, which were done well, or could be improved on. DS's gave a paragraph on overall performance, and then a couple of bullet points on each, of areas of strength and areas of weakness. e.g. in his Latin exam DS gave a detailed and exciting description of chariot racing, however his translation could be improved by more thorough revision of grammar and vocabulary etc etc.

They must take the staff hours and hours and hours and I very much appreciated it.

My best laugh was my secondary report. Absolutely raved about how well I'm doing, excellent work, pays attention in class, contributes in team stuff blah blah blah.
No idea who they were talking about as I was never in school

A memorable one from the dc's it was another teacher who raised questions about the report, and asked if there was some tension between another teacher and child. They use a traffic light system on the report cards, and for some reason only one teacher used red. Autistic child was going through severe anxiety at the time and couldn't explain why.
After that if the reports didn't add up I queried it to ensure it wasn't another clash of personalities.

One of my own had something about my clarinet playing. I have never even touched a clarinet.

I think this was first year and to be fair my surname is very common and there were two of us with the identical surname and about 9 of us in the same year had either the same names or variations on the same name, think Carol, Carolyn, Caroline.

So Caroline Smith and Carolyn Smith and Carolyn Smyth.

One of my DC’s names was spelt incorrectly - now that’s bad!

Yep had that a lot, but see above.

I love the way that teachers try to put a positive spin on a negative trait 'it is great that RagwortDS enjoys participating robustly in class discussions but he needs to learn to listen to other people's options' ... ie; shut up.

Slightly different but I was in one school that had a marking policy that you had to start with a positive comment.

I once put, "You have put the correct date", because nothing else was written down.

Oh yes - my dd's reception teacher. She just didn't 'get' dd at all. It was painful. I was so relieved when she went into Y1.

We also had experience of a ballet exam being totally off as well. After looking at all the category marks and comparing the highs and lows in each section with all her previous exam marks, I am absolutely convinced that the examiner got the candidates mixed up on the day. It was grade 6, so we knew all too well her relative strengths and weaknesses by that time, and the marks she got bore no relation to that whatsoever.

When I was a primary TA I volunteered to proofread all the reports for the year I worked in because so often they'd have the wrong child's name in or paragraphs where a girl was referred to as 'he' throughout.

I don't blame teachers for copying and pasting when the statements are about what the curriculum covered that year instead of being personal - but at least edit to fit the child you're writing about! I thought it would have looked really bad printing and sending them to parents as they were.

Ah - the positive marking - aka the shot sandwich. Some times it's a struggle to find those two positive comments -

"You have used the correct spellings. Next time try to write more than three words. Your writing is allong the line and at the same height."

My nephews school report this year is pathetic. My Dsis has an appointment with the teacher on Monday to discuss it because it doesn't actually appear to be about him. It says he does things he doesn't and that he can't do things he can. It's utter nonsense.

I was looking back through some old school reports recently, mine were pretty accurate. Other than year 3, which was the year the teacher cried when my DM said she felt I hadn't progressed much.

My child's reception report (4 years ago) was partly accurate but also very disappointing and negative. Dont think the senco/teacher has heard of a shit sandwich but I didn't raise it i just binned it.

Reality check for all of you whinging about your child's secondary school reports.

When I taught English at a secondary school - only a couple of years ago - I taught 150 students each week. Each fucking week. And had to write detailed reports on all of them, covering but not limited to their progress, achievement, behaviour and additional learning needs.

Just stop a minute and try imagine 150 individuals that you know or have encountered regularly over the past year. Now try to write a detailed, individualised report on each of them.

This is on top of the ten or so different 90 minute presentations you'll be giving every week to groups of 30, tailoring each presentation to the individual needs of each of those 30 people, many of whom are disinterested and disruptive, making sure you thoroughly assess them to ensure that they've learnt what was in your presentations. If they haven't - or if you haven't developed their critical thinking skills or writing skills or reading skills or verbal skills or maths skills or PSHE skills or citizenship skills sufficiently at the same time - you'll have to do it all again in a different way.

Not too much work for you? Now add all the data collection, recording and analysis that you have to do for these 150 people on a day-to-day basis every day and every week. Add the meetings, the e-mails and the continual professional development that make up the totality of most people's working days. And then add your extensive dealings with members of the public who think they can do your job better than you, despite not having a degree in your subject and a professional qualification and your extensive experience - thirty years' in my case - but who think they know better than you because they've been to school. Decades ago.

And you criticise teachers for cutting and pasting?