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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to expect a school report that is properly written

17 replies

WildistheWind · 22/07/2010 09:46

Got our DSD report yesterday.

I'm quite happy with what the reports says overall as she's done tremendous progress in the past 2 years.

I got so annoyed while reading it because it stank, of badly executed copy & paste.

Throughout the report, in the same phrases, she is described as HIM & SHE, her work as HIS work and HIS attitude. Just not nice to read a report talking about your daughter which is not even able to represent her gender appropriately.

I really want to have a word with Headmistress tomorrow morning and say that: I, as a parent, expect more from an ADULT, who is to write a report assessing a CHILD. That I wish the said report to be in proper English!! At least, if they copy and paste key phrases or concepts, they should be bothered to proofread the reports!

AIBU ?

OP posts:

MathsMadMummy · 22/07/2010 09:49

there's been other threads on this recently. YANBU at all. sadly it's quite common though

you should definitely complain!

Original poster

WildistheWind · 22/07/2010 09:50

I thought this wasn't going to be news but I was raging when reading it!!! SO annoyed!

OP posts:

cory · 22/07/2010 09:52

Yup, sounds par for the course. Ds "enjoyed" aspects of the curriculum when I know for a fact that he was off sick, dd has a very positive attitude towards PE (well, that may well be true, she hasn't taken part for 3 years, so what's not to feel good about? ).

mumto2andnomore · 22/07/2010 09:58

I would complain, thats not good enough. Reports are a pain but its part of the job.Im a teacher and our head writes a comment on each, sent 7 back to him as they were spelt wrongly or were grammatically incorrect-he couldn't even tell which bits weren't right !

Bonsoir · 22/07/2010 09:59

LOL cory at your DD's positive attitude towards PE!

Here in France we have a tick-box report with a short summing-up paragraph at the end - in theory a set of standard observations followed by analysis. Ha ha ha ha. There rarely seems to be any connection between the two...

Psammead · 22/07/2010 10:00

In my day, teacher's hand wrote reports. At least they had to consider what they were writing.

PuppyMonkey · 22/07/2010 10:00

PMSL at cory...

My dd (age 13) is at secondary school and on her English report there was a line "I would suggest she tries to read more adult oriented books now" or some such thing. So it came to parent's evening and I got to see the teacher, so I just asked nice and laid back like, "ooh what did you mean - what sort of books should be moving onto?" quite interested. And the teacher just stared back blankly and confessed that line is simply one of a number the teachers can cut and paste into a report. And as none of the other applied to my DD she just bunged that one in. Nobody usually asks anything more. I was a bit

cory · 22/07/2010 10:05

to be fair to my dd, she is not actually truanting from PE: she is disabled

Original poster

WildistheWind · 22/07/2010 10:09

I'm so going in tomorrow!!!

Cory, how insensitive of them!

OP posts:

madhairday · 22/07/2010 10:09

yanbu. Both my dcs reports were the same. Statement banks copied and pasted left right and centre, only personalised bit a few sentences at the end. Plus spelling/grammar mistakes. Most disappointed. I was a teacher in the days we wrote them (although I have to say we always used the statement banks - just in a more creative and interesting way)

woahthere · 22/07/2010 10:28

My daughter dressed up enthusiastically on a school trip according to her report....apart from she was on the side of the world at the time!

Niceguy2 · 22/07/2010 10:28

Yeah I had a moan about it the other day. Next time I see the teacher she'll be getting a verbal kicking from me.

I'd like to think I had a small part to play in making my DD's school change their frankly stupid "target review day" where the kids get the entire day off, so you can spend 10 mins with a teacher who knows squat about your child's progress. They now have changed it to a more sensible evening policy so I don't have to take a day off work, nor does my child lose a day's education (remember every day counts as I keep getting told).

I wonder this time if the head will be hovering around again when I arrive to rescue the teacher??

echt · 22/07/2010 10:35

The teachers may be instructed to use comment banks, so it's worth finding out if this is the case.

However, I'd be pretty peeved not have something more personal from a primary teacher who sees a child 5 days a week, all year.

Bonsoir · 22/07/2010 10:38

My DD's class teacher cheerfully informed DP at our first ever meeting with her (8 weeks into the school year) that she "saw DD 20 hours a week so obviously I know her better than you" . And then writes all sorts of rubbish on her report that totally fails to take account of some basic linguistic information that she ought to be aware of anyway, but that we had also emphasised to her during our meetings, that completely changes any analysis she makes of her observations.

MathsMadMummy · 22/07/2010 10:43

I do think it's not worth going at the teacher all guns blazing, as it's often the school policy. maybe ask the teacher about it but you'd probably be better off speaking to the head.

I have twin stepdaughters and they got virtually identical reports (despite being utterly different in most ways!) - including errors similar to cory's example.

they were in separate classes so it obviously wasn't the individual teachers - just a lazy approach throughout the whole school IMO.

nobodyisasomebody · 22/07/2010 12:19

I got a lovely report about my ds who is 8. Lots of positive comments about his behaviour and hard work.

I started to get suspicious when I read what he had been taught this year and even more so when his targets were printed at the end along with a comment about his needing to pay more attention and check his work.

I was right, the report was written by the teacher two years below the class he has been in this year.

Miggsie · 22/07/2010 12:30

Frankly, I'd tell the head that a cut and paste report is worthless, and why do they bother?

I'd rather have one well considered sentence than a paragraph of generic crap.

DD got "enthusiastic" 6 times in her report and the maths section was simply a list of topics covered with no indication of how she was doing. If it hadn't been for DD telling me, I would have had no idea from the report that DD gets extra extension work plus multiplication and division when the rest of the class are doing clocks...luckily DD told me this herself, the report gave no clue.

Her best report was a small hand written note from her piano teacher.

DH says they can't put anything bad so the reports inevitably end up anodyne, he doesn't put much store by them and prefers to talk to the teachers direct.

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