To ask what you hate reading in school reports.

[Pipbin]

I am a teacher but I have no DC. I am in the middle of writing reports. I never ever copy and paste as that is rude. The nicest comment a parent ever made about my reports was that she could tell it was about her child and that I really knew them.
My question is, what phrases and cliches do you hate reading in your DCs reports?

YY to the 'fine' it tells me zilch. How about did is a little behind in literacy and needs to do x,y,z to catch up. I remember being so disappointed with dd1s first school report - just lots of cut and paste and a generic 'personal' sentence at the end. I don't expect pages and pages (Or even huge paragraphs) but something to say that you got to know my child a bit over the year would be nice. Tbh I feel the same about parents evening when I get given 'fine' it drives me crazy.

How the pendulum has swung! It's become commonplace to hear famous people talking bitterly about some comment from a teacher on the lines of 'You'll never amount to anything, boy!' or 'The only time you'll make the newspaper headlines is when you're in court!' and how it motivated them to prove the teacher wrong.

Can you imagine the fuss there would be nowadays if a teacher said something as nasty as that? Rightly so, but it must be hard to find the middle way between the nasty stuff and a Pollyannaish line that everybody is special and good at something and all problems can be brushed under the carpet.

Is have to look out DSs from last year. Basically it was fairly positive. I have since realised he didn't do well in the end of year assessment ( we had no marks on ours the kids who dud well got the marks on theirs). He was subsequently put into the lowest stream in Yr1. It was only when I pressed his teacher at the first parent-teacher meeting dud she say he was in the lowest set in the class. I was gutted. If it had been flagged up at the end if the year I would have approached the new term differently.

To be fair to his teacher this year she did say things can click for them in Yr1 and it seems to be the case for him a bit.

As a teacher I've come to the conclusion that whatever you write and however you write it there will always be one parent who complains!

Therefore I write about the actual child (like you no cutting and pasting). I do mention the things they've enjoyed and excelled in as I think that says a lot about them as a person.

As a teacher I agree with everything above including the relentless positivity, the cutting and pasting from NC documents and the waffle! However, those who make these decisions (i.e. not us!) decree that this is how it must be done. So spare a thought for the teacher who is trying to cut and paste from NC, assess how well little Billy is performing against each of these, make each set of comments sound different (not easy with 30 children) and then personalise the report. Believe me, I breathe a massive sigh of relief when I get to the final, personal comments box when I can actually write about what your child is like, can do and needs to work on. I know that this is the only part that most people read, including myself if I am honest. This is the part that I enjoy writing, when I can sit back and think about how your child has progressed over the year. Not just in regard to their work but all round. However, when I have spent the best part of god knows how many weeks when not actually teaching/marking/sleeping writing the things and farming my own children out to anyone that will have them, seeing the 'they are not worth the paper that they are written on' comments quite frankly gives me the rage!

Some teachers have to use c&p as that's what their system is set up for - choose the five closest statements from a dropdown menu.

Another one not interested in too much positivity. Every report, like every appraisal, should have suggestions for improvement/growth.

The tedious list:

is able to recognise an octagon and understands that shapes can be 3 dimensional. can use full stops and ...blah blah...paras regurgitated from the national curriculum / SATS checklist.

I like things that actually HELP. "* really enjoys imaginative work and uses her imagination well in creative writing, it would boost her confidence if she practiced this that or the other"

We were told to start with positivity then achievements then what needs improvement and finally a personal comment but that was back in the days before levels etc.
lively character=pita
engages in all class discussions=never shuts up
takes a keen interest in what is going on in the classroom=nosey little telltale
a pleasure to teach=a pleasure to teach
I could go on but you would be bored :)

I don't want to hear that my child is doing fine when she is within expectations but I know she should be capable of of such more, to me she is not doing the best of her abilities, she is coasting....and that is not fine, just because she is within expectations. To go from top of the class to middle of the class and stay say that she is doing fine is not what I want to hear in a report.

I want to know hard facts - marks, percentages, position in class. That way I can tell which areas my DDs need support and encouragement in. For example one of my DDs really lacks confidence with maths but when I ask about it I just get meaningless bland statements like "she's where we expect her to be". That tells me nothing at all.

Last year I read a lovely report about DD - I was delighted until I got the the NC levels bit.

No point in saying great things if DD hasn't made great progress (also why weren't we warned earlier and given a chance to do extra at home - it's not like we're uninterested parents but that's a different point).

I was really peeved. Good and bad please. Give us a few pointers on areas to work on if progress is an issue.

I am another one who loathes being told her child is quiet and shy. There is nothing wrong with being quiet and shy. It isn't an affliction.

Generic waffle is the worst.

The best thing I've read was in DD's Y1 report where her teacher had noticed her writing a song and performing it to her friends at playtime and commented with specific detail on the way that this was developing the skills she had learned in classroom music lessons.

I hate all positives. I know my DD isn't perfect and isn't always working to her best abilities. I want to know that she would benefit from improving XYZ to help her reach the next level.

If you must copy and paste, check that the scores and report fit my child.
We received a report at the end of year 1 which said my child was struggling massively with Maths, science and English... this came as a massive shock as 2 weeks earlier at parents evening we were told she was at the top of the class and was doing really well.
So on her starting in year 2 at the first parents evening I had a chat with the teacher (not the one who taught her in year 1) and said I was concerned by last terms report, and that I wanted to know how best to help DD. The teacher said I must have received someone else's report as DD was in the top group for all subjects, and was most definitely not struggling with any subject. She apologised and said she would discuss it with the head as I was the 3rd parent to mention the last report didn't fit my child one bit.

I understand the need for C&P but don't like it when halfway through the report, the teacher starts using another child's name:

"Coppertop Jr does XY and Z. OtherChildName also enjoys doing A,B, and C."

I'm never sure whether they just forgot to change the name or whether they've accidentally just added something that doesn't apply to my child at all.

Ds1 was referred to as she by one teacher on his report.

The thing that really riled me was when ds wrote in his bit something along the lines of " when such and such happens I must try not to get upset."

A teacher wrote over the top that he had to stop doing such and such as well.

They completely missed the point!

My dc's reports are just a list of statements that are ticked if achieved which is pretty soulless but probably pleases OFSTED. So just not that.
It is a fantastic school in every other way and I know how they're getting on so I would never say anything but it would be nice to have a well written paragraph highlighting some knowledge of their personality, strengths and next steps.

My DF went on teaching in a sighted school after he lost his sight at age 40 - which showed remarkably progressive thinking for the times, sixty years ago, by the LEA - and in those days reports were obviously hand-written and since he had to dictate his to a colleague or to my DM he had to keep them short. I have happy memories of being in the corner of the room while he did so (I was much younger than his pupils and did not know them, of course) and some phrases linger:

Could and should work

Even worse than last term

Has worked to her entire satisfaction

Those were the days when you could really speak your mind!

Hate reading general statements that tell me nothing about my child. I also don't want to know position in the class - I don't care how the rest of the class are doing, I want to know what my child is doing, how they are interacting with others, what they enjoy in particular, what motivates them, and what I can do to support them and keep their enthusiasm going. Obviously if they are struggling academically I'd want to know but hopefully I'd already know at this point in the year. I'm not too fussed about government targets but realise they'd probably be included somewhere. I'd like to know what strategies the teacher is using to support and encourage them in areas they find more difficult, and how they have progressed / matured since the last report. Examples would be great in showing that the teacher really knows my child.

I remember in Year 8 all my reports said I was a quiet pupil. My mum wrote a note saying she had known this for 13.5 years and could they please tell her something she didn't know. (Which they did as well to be fair).

My two daughters' school reports are virtually completely soul-less these days. They are usually just a list of subjects with current grades and target grades listed. No personal comments at all for the last few years now.

I hate that. I want to know how my child is doing at each subject, how she is relating to the teacher and interacting with the rest of the class.

It is all so impersonal, the way it is done.

Tbh I don't really mind what's written. 3 of my family are teachers and I can tell how much time has gone into them.
But whatever you choose to write, please fucking spell it correctly

NC levels, or similarly objective scoring - I want to see for myself if DD is making adequate progress rather than guessing what 'above age-related expectations' actually means. Although I did quit enjoy translating my friend's DD's report from c&ped NC statements into levels ...

At the other extreme, I like the personal comments that make me think (1) definitely DD and (2) definitely my child (not a report, but a parents' evening - "she does spend quite a lot of time in DD-Land").

Topseyt I feel the opposite, I am not really bothered how DD15 is relating to the teacher or the rest of the class, unless there are major problems. However I am interested in her grades and what she needs to do to improve.