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?

I got a report from my son's Graphics teacher (in Secondary yr 2) that told told me that he had failed all his assessments and had little or no grasp of the subject. I was confused as I he had all his assessment papers in his folio and all had scored 90% or above. It turned out that the teacher had been looking at another boy's scores while report my boy's report. I don't understand how he didn't twig that there was a discrepancy, and he did refer to my son by name. The following year he started by using his first name and halfway through the report he began to refer to him by his surname (which could be a first name). It's only once a year, how hard can it be?

If your child is a PITA how would you like that to appear in the report?

Actually, I know this is impossible for teachers, all the moaning I read on MN "the teacher has nothing positive to say about my child." You will never get it perfect.

How about a list of positives balance by a list of challenges to work on? Like

X excels at ABC. He is also good at (other positive gumpf).

X has DEF problems (issues in school that we both know are issues, so I feel like you're not afraid to address it head on). X would benefit from (specific behaviour suggestions that are directly related to DEF items).

The school I worked for demanded we write 4 page reports for every child. In a class of 34 Y6 children, an element of copying and pasting was inevitable, but I did try not to do this in the core subjects. As for not writing if they are a PITA, if a teacher did write any such thing, most parents would be charging into school demanding an appointment.

The feedback I got from parents was that they read the English and Maths, maybe the science, and the personal comment, and they couldn't give much of a damn about the rest anyway.

(that refers to primary obviously)

when I was writing reports, they were frequently sent back to me by the headteacher. I was told every year to rewrite at least 10 as I was being too honest, and I should be more positive. My argument was that unless parents know that little Johnny or little Jane are being a PITA/stopping children learning, then nothing would ever change. Apparently I was wrong...my reports never represented the true child in some cases and I found this incredibly frustrating!

I told the truth in the first term of this year - and it wasn't a bad truth but it wasn't a glowing report. Think B grades rather than As.

The mother rang up and I had to spend forty five minutes on the phone to her explaining why little Johnny wasn't A* for attainment and effort.

And that, dear reader, is why teachers don't tell you the truth on reports. Because I teach over 100 students and 100 x 45 is 4,500 and I don't have that many minutes to spare each time I write reports (secondary teacher and each student gets two full reports a year plus 4 sets of grades).

If parents could handle the truth, we would tell it.

Op

Regarding your question.

Sadly, the cynic in me thinks that you will never win with those parents. They are simply so focussed on their own child and not the needs of the whole group that they won't understand why such calling out is so irksome.

I've not had a school report yet - will get the first one in a few weeks time.
What I hope it will include is realistic and specific suggestions for what skills and attitudes DS will need to focus on developing. I know full well that he is ahead of the class in some things. I also know full well he is significantly behind in others - and I would like to know in detail what I can do to help him develop in the areas he finds more tricky.

Ideally reports would be a sentence or two for each curriculum area.

Daisy always tries really hard at Maths and has almost mastered her times tables this year. ((NC Level))

Tim works well in a group but needs to try and stay focused on independent writing tasks. ((NC level))

Sort of thing would be much more useful than the paragraphs of spiel I get about what they've learned this year.(That should be handed during the year)

Actually I wouldn't mind negative comments but there's never any negative ones. For instance I know that my son's writing is weak but you'd never know that based on his report.

I would love a report like the ones you're doing OP, one that actually shows that the writer knows my child. I absolutely loathe the ones they use at my ds's school which appear to he a selection if statements to which they add ds's name to make it make sense. They might as well just send me a copy if the local takeaway menu for the amount if actual information it gives me about ds.

I used to teach secondary and had well over 300 students... reports really couldn't be incredibly personal for year 8s and 9s I saw once a fortnight.

I'm a writer for a living. I used to feel for the teachers who had to write 30 of these things - really, how many ways can you rephrase "doing ok, sometimes a PITA but sometimes adorable."

Eventually I pulled her out of school for an extended travel experience, but my fondest wish for reports was that I could ask 3 off-the-record questions that her teacher was allowed to answer completely honestly. The results from standardised testing came in the mail but her teachers knew a side of her that I never would. Those small observations meant the most to me, and I couldn't care less if they happened in maths, english, or social studies.

I hate, with a passion, double-speak. I'm not stupid and if a teacher has spent all year telling me DD2 didn't grasp x concept in maths, etc., then she plainly isn't doing 'well'. But the report is absolutely littered with useless comments.

E.g. 'Has experienced' = 'Was in the room at the time. '

'Is beginning to' = Has done one part of a four-step method once but is completely flummoxed by it.

'Benefits from working in a group before working on her own' = can't work out what to do so needs her friends to tell her.

'Tends to make statements in her written work' = can't write in sentences yet.

Just say it! And don't say my child is 'working at expected levels' for maths when she can't add two numbers past 10. Admit that she's struggling (as you've been telling me all year) and tell me what you're going to do about it/what I can do.

I HE her now.

I hate my GS's teacher telling me in person his reading was good and then in his report reading that he would benefit from more reading aloud and criticising his ability! Making personal remarks about his personality that the teacher does not like.

I am generally really supportive of teaching staff, but I do sometimes wonder how his teacher would feel if we produced a report upon his personal failings and personality defects throughout the year!

Worst of all, sending me the report with the last few pages missing. Is it attached to someone else's report?

You sound sensitive and conscientious and I am absolutely sure you would do none of the above!

I worked as a SEN TA years back, the class teacher got me to write the reports using cut and paste and changing the 'he' bits to 'she' bits where appropriate. Oh, and it was my first job on graduating and I had no idea what I was doing.

By year 5/6 my socially inept dyslexic exploded at twee social skill/group work comments.

DD1 sadly, well knows she doesn't work well in groups, non of her class want to be seen to work with her as she's been the class outsider since nursery.

Instead of getting at her for something she can not fix, engineer group and paired work such that she has a role despite her class mates.

DD2 just wants her name spelt right.

I'm a primary teacher - and a parent. I spend hours and hours (days and days) writing reports. Then I listen to parents at my child's school ripping the same kind of reports to shreds because the don't like them. Makes me want to cry.

We are, by law, required to report against the national curriculum. I spend more hours all year logging ticks on an assessment system to record what my children can do. Each statement of attainment has 3 levels - beginning to, developing the ability to, can do...
At the end of the year the assessment system compiles the reports for us. (If you have 2 children in the same year who have achieved the same progress then you will naturally have very similar comments.)

But... first we have to create a template for the statements.

Then we have to add our own personalised comments (I'm at 12k words at present for that bit and I'm only 2/3rds of the way through). That requires me to bring home boxes of books to refresh my memory of what the children have done and can do.

Then we have to proof read the generated comments that have been created as we need to check they actually reflect the child in question. The proof reading and tweaking stage lasts for more hours and hours.

Nearly every school in my county uses the same system so lots of the reports are pretty similar.

I've occasionally used copy and paste, but only if the comment does truly also match the second child, and only then if I change it slightly too.

As a parent, when I receive my own child's report I find those generated comments interesting as I can go to the national curriculum and spot which level she is working at in each subject. But I do find that I am most interested in the main, general comment at the end (last year at the beginning) of my child's report.

The other beauty is DD1 (now doing GCSEs) has a very nice effort grade for PHSE.

Very nice - except she's not been to PHSE all year!

It's the only lesson she'll miss to do extra English with our lovely SENCO

Sadly, of course, you can't regenerate my best report. Which said, for Welsh.

"Beyond Hope"

The problem is 2kids, until it was explained to me, I didn't understand where the comments came from. Yes, I knew full well my DD could count up to 1000 thank you very much, but I had no concept of where that comment had come from and how much work prior to that comment had been put in. I was one of those mums who just wanted to read the "personal" comment. I just didnt realise it was all personal.

2kidsintow You have just given me yet another reason to thank my lucky stars that I did not follow my DF and DSis into the ed. biz. What a performance. Do you ever get time to take a break to do some teaching?

For some reason I have one of my reports from when I was 10 years old so have been reading that and seeing how it applies to the comments on here. All the comments by the teacher herself are personal with honest criticisms (teacher felt that I could work faster at maths). The comments by the head teacher on the other hand.... well he just picked out a few points that the class teacher made and finished with "we look forward to a very busy and full year!"

:)

Oh yes, teaching is done in the day time. Marking and planning and paperwork and target setting and other such stuff is done after school.

I'm very organised and for most of the year I don't take marking etc home. But at this time of the year I spend my evenings and weekends typing, typing, typing.

I have 2 parents' evenings coming up this week too ( daily-mail type face)... and a lesson observation.