to think that the teacher should have written out the school report again

[beclev24]

DS is in reception. Today we had his parent teacher conference, where they hand out report cards. The report card has spaces for each skill with the 'level' he has reached plus a space for writing general comments about him. At the conference, the general comments bit was blank. She said "oh sorry- I wrote it but my computer deleted it." I was sad- it felt so shoddy not to have this ready for us. I love to read the comments on my DCs reports- both the positive stuff,which I cherish, and the areas for improvement. Especially as this is his first one ever, and I was looking forward to saving it.

Am I being precious and entitled to think this is a part of her job, and if her computer deleted it, she should have redone it? I would never hand in a blank piece of work to a client. Is this equivalent? Would I be 'that mother' if I asked her to write it out again?

I've no experience of schools, but if I presented someone at work with a report that had bits missing 'because my computer deleted it' I wouldn't be expecting a very impressed response!

Good grief.. She most likely printed it out in the 3 minute window she had between teaching your son and sitting down all evening with parents. She'll not have seen her own kids, had dinner or possibly time for a wee. Report programmes are full if glitches. I lost a full class' set of reports once that had taken several hours. Give her a break and don't be 'that' parent please. You'll have hundreds of these things and most likely if you just drop her an email next week she can sort it out.

If it was all discussed face to face with the teacher then I think you're being a bit unreasonable. It presumably came to light late on that the text was gone (probably not saved or saved over with another pupil's report text) and there just wasn't enough time to fix it.

Teacher would have been preparing/printing/conferencing for another 20+ parents in the same evening I expect.

You'll have plenty more to keep - and never look at again-

it would have been totally fine if she'd said "i'm sorry- it got deleted and I didn't realise in time- I'll do it for you by x date"- I get that these things happen and she might have realised late etc. but she just said that it got deleted and so we had to have a blank one and sign that one. So we won't ever get the comments. I know that teachers have a big workload/ are overworked etc but I do think that writing a report on each child is a reasonable expectation.

I'd be disappointed too as it's nice to read, but they are mostly cut and paste jobs with a sentence word here and there that is specific to your child. There's a limit to how many different and personalised ways you can say a 5 year old is doing just fine! If you are otherwise happy with the teacher and how he's doing then I'd just forget about it I think.

I think she should have done t again, just as I would at work if part of my report was lost. She presumably knew about parents evening well in advance, she didn't have to do all the reports between school and parents evening that day.

I am a teacher and I would have absolutely done it again. You are not being unreasonable at all. If she was doing them in a rush just before the evening it is her planning that's at issue.

We have to keep copies of all reports in their files. Go in and ask for it to be done gently first, if you don't get anywhere, ask to see the Head.

It's okay to be disappointed but I mean, you had a face to face conversation where you can easily ask what the improvements need to be and how it can be done.

I think you're being a little bit precious about a piece of paper which will just sit in a drawer for year.

I don't think op is being precious about it at all. It's her DS's first school report and it's nice to read what the teacher has said about his personality and behaviour in school.
I saved every report about my 3 DC and passed them on to them when they left home. Now and again we like to look at them and reminisce.
I know teachers are overworked but preparing and presenting reports is part of the job description.

Just send it into to school
And ask her to do it when she has a minute.

OP it's one of the key tenets of this site that you can't criticise, or even hint at criticising, teachers on Mumsnet.

I think many do a fabulous job btw, in tough circumstances, but do they have the toughest jobs ever? No - but you'd think so to read some of the posts on here.

I'd be a bit disappointed too. More to the point I would never get away with handing an unfinished or errored piece of work to a client and technical problems wouldn't be a good enough excuse to do so, no matter how many hours have to be put in to address it. However, it's a different work environment, so different rules apply.

Of course she should have done it again, it would have taken 1 minute and to not do so is shoddy.

if it was only the 'general comments' bit i'd not worry about it. You have all the important bits

I think it also makes a difference whether getting the report card is a normal part of school procedure (i.e. every parent gets one, regardless of year group and teacher), or whether it's something the teacher writes out themselves.

In the first case, yes, it should be completed (if not time on the day, perhaps the teacher should provide another day). in the second case, no need to.

I think it's quite unusual to get reports in November actually - most schools only provide them at end of terms.

Yanbu, she should have done it again. But then I had one teacher who must have completed DS's report with comments for another child, and she was waxing lyrical at the meeting about what a budding artist he is (he couldn't draw for toffee) but he needs to improve in maths (he knew his multiplication table in Year 1).

You could go onto one of those report writing sites and cut and paste a sentence or two yourself though. Surely at age 5 you get far more information from actually talking to the teacher than a random and non-specific check box exercise?

Did you verbally get all the information that would've been on the card anyway? I agree with others above that it's a ridiculously tough job, but also think if you asked for one for your own records the teacher would kindly oblige. If you did get the information verbally you could make notes from the meeting as a record of the feedback

Given that she's just had a week of half term where she had no classes, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that she shouldn't have left it until the last minute and been more organised.

It depends. I remember when my kids were young their school had a new principal who dictated that comments could only be used from a stock standard list, hardly personalised. The year prior to this when teachers could compose their own comments, one child received a report where the comments had another child’s name in them so I was not sure if the levels were relevant to my child and it was just comments were off or whether the whole thing was for the other child. I was satisfied I knew how they had progressed, where they were, strengths, weaknesses etc so I just let it go. I figured their Yr1 report at 6yo was hardly going to determine their uni course or future career prospects so what did having something on paper I felt I was already across add to anyone’s life.

One of my son's school reports from primary school referred to him as 'she' for half of it, and the spelling was worse than his!
Another teacher wrote in one box that he didn't complete homework on time and this was an area for improvement, and in the next box said he always handed his homework in completed and on time!

A far cry from one of mine back in the 80's where my form teacher wrote that I was in serious danger of failing all my GCSE's because I was putting my social life before revising. Now that was spot on! (Although I passed 6 of them in the end)

I’m a teacher and this would not be acceptable in our school. They would have to have been done again. I’m surprised the head signed it off like this. Please do ask for it to be done - the teacher knows she’s trying her luck!! Sitting at home for three consecutive weekends writing school reports is one of the less attractive parts of teaching but it has to be done. I always have a word document open and copy and paste report text onto this in case of glitches,, they’re easily recoverable then.

My son's school report has previously been issued to me with another childs name included for some of the comments. It took them the whole summer holidays and a few weeks of the new term to correct it. I was upset as it did make me realise that really the school don't view him as an individual.

Of course they see him as an individual but teachers have 30 reports with around 10 different subjects plus pastoral comments to write. There has to be some use of standard comments or else the task would be too huge to complete! Plus more importantly, there are only so many different ways of saying “Sam enjoys history and can identify primary sources” or “Ben has excellent understanding of number bonds to 10”. You can’t reinvent the wheel for every single report!