Aibu to wonder about primary school reports?

[Thingsthatgo]

This isn’t a stealth brag. Both of my DCs can be a right PITA, and I know that they both have their strengths and weaknesses.
Their primary school reports always make them out to be perfect angels, who are borderline geniuses, and I am fairly sure this isn’t the case. Aibu to expect reports to have some resemblance to reality? Otherwise what is the point? I have asked around parents from other primary schools, and it seems it’s standard nowadays.

I am always amazed wheb friends boast about their childs positive glowing reports. I want to say they're all like that.... they dont mention that x child has been mean to another child all year....

Lord I hate writing reports, it's so difficult to think of appropriate things to say. Luckily my current school just use a bank of stock phrases that we pick from, so all reports are dull as dishwater but not too onerous to write them, and they do end up more personal than a copy and paste job. I do add "X is a pleasure to teach" sometimes though, but only if I genuinely mean it!

Report cards should not be a surprise. If there was an issue it should have been addressed at the time. DD's reports are excellent. Not a stealth boast, I am ridiculously proud of my child! But it got to a point when I used to ask mum friends to pick her up as she'd got Learner of the week for the 3rd week on the trot!

My kids have always been accurate 🤔
Like a sandwich with positive comment for the slices of bread and a little negative for the filling 🤣
My child is a pita so it definitely needs a bit of creativity with the wording to point this out 🤷‍♀️

DD’s report today said ‘a born leader’ - I’ve taken this to mean that she’s a right bossy cow. We’ve spoken about this before but will do so again.

I also work in a school as a TA and read some of the reports my teacher wrote - she asked me to check for typos etc. To be frank, they have to be positive so we can’t say ‘X has an attitude a mile wide’ ‘Y plays too much call of duty for a 6 year old and we’d prefer him to stop shooting his friends in the playground’ or ‘z really really needs to stop talking and start listening’… where possible it gets dressed up in fancy phrases but often the negatives have been missed off….
I don’t set too much store by DDs report to be honest.

I’ve always thought this too, like they have to write something nice as they won’t be in their class for much longer with it being end of the school year 😂

We had a report one year stating that Jason had really enjoyed their trip to wherever and contributed enthusiastically when back in the classroom.

I wanted to write on the comments - That's lovely that Jason got so much out of the trip but did Tom (my son) enjoy it too.

I didn't as she was a lovely teacher!

The funniest one I've ever had described DD2 as "an interesting child". Even with years of working in schools I've never quite worked that one out.

DD3's first report described her as "Confident and enjoys sharing her ideas". We had (another) word about not shouting out in class.

This is a bit depressing to read. My staff are currently writing reports that are really personalised and just lovely - reading them I sometimes laugh out loud at them, sometimes send them back saying 'this is not describing the child you have been sending to my office once a week, can you be more honest' and sometimes they make me cry as they are so well-written and expressed. The staff clearly do like the children. Maybe that's why they have said nice things about them.
I always look out for cut and paste and correct it, and there is a very occasional wrong name. I always put my own comment and it isn't 'well done' or 'keep it up' I say what I think - maybe just carefully worded sometimes.
I did once send a teacher her reports to redo when I recognised my own comments on previous children which she had cut and pasted and used on another's reports!

My dd's report sounds exactly like what I know she's like at school/friends houses- well behaved, kind, sensible, polite, tries hard etc. I just wish she behaved like this at home 😆

When I used to teach I always found parents' evening eye opening. There were kids that wouldn't say boo to a goose at school, always amazingly behaved, polite and hardworking, yet at home they had tantrums and were dreadfully behaved. It's just what most kids do. Play up at home and are little angels in school.

Ah no. I have most of these in my Ds's report. I was really pleased with his report.

I can now decifer he is a bossy, show off that's shouts out in class and does the bare minimum!

No change...

Maybe they are angels? Ours are accurate to the point of being psychological breakdowns of each kid...scarily so.

They did say he was a pleasure to teach though.

From years 1 to 6 my reports always said without fail that I was "a conscientious child." I now understand that to mean that I can never say no and always scared of letting people down
When I worked in primary there was an NQT who wrote out all 28 reports from scratch - oh to miss the days of enjoying every part of the job!

We've yet to receive ours with just days to go until the end of term. Can someone explain what is the point in the timing of them right at the end of term. - if there's an issue I won't know until I read about it at which point it's too late to address and the my child's current teacher can wash their hands of any issues as they all move up to a new class and new teacher in September.

Having taught my year 1 DS two days this week - I can confirm they behave totally differently in school to st home (even fir the same person 🤣).

I’ve never really seen the point of reports as a teacher or parent- they take sooooooo long to write & I think a two-way parents evening conversation would be so much more useful.

I can't wait to read DS' first one (he is in Reception). He never stops talking so will look for any coded words 😂

Just had my ds's report today and it's the first one I've had that has felt like it was 'cut and paste' job. After chatting to another couple of parents we've found that a lot of the general comments were the same The school has been pretty useless over the whole covid situation and now this as well, it's really disappointing when you realize they barely know what your child has actually achieved!

@parrotonmyshoulder

My DC is now at the school I work in. I can now see that it’s true - he is very angelic at school and not at all at home!

This has been my experience too.

You have to read reports incredibly carefully these days as everything is over positive, especially with regard to academic performance. My friend spent her child's school career thinking they were quite bright, near the top of the class, when in fact they were at best somewhere in the middle. This resulted in disappointment at 11+ time.

Any references to "the life and soul of the classroom", "a very social child" or "loves to interact with others" are not always complimentary. grin

^Lol, I know. One year, DD2’s school report said, ‘She loves to talk to her friends.’ I guessed that meant that she talked to them at the wrong time. She’s always been a chatterbox at home as well, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

She’s become shy in class at school in recent times, though.

Also there's a focus on progress and an avoidance of openness around actual attainment.

@stretchbabystretch

We've yet to receive ours with just days to go until the end of term. Can someone explain what is the point in the timing of them right at the end of term. - if there's an issue I won't know until I read about it at which point it's too late to address and the my child's current teacher can wash their hands of any issues as they all move up to a new class and new teacher in September.

We usually write ours in February, which makes them useful documents and they can really make a difference. "In order to reach the expected level by the end of the year, Jonny needs to ..."

Obviously we couldn't do that this year and the whole process felt much less worthwhile.

To be frank, they have to be positive so we can’t say ‘X has an attitude a mile wide’ ‘Y plays too much call of duty for a 6 year old and we’d prefer him to stop shooting his friends in the playground’ or ‘z really really needs to stop talking and start listening’… where possible it gets dressed up in fancy phrases but often the negatives have been missed off….

Since reports aren't going to be that accurate in terms of feeding back on behaviour or academic performance, can any teachers on here share insights in how parents should actually be finding out? Should we be emailing in separately to get meaningful information in writing? Phone calls/verbal feedback is not good enough as it's easily misinterpreted, forgotten or lied about later (by either party...).

Our reports need to be accurate rather than excessively positive but every child needs to have good points. My sister once proof-read mine for me and said I needed to be nicer but they were approved by SLT before being sent home. Her school go for the glowing report method so she saw mine as too negative.

Nothing should be new information if there are behaviour issues mentioned in the report as we should have been communicating them throughout the year. The report is summing up the year I guess.