School report is so vague it feels pointless

[Whatdoyouthinkof]

My son has brought home his spring term report and for every subject he is working towards..school has sent a separate guide that every child at this stage of the year will be working towards as not completed school year and a few exceptional children will be working at. Am I being unreasonable to wonder if nearly child is working towards what’s the point of sending home the report?
If my child is struggling I would genuinely like to help him but I feel there is such a vague approach to reports these days I can’t work out if he’s doing well or not. Is it normal to receive a school report and feel none the wiser?

Do you have a parents evening coming up or opportunity to talk to the teacher?
I always worked on the impression that if there was an issue they would tell you and they must be doing fine otherwise until I found out at the end of the year that one of my dc had really been struggling all year.
Now I always ask if there is anything they are struggling with and how I can help them.
When I look at my school reports it always stated what we were good at and what we needed extra help with but my dc reports are like yours and very vague.

YANBU.

Ive had the same

“DD is a lovely girl who applies herself well. She enjoys science, maths and reading. She does need to work on putting her hand up and asking for help more. Otherwise a great start to the term”

Warning OP: you will get flamed. In MNLand teachers are allowed to be shit and incompetent and put in the bare minimum.

They're a nonsense these days. Copy and paste jobs dreamt up by some civil servants. You may get a better idea by speaking with the teacher directly

I have worked in schools and can confirm school reports are mostly copy and paste jobs.

YANBU. There isn’t much point in sending home any mid year reports if they are going to grade by subject based on end of year expectations.

Better to base it on content that has been taught or not to bother wasting the teacher’s time writing them to tell you nothing.

I miss honest reports.

Mine were brilliant (and not always for the right reasons!). Nobody will look back at their school reports with fondness anymore.

Our school reports are brutally honest.

No personal words in ours just a table with maths, reading, writing. Exceeding, expected or below. Then behaviour. Nicely coloured in red, Amber and green for all. Hate it. I've has 2/3 green for behaviour this time which is a win. Bit lovely red and Amber across the board for everything else. They all have learning difficulties so I expect it but it doesn't make it any less depressing!

In juniors, mine used to have effort and attainment for various subjects with a one liner alongside and then a more general note at the bottom which seemed to follow the stars and a wish format of noting strengths- good subjects, behaviour in class & with others, a particular skill, and something to improve- eg a subject area or skill requiring more work or something like could be more confident wrt answering in class.

I'd be annoyed if I didn't have the attainment and effort scores to put my child in context tbh.

The DfE makes it clear what should be in school reports, and you can bet most of us won’t have had the extra info requested in 2021/2022
arm yourself with this and contact the school if you don’t get a better report in the summer term
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-reports-on-pupil-performance-guide-for-headteachers#information-that-must-be-reported-in-annual-reports

I have no idea how to support my “working towards” child at all. If the report told me, even in bullet point form, we could do extra at home and this would help his progress.

Yes, but this is about the single, annual report. That's all that is required. Mid-year written reports aren't required.

You know nothing about schools if you think classroom teachers have any autonomy over the format of school reports. They are told what to write. Usually given a word bank. The report box has a word maximum which you usually can't go over. Believe me, most classroom teachers want to say much more than bland statements, but are forbidden to do so by SLT.

The reports I receive have always been so vague they are utterly pointless. Feel sorry for the teachers writing them as the just really shouldn’t have to

It's age dependent, but I think they should be brutal. To be told you're meeting expectations or could do better is not motivational and won't spur on the parents.

It's true for all stages of life... I remember someone in her third year if a PhD being told "maybe you're just not cut out for science"... and wow did she pull her finger out!

My DC went through while of primary without a single grade or mark on a report- it was council policy and nothing to do with individual teachers. Parents evening were much more informative! Now at secondary and it’s gone the opposite way with lots of assessments and grading which takes some getting used to!

I see a huge difference between how Ds1 (independent secondary school) and Ds2 (state primary)‘s reports are written.

I’m not sure whether it is a primary/secondary difference, but in y7-9 DS1 would have a paragraph written per subject with lots of constructive feedback. Now in y10, for each subject, he is graded against his challenge grade, and constructive comments made as to how to achieve that challenge grade if he is below it in any subject. And a paragraph from the form teacher about him as a form member and person. Reports of some nature every half term.

DS2 is ranked at emerging/expected/exceeding and then a short paragraph about him as a person. Reports twice a year.

I agree- teachers have to work within the framework given by council or school. Such a waste of their professional time!

I don't understand why parents need so much direction from school tbh. You know your child well, you can see their work, you can see what they struggle with in homework already.

Yes the reports are quite generic, because of the drop down lists, but they provide an indication of whether the teacher thinks they are on track with their school work and you know a lot about how they are in general.

If you have any concerns, email a teacher.

Teachers have a huge workload and the Tory government has deliberately underfunded schools, they just do not have time to write an individual essay about each child.

What extra information? The White Paper was abandoned meaning the "Parent Pledge" no longer exists, not that it was passed into law anyway. Last year, all reports had to do differently was consider the impact of the pandemic so if a child was significantly behind, just recognise that may be pandemic-related and not specific to that child.

Schools need to send one report a year. If they are already sending more across the year then they are going beyond the required level in terms of frequency. It may be that each report serves a different purpose.

For example, in my school, we:

• have a parents' evening in October to discuss settling in / initial attainment.
• have a written report in December with attainment data, targets and a comment from the teacher, detailing attitude to learning, behaviour, social and emotional development, academic strengths/weaknesses.
• a written report in March with updated attainment data and targets, no comment as it is followed by...
• parents' evening in March to discuss progress.
• written report in July with final attainment data, written comment on the year from the teacher, comment from the head and a self-reflection from the child.

That is so far above the reporting required (one written report before the end of the year and an opportunity to talk about it). However, if someone looked at the spring report in isolation (with data only), it would be easy to go "We don't know enough!" because you're not looking at it in the round.

You still get words on the reports? We get a poorly formatted table with random numbers in it, and need to ferret through the 'curriculum' area of the school website (which doesn't work on mobile) to find a key to what the numbers mean.
Suggested that maybe the explainer should be at least distributed with the report and was told that teachers are very busy...
Then parents evening was 4.30 minutes per subject on a rubbish video chat platform. Only 2/3 of the teachers showed up and half of those had tech problems so no actual information was exchanged.

That is a shame - both DS1s school reports are and DS2s nursery reports "sound like them"...DS1 gets an end of year report which is all the levels at the back and a side of A4 (good and bad!) at the back. DS2 gets little term reports on his nursery app and they are short but definitely personalised eg "DS2 loves to talk about sharks and dinosaurs and spends most of the day in the nursery garden digging for worms"

But DS1 only gets one per year in the summer.

Sorry that was a terrible sentence...I meant to say a side of A4 of writing at the front and all the levels at the back.

We have to report to parents 3x a year, either a written report or parents evening.
We do an autumn and spring parents evening and a detailed summer report. It's much more personal.

I would aim for the parents evening to discuss any concerns and that opportunity to know exactly how the child is doing.

I am finding that school reports in secondary contain less information to how a pupil is progressing than primary reports, but because they have tests every term I think it's easier to know with the results how they may be struggling or not.

My dd primary reports had that bit of automatic writing but they did have personal detailed notes from the teacher which I apreciated.
In meetings I would discuss with the teacher what I was observing and listening from my dd on how she was doing in subjects, and the teachers would confirm it and give their input and advice.

I've been always very present in school material and study, working with dd, testing her knowledge, knowing the curriculum and going tro it with dd, asking questions after school, showing interest and excitement to hear her day, nothing strict, always in a fun way, like a routine thing, so after a while my dd would always keep me updated on how things were going at school, without me even asking. I also am attentive to her friendships and connections, it does really help to pinpoint how a child is doing and where is the struggle.

But they've given an explanation.

He's working towards - as expected.

If he want where he should be it would say below expectations.

So it gives the data they have - can't really blame the system because you don't like it!