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?

In these circs I would just put more effort in at home to support what they're doing in school - nothing complicated just encourage reading, find a documentary about whatever they're doing in history or geography or science, maybe visit an art gallery if it ties in.

School will be doing their bit already. They can't control the child though.

My kids have always known themselves and I can tell by observing their homework ease/difficulty.

Teachers are not private tutors, parents do need to engage themselves.

It doesn’t matter though.

This is a primary school level report for starters. The fact is; the majority of the pupils in the class will be average. That’s how averages work. Roughly half of them will be on the better end of average, and roughly half of them will be on the poorer end of average.

Grades are not calculated at school level; they are calculated nationally. So knowing where they are in the class is again; pointless.

Here in Scotland it’s easy even for someone untrained to work out where their child is. I’ll use my own daughter as an example.

she’s working at first level for literacy. First level goes roughly from p2-4. She’s in p3.

They can either be meeting outcomes (which means working at p4 level) working towards them (which means achieving them on track but not completed all of them yet) working towards with support (a little behind their peers but getting there with differentiation) or not achieving (should really be at early level; will probably be moved)

For reading, my daughter is working towards level 1. She’s where she should be for her age.
For spelling, she’s working towards with support. She’s a little behind. The teacher has obviously discussed this with us. However the support is working and she’s going to get there just fine.
For numeracy, she’s meeting her outcomes, which means she’s working ahead of expectations.

It really doesn’t take a genius. Comparing her against her peers would be pointless; because she so happens to be in the “better” class of the two. So all the kids are on the “brighter” end of the spectrum. She’s probably one of the lower abilities for literacy in her class; but probably bang on average nationally.

Plus, progress isn’t linear. The best kids in lower primary might not be the best kids by GCSE level. I was pretty average at primary school; but achieved the top 10 exam results in my school cohort of 360.

My DS was often ‘emerging’. It was meaningless as between reports there was no indication of progress. The one subject he was at ‘expected’ at showed he was was progress as he would drop to emerging. Just seeing emerging in the report gave in indication of whether the gap was widening or narrowing.

Age also has a massive impact in lower school years. The youngest in the cohort are more likely to be behind the oldest. Does this mean they are stupid or not coping? No. It just means they aren’t as “ready” and will soon catch up.

My own daughter is much younger than many in the class and did struggle a lot in primary 1/2, but now she’s catching up fast.

Copy and paste is fine if it fits the child and actually gives you an impression of what's going on and can add the odd personalised comment. Teachers copied anyway when handwriting reports.

Some reports we've had have not been worth the effort the teachers' have put in as they tell you nothing much at all, waste of teacher time.

Because it would give a more realistic idea of how your child is getting on, rather than as this thread shows confusion over working towards/expected, or a report which has been copied and pasted and is the same as everybody else's?

What's wrong with transparency

Because it’s not about the other children, you have no right to get information about anyone else’s child. You get information about where they are working in relation to expected standards (so against long-term averages)

How would you feel if your child was at the bottom? Or the top? How many parents would share this with their kids? How many kids would then share this with the class?

Absolutely love it when know it all parents tell us how to do our jobs 😂please, tell me your job and I’ll give you some tips!

I've always found a score or grade to be the most useful. They get them for attainment in each subject and for things like behaviour, homework, classwork at secondary (state.) Then a comment by the form tutor.

100% this! Have even had comments where it was a different child's name - so obvious it was just cut and pasted.

I agree op, report cards are not really useful these days. So generic.

I remember a few years ago on some forum or other (might have been here, can't remember) a parent saying "I'd like a weekly, written, detailed report on how he's done that week".

I still alternate between a guffaw and wanting to make the parent shadow a teacher for a week (including at home).

“It would help if you did XYZ at home to help with DD’s maths skills” is all that would suffice. It’s not rocket science, and there’s some piss poor excuses for crappy teaching on this site

Knowing a position in class isn't getting information about other children, it's getting information about mine.

How would I feel if my child was at the bottom - well if I wasn't already aware that there were issues then it would be of concern, would lead me to find out exactly what interventions the school were putting in place and have a long think about what more I could do to support them at home. How can that possibly be a negative? I'd rather know than be blissfully unaware to save my own feelings.

If they were at the top, obviously I'd be happy. Everybody wants their child to do well. It would better help inform choices over secondary school for those in a selective area for example.

If you can’t work that out for yourself, then I don’t know what to say …

They are coping well with maths. You continue to do whatever you are doing. No need to do extra. You need to work on their confidence. It says it all.

I have worked in schools and can confirm that this is not the case in all schools at all. In all the schools I have worked in, teachers put a lot of time and effort into writing these reports in their own time. Many are personal and detailed, others are not so great. It really depends on the expectations of the schools.

Since levels were removed, schools assess in their own way. It does seem strange that they would say all are WTS until the end of the year. How will you (or anyone) know until it is to late at the end of the year if they don’t then meet EXS. This sounds like it’s based on nothing more than curriculum coverage. It is possible to say whether children are EXS at this time of year by reflecting on whether they are on track to meet all the standards by the end of the year. I would ask to meet the teacher and ask this- is my child on track to meet expected by the end of the year? If they are likely to end the year still at WTS, ask for the reasons and what they need to work on to meet EXS.

How's in nosey? I don't want to know how your child is doing, just my own in relation to their cohort. They'll all find this out when they take their GCSEs. Luckily my child's private school does provide me with this roughly. The state schools mine attend don't though.

Of course it is. You are comparing your child to others. If they tell you that your child is last, you know every single other kid is working ahead of your child. If they tell you that your kid is first (but working behind national average) then you know every single other child is working below national average too.

Do you rank your own children in this way? Sophie is way smarter than Kevin. Simon is by far my most stupid child.

Comparing against kids in the class is pointless. Each class has a different dynamic. My daughters school has two classes for her year - the “top” and “bottom” class. Now obviously they aren’t marketed like this but anyone with a shard of common sense can work it out. My daughter is in the “top” class, working with children who are a year older than her (composite class) however she’s probably one of the bottom in her class - she’s nearly 2 years younger than some of the kids though. How would I feel if I got a report that my kid was bottom of the class? Probably crap. I’d probably try to get her to “catch up” too. But is that the right thing to do? Of course not! She’s actually working ahead of a whole OTHER class, and slightly ahead of the national standard!

You can’t rank them because it doesn’t work. My daughter is really gifted with numeracy but not so gifted with language. She’s great at science but crap at PE. Overall, she’s come out as average; but she’s definitely performing way ahead in maths. So individualised results are way more useful.

Also, being anything other than average is highly unlikely.

They may be top of the class but completely devoid of personality, or a nasty little piece of work.

Surely you have the intellect yourself to work out that if your child is working behind national averages then you should contact the school for more information on how to help?

People are also missing the fact that parents being involved in this type of discussion on mumsnet are a very specific demographic, and the majority of parents literally don’t give two hoots. I can assure you; the “average” parent is most definitely not this invested in their child’s schooling.

You don’t find this out when they do their GCSE’s surely? 😂

Im in Scotland and I can assure you, we do not rank the children based on their national/higher results.

Not telling you how to do your job. I would just prefer a rough centile of how they are doing compare to the average student. It's not that useful to be told they are meeting or exceeding when both of these could encompass a wide range of abilities.

As an ex teacher of 20 years I’m afraid to tell you that reports are pretty pointless. Teachers have no time to write them and if you teach secondary, you may have to write 200 reports in a week or two, around your normal teaching responsibilities, marking etc so it’s largely a copy and paste exercise.
You don’t really need reports, they mean absolutely nothing. I think parents want everyone to gush over their child but it’s just a box ticking exercise. Don’t read anything into them.

The average student, or compared to their class?

Assume normative (bell shaped) distribution. If they are getting “developing” they are in Q1. If they are getting “achieving” they are in Q2 or 3. If they are “exceeding” they are in Q4.

What difference does it actually make other than for ass pats?

When they take their GCSEs I can see how many students nationally achieved an Astar, an A, a B, etc...
Working towards, meeting and expected are such broad ranges I just want to know a bit more specifically.
So in my child's private school they get given a test score of say 75% and they also tell me the range of scores and also the mean score. This is helpful.

Exactly.

Fortunately we are moving away from full reports. We are moving to more frequent tracking reports.

Foe tracking, there are three columns - effort, behaviour and progress within their level.

I score each kid from 1-4 in each of these three areas.

You get this roughly once every two months, as well as a parents night meeting once per year.

I would prefer to know how they compare nationally. I understand normal distribution. If my child is graded exceeding that is still quite a big range. They could be top 1% but they could be say in the top 25%. If I want them to go to X school and that school accepts pupils in the top 10% nationally it would help to know where they are in exceeding. Which is why I preferred the old system with levels.

Obviously we give test scores too. We also inform the parents what the score means. It’s possible to do this without informing them of how they sit relative to their peers though, which is irrelevant - it disadvantages kids in “good” classes.

For example, I might say - “recently, Betty completed a level three assessment in class. Betty scored 78% in this test. This is an outstanding result since the pass mark was 40%. This shows Betty has a secure grasp of the course content at level three; and will shortly begin working towards level 4 in our new topic, ancient Egypt.”

and her friend gets:

“recently, Erica completed a level three assessment in class. Erica scored 22% in this test. The pass mark was 40%. This shows Erica has some gaps in her understanding of the course content at level three, therefore will continue to develop her skills at level three when we start her new topic, ancient egypt. To help her in this area; it might be useful to visit the local library; who have a fantastic free exhibit on ancient egypt on just now”

All the kids who score similarly will get largely similar reports.