To think secondary students should get written school reports

[Giovannimilanese]

When I say ‘written’ I mean typed out, not necessarily hand written

I was going through my own old school reports from the 80s/90s recently. Twice a year there was a full written report with a paragraph from every subject teacher. I found it really interesting to read the observations and to see the way some of the teachers noticed skills/talents and weaknesses that I personally only became fully aware of much later.

My own dc have attended a mix of state/private schools. The Indies still provide decent reports with detail but my youngest is in Yr8 at the local state secondary and hasn’t had any written reports. Apparently they have stopped doing them. Twice a year they get a basic list with a number from 1 to 5 for behaviour, homework etc and once a year a grade - ‘Mastering’, ‘Securing’ etc

The only organised contact with teachers is a zoom parents meeting once a year, 5 minutes with each teacher. Is this normal?

I appreciate that writing reports must add significantly to teachers’ workloads & I’m sympathetic about that. I’ve also noticed (including at private schools) that the comments sometimes seem heavily cut & pasted anyway.

But I think the personalised feedback can be incredibly useful, both now and for reflecting back on in the future, and think it’s a shame if this is no longer the standard…

AIBU?

Have we reached a stage whereby the bar is so low that it is amazing when parents are engaged with their DCs education and do things which are very basic ie making sure homework is done?
As a parent to a Yr 7 I view these things as the bare minimum and feel that as parents our job is to take what is being taught at school and expand on it/develop their understanding.

Well said.

This thread has made me think, as so many teachers are (understandably) stressed and have very limited time for the additional paper work, would teachers be open to working more (paid, obviously) weeks of the year to facilitate, planning, reports, parents evenings/days - or would that not be popular? Say halving the holidays for teachers and doing non-pupil facing tasks during that dedicated time instead? (Hypothetically of course, as the pay would have to come from the magic money tree)

Ooh I'm going to mention this and ask if this would be a possibility at my DCs school. Thanks for that info!

Absolutely not!

It would appear support wanted or expected varies from parent to parent, teacher to teacher and school to school. There just doesn't appear to be any set standard and it obviously lies with those higher up.

What concerns me about mine isn't any behaviour issues as I'm given courtesy calls to say how exemplary their behaviour is, which in honesty I found baffling at first as I would assume that should be the same for the majority.

It's more the fact that even if they get good grades, I can't see their work, it's like pulling teeth getting to see what's on that terms curriculum and it's practically impossible to get alots for parents evening. Mine know what they want to do which includes further education and would include very academic subjects. I want to give them the best opportunity to excel and if that means seeking extra help outside of school then I'm prepared to do that. However it would be useful to know what has and hasn't been covered, what needs to be covered and so it's not repetitive and more expansive.

I understand teachers have a job to do and they're doing great under high pressure circumstances but it is just a job whereas to parents the education of their DCs is more than that. From what I can gather on here, many schools are doing great with keeping parents informed I just wish it was applied across the board. It's not for want of trying either, I feel like I've become a bit of a headache to the school with constant questions about the above.

Great list - I would also add:

• If I phone you to tell you your child has done something bad in class today (thrown something, swore at me, said something inappropriate etc), believe that what I am telling you is true! Even if your darling son/daughter insists they didn’t do it and I am just ‘out to get them’.

I get so frustrated with parents that instantly believe their child’s version of events, even when I’ve witnessed the incident first hand. I saw a pupil pull apart a calculator (which I had bought with my own money, because of course the school don’t have enough money) and found parts of the calculator all around his desk. Despite this happening more than once and me then phoning the parent to tell them, they spoke to their son and he said it wasn’t him that did it and he had his own calculator so it couldn’t have been him 🤦‍♀️ I also had another calculator for missing at the end of a lesson - I asked the child I’d lent the calculator to, they said x had it, I asked x, they said y had. I contacted all three parents, they all said their child said someone else has it. I’ve seen it in child y’s pencil case, I know it’s my calculator, but no, child y doesn’t have it apparently. After spending nearly £100 on calculators that are constantly lost/broken, I won’t buy anymore. And then the parents get annoyed when their child does rubbish in a test because they couldn’t do the questions without a calculator ‘but I bought him one in September’ - I’m sure you did but he either doesn’t have it anymore or he can’t be arsed to get it out of his bag.

Sorry - rant over!

I'm in Ireland and we get a paragraph from each of my child's teacher after the Xmas and summer school tests (and exam mocks if in 3rd or 6th year) re the test and how they are doing in the subject generally

Why not @MrsHamlet?

Because the holidays are quite literally the only time I get to switch off, see my family and friends, travel.

No way would I give them up in order to do things which add little or nothing to the quality of education for the students I teach.

This thread has made me think, as so many teachers are (understandably) stressed and have very limited time for the additional paper work, would teachers be open to working more (paid, obviously) weeks of the year to facilitate, planning, reports, parents evenings/days - or would that not be popular?

We already do school work during evenings, weekends and holidays! Would we like to be paid for all the extra that we already do? Hell yes! Actually though, most teachers would prefer that, rather than pay us overtime, the government would pay for more teachers in order to reduce our workload by giving us fewer classes and therefore less contact time. Either way it's not going to happen. Schools have no money, and there aren't enough teachers as it is, or enough trainees. Where would this money or these new teachers come from?

There is already a shortage of teachers. 74% of teachers are female. Many teachers are in the profession because it works with having children. Conditions are very poor in teaching as children's behaviour is deteriorating and workload is increasing. If they had to work during school holidays, many teachers would leave for higher-paying jobs outside the sector. Many teachers are already leaving because of more flexible working conditions since COVID in other professions.

Fair enough. I wonder if it would alleviate some stress as an option for some teachers though, as it seems like a crazy workload (unpaid)

Oh god @Everythinggreen you've read this whole thread and you're saying that to teachers it's 'just a job?' I barely come up for air. If I cared so little I'd describe it as 'just a job' I would have left years ago.

Yes it does need to be better paid I agree. Just a suggestion as a non- teacher. Thanks for your hard work, I know it's not easy

Oh yes I know it's hypothetical and there is no money for this, as I said in my original comment. Just wondering if more of teachers time was formally paid (so some of the holiday were included as paid working time) it would alleviate some of the issues, as at least you'd be paid for more hours. Or is the job so rubbish money isn't the answer?

Edited for fast typing!

What helps to alleviate my stress is that I can go on holiday for 4 weeks in the summer and I don't need to think about work.

As an option, sure... some people might like it. But the loss of my precious holiday time to write reports would be the death knell for me.

All this. People who don't teach think we have it easy. They have no clue what so ever.

If you looked at my post in context that is exactly what I was getting at.

Thanks for connecting the dots though.

The answer isn't to increase the load. or even increase the pay for the increased load.
It would be to let the job actually be the and not add all of the BS to it in the first place.
But that ship has sailed as teachers are already expected to fill too many shoes.

Lol fair 😂

Sorry that was to @FrippEnos

@Everythinggreen

If you want to support your children to achieve as highly as possible and your school is not giving you much information then suggestions:

Their ks2 results will give you an idea whether they are academic or not. If they are aiming for the highest grades at gcse then they either should have been getting very high marks at ks2 or you should get a tutor.

The vast majority of schools send home so e kind of report in y7 8 and 9. Look at the report. Usually somewhere on the report it will say something like

At ks3 a target of "developing" will mean gcse grades of 3-4.

That will give you an idea of what their targets are.

Some children get better in their GCSEs than their targets. This tends to happen where there was a reason they did badly in ks2 sats (just moved to the county, only just learning English etc) or where they work their socks off.

Some children do much worse than their targets. This tends to be down to family problems, health problems, mental health problems.

Schools usually go to a lot of effort to try to make sure kids hit their targets. If your child was seriously off target the school would probably be in touch.

Oh yes I know it's hypothetical and there is no money for this, as I said in my original comment. Just wondering if more of teachers time was formally paid (so some of the holiday were included as paid working time) it would alleviate some of the issues, as at least you'd be paid for more hours. Or is the job so rubbish money isn't the answer?

Imo it would be much better to reduce workload than to pay us during holidays for the current workload. Money isn't the answer. Not because the job is inherently rubbish - the actual teaching bit can be really fun and rewarding. A lot of what makes it so bad is the constant feeling that you are not doing the best for your students because you don't have enough time and are running out of energy and goodwill. I would a million times rather have my current salary and a cut in workload than my current workload and a payrise.

The 13 weeks non paid contact time, the majority of which is unpaid is when I claw back the extra 10 to 15 hours of unpaid overtime I do a week. So no, don't add extra weeks to the school year thank you.