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?

Thinking about it, I’m wondering whether teachers in the past spent a lot of their private time in the evenings doing tasks like marking, writing reports etc. I seem to remember my teachers at school talking/complain about this. Presumably this wouldn’t be acceptable now, but perhaps It explains in part why teachers no longer have the time?

You're kidding, right? 40,000 teachers in the UK quit the profession last year. And guess which job topped a recent survey of how much unpaid overtime people do.

Do you honestly think that 'it wouldn't be acceptable now' for teachers to spend a lot of their private time doing school work? We virtually all do.

I'm not in the UK and I knew that.

I'm not in the UK and I knew that.

Well quite. And anyone on MN would be unlikely not to know. Teachers are pretty numerous on here, and we don't generally hold back about these things!

Basically teachers are picking up the slack that parents no longer consider their role.

Send kids in unable to dress themselves or feed themselves, can’t tie shoe laces, can’t speak well, they are rude and impertinent.

They have to arrange trips because kids haven’t been taken to a museum or even outside the area - one child had only ever been home or Tescos - how sad is that?

Teachers used to teach English maths science and art - now they need to teach PCSE - personal care - sexual health - how to apply for jobs - they have to organise OT, speak therapy, councilling, behaviour management, they attend social services meetings and health visitors, play workers -

So they are far busier than they ever were - yes the do it at night in their own time but due to the strikes poorly behaved kids and even worse parents they are choosing to work their paid hours and I don’t blame them.

You want them to tell you about your child? Ask your child!

Yes, this is why I'm sticking to my original conclusion about this thread.

Not normal. My DS is year 7 and they get termly reports with a paragraph on wach subject.

DDs school was the same.

Both state schools.

Not normal FOR YOU. It is for many including mine (state school).

Well yes, I though that would be evident.

Haven't read the full thread but where prose reports are written surely the reason they are generic and thoroughly checked is because a certain percentage of parents would take umbrage if they were honest?

My sister (1980s) once received a set of school reports where three different subject teachers had called her "abrasive" (tbh she is, a bit).

Imagine that nowadays!

I remember one of my teachers telling us to be worried if they or I guess any of the other teachers put "turns up to class" in their report as it meant they were really struggling to either find a positive or you were a student that neither stood out for being good or bad and they weren't sure who you were

Haven't read the full thread but where prose reports are written surely the reason they are generic and thoroughly checked is because a certain percentage of parents would take umbrage if they were honest?

No, everyone knows not to be honest these days. They are thoroughly checked because they are often full of mistakes!

Can you imagine if hundreds of parents had your direct email address and emailed you every day? As I said before, teachers teach during the day, and then need to do hours and hours of other work outside of teaching time. It would be insanity to give parents direct access to teacher emails.

For 300 kids? You are bonkers. I agree with the previous posters. Reports aren’t personalised, they never were. There is no way I can put down all the ways to improve in a couple of lines do probs better I just tell your kid directly how to improve. If they don’t listen that will be reflected in their single progress grade. Job done!

Thanks all for the feedback - consider me chastened. Apologies to anyone I have offended or annoyed - it really was not my intention. As said, my kids’ teachers have mostly been great and many have been fantastic so I definitely don’t have an axe to grind against the profession!

It was just reading my own detailed school reports recently that made me wish I could read something similar about dc3.

My friend's chemistry report in the 80s said, "Claire shows occasional signs of life." 😂 Now that's personalised!

Love this. At my school all teachers had to write a positive sentence first. So my PE bit of the report said "Ellie is very good at remembering her PE kit. However she is severely lacking in both confidence and skill". DS4 has inherited my awful co-ordination but he throws himself enthusiastically into PE lessons, rather than spend as much of the lesson as possible hiding in the toilet like I did.

i agree with this ⬆️ When I began teaching 22 years ago, narrative reports were written every year. Once a term, we had a checklist type report as well. It took me between 3 - 6 hours for each class. I had six classes in a core subject so between 18 and 36 hours per year to write reports. The parents did appreciate them and I get why they are liked by parents but now it is the HOY who writes a summary report for each student. Now, classroom teachers just do the numbers type report (eg effort, current grade etc…) if parents would like more detail, they email the teacher and ask.
Overall, it works pretty well and has reduced workload a bit - to be replaced by better marking in my experience.

Get trackers each term here and a parents evening with the 5 minute slot. Much prefer the online and focussed approach to parents evening than queuing in a hall and some parents taking 10-20 minutes. Only thing I dislike about the tracker is that it uses trajectory forecasting from SATs grades which I think aren’t that helpful for the child to see (even if there is statistical correlation). This is a very large secondary though and I suspect even this level of information takes a lot of work.

You certainly don't need to be chastened! It's not wrong to ask the question, as a teacher I've explained this kind of thing before- it's definitely not offensive!

Every job has those moments where someone from outside goes "wouldn't it be better done like this..." and then the you go "Ok, here's why no..." I remember a mild suggestion about restaurant cooking and my chef-friend almost exploding😂

The independent schools I'm familiar do issue narrative reports, which I guess is further evidence of 'nice to have' rather than necessity.

We do full written reports once a year. Shorter reports in the other terms (but with comments in certain circumstances). And parents' evenings, obviously

Shame,
But for the saturation of bureaucracy in every sector of life and nothing can be said to be ' user - friendly ' anymore.

We get a monthly tracking report, pretty basic with a written report once a term which is 4 per year with 2 face to face parents evening.

Monthly? Wow. I reach 220 pupils a fortnight.
So I'm entering tracking data 2200 times a year, on top of my full time timetable? Er, when?!
2 parents evenings - so that's 12 late nights a year, always Thursdays. My own kid does an extra curricular on a Thurs. So I'm having to arrange someone to pick her up/drop off 12 times.
And people wonder why teachers are leaving in droves?!