AI School Report - Ok or not Ok?

[whathappensnextthen]

Dc came home with Her School report yesterday, she's in Year 2 (6yr old). The opening statement was long and very professional written, lots of complex language and descriptive words. DB (her uncle) was there when I was reading it and said straight away it's AI written. We put it into an online research tool and it came back as 100% generated, with no personal touches added whatsoever.

AIBU to be upset?

For the record, DNieces also came home with theirs which was very obviously personally written and what you would expect from a Primary School Report.

I wouldn't like that, no. My DD is Y7 and her report was literally just data no comments at all.

your first lesson starts at… 9? 9.15? last lesson finishes at, what, 3.30? 3.45?

my son’s starts at 8.15am and finishes at 5.45pm! and sat school 9-1

Honest to goodness.
Smaller classes less reports to write.
To have smaller classes with the same number of overall pupils they must have more teachers.
So each of those teachers writes fewer reports.
I am leaving this thread purely because you are infuriatingly dense.

One of my good friends, whom I adore, once made the 'only 30 children' comment to me. We are close enough that I could reply 'you can hardly manage two children' without her decking me. She saw my point thankfully - I'd love to see any of the idiots who say 'only 30 children' comment try to manage 5 children without having a breakdown.

Better still I think all parents should have to do one day of teaching before they can make any comment about teachers. That'd shut them all right up (and might actually identify a few who are made for it!)

sweet jesus

I take it you're home schooling then?

Probably says exactly the same thing apart from the name TBH

To generate an AI report they would have had to instruct it to write it using key words. So those key words would have been personalised to your child. If it saves the teacher having to spend an excessive amount of time writing it and another member of staff time proofreading it (which is what happens at our school) then it's a good use of AI imo.

A) School of 1500, 30 per class = 50 classes.
B)School of 1500, 25 per class = 60 classes.
C)School of 1500, 20 per class = 75 classes.

Assuming a maximum timetable of 25 lessons a week, a music teacher with only 1 lesson a week for KS3 classes would have:
A) 25 x 30 = 750 reports to write
B) 25 x 25 = 625 reports to write
C) 25 x 20 = 500 reports to write

Smaller classes = less reports to write.

Even if your school has longer days, independent schools often have more PPA so same number of classes. And quite often longer periods so actually less individual lessons to teach. Even Saturdays, most boarding schools have Saturdays as compulsory enrichment (sports etc) so no extra reports to write.

I wish AI had been around when I was a teacher. I taught every single class at KS3 for one lesson per week, and we had to do a handwritten report per pupil per term. The most ridiculous ones were the year 7 ones,which were given to parents at the end of the first half term,which meant that once you factored in starting halfway through a week, ,school photos, CAT tests, sometimes you were writing reports for pupils that you had taught for two or three hours! AI would have been wonderful for this.

factor in teachers working at the school for at least an additional 2.5 hours a day plus in school Sat am (for lessons)… much less time

less reports
less time available
and much more detailed than what i’m reading is delivered to some
parents

@Gladtobeout i presume your user name refers to your feelings about no longer teaching?

And reports back in the past were generally only 2 or 3 sentences per subject at secondary, and often pretty vague even then. A sentence or two from the head or year or headteacher at the end to sum it up.

Primary ones were similar kind of lengths ime.

I have sixth form ones here from the very early 90s - 4 or 5 sentences at most about each subject, handwritten. Dh has his too. We did one subject the same and the comments are very similar, so not overly personalised even when shorter.

First saw automatic writing used on school reports about 10 years ago. I don't think it was as we would think it as AI now, but fairly sure what they had was a tick box:

Maths - above expectation, meeting expectations, below expectation
Maths topic - fractions, percentages etc
Listening - good, okay, bad
Effort - good, okay, bad
etc.
It made a very stilted report that was very similar in different children:
eg. "A is an excellent listener and puts in full effort all the time. We are currently doing fractions and his maths is below expectations"
"B sometimes listens well, and does not put in full effort all the time. We are currently doing fractions and her maths is meeting expectations."

However the report that particularly annoyed me was in year 3.
Year 2's (different school) teacher had written a very personal statement, very clearly written by her as she had a distinct style for dd. It had outlined where she was good, and things she needed to work on.
When dd got her year 3 report it looked fairly similar, and my initial reaction was to feel disappointed that she hadn't improved on the things she had been told to work on in year 2, and had worked hard on improving them. Then I looked at the phrasing again, and got out the year 2 report. Yes, it was word for word the same.

So there's worse things than AI. The teacher would have had to type it out again, so probably saved them very little time too.

My child's report has clearly been written genetically with names changed possibly even by mail merge (or the equivalent modern tool)

It's utterly meaningless and impersonal. Actually would better to have had nothing written. It's their last report at end of primary and all those years and a generic shitty sentence summing up the huge efforts it has taken to get through it.

I know teachers have to write 30 or more reports but it still shit

Having worked in state and independent (boarding inc. Saturdays), I can assure you, there are many, many, more reports to write in state. There is not 2.5 hrs extra teaching time per day in independent. The school day might be slightly longer, but teachers have roughly the same (or less) teaching hours than their state counterparts. What takes up time in independent, is co-curricular and parental communication.

Why do you feel the need to argue with professionals that are actually doing this work, when you clearly haven't got a clue?

I am currently a teacher.

I dont think its a problem but..
If a child has sen or might have then often the teacher may write things that give a clue to it.

(Secondary only gave data no words about child at all. A sentence about any issues would help.)

Ideal primary would be either next steps or for meeting expectations child what they could do to exceed.
Even a reading age.
Or results from tests

Re workload some maybe high but our primary dont mark any homework in 7 years.
Secondary only mainly have tests where they mark each others.

Argh I am so sorry - I didn’t mean it to sound like that, I know teachers work very hard. That is the equivalent of a working week, yes. I’m sorry. teachers do get the full summer holidays off though and Easter and Christmas so it’s not actually ‘extra’ than the average person with an average job but I do still acknowledge they work very very hard!!

Same here. Also my dc hand writes THEM a letter about their personal achievements and such a beautiful and encouraging note for the next year. Imagine each and every child!

I used, in the bad old days, to have to handwrite reports. I found a way of photocopying the set/year/group/work studied etc which were unnecessarily time consuming, but I did try at least to say something relevant about each child. It was sometimes a problem to paraphrase 'very chatty in class and doesn't concentrate' but I usually managed it...

@twentysevendresses I'm a bit confused how each one can take an hour. I mean good on you for putting the effort in, but for our school they are just about a paragraph. How long are yours? Surely you know your students well enough to know their basic strengths, weaknesses and how they get on in class to be able to rattle off a paragraph or two? If I thought about my colleagues, for example, I would be able to do one for them in about 15 mins tops. So an hour per report seems a little odd to me. Not judging just curious.

My school reports listed each subject, the grade, the effort, and “What could this child do to improve in this subject?”.

My maths report in year 4 read
”Maths, D, A, brain transplant”.

@greenandgreener god I wish ours were one paragraph long! Each one is 6 pages. We have to do an introduction paragraph (Ollie is a lovely, comminicative member of Kingfisher Class with a wonderful sense of right and wrong' etc...about 6 or 7 sentences. Then a paragraph for every subject (including PSHE). A paragraph about 'the wider curriculum' which includes homework, extra curricular clubs (and we have to talk about each of the clubs in detail and what the child brought to/got from it). We then have to conference each child and write up the conference (which takes ages, as we have to meet them all in our lunchtimes and get their views, in order to write this paragraph, eg Ollie's everlasting memories of being a member of Kingfisher Class have been.... He has learned that... He wishes to... etc!)

Then we have a paragraph with targets to work on (1 per core subject and a 'personal target') with in depth ideas for parents to support these targets, such as websites, games, books etc.

The final paragraph is a summary and 'my fondest memory of Ollie is the time when...(and we give a personal anecdote or two), plus the usual 'good luck in Year X, keep shining your light' or whatever your school motto is!

It's a LOT!! With photos illustrating each aspect! On the second page we add all the end of year data (attainment/progress stuff) and highlight a bunch of stuff on a grid about readiness for learning (there's loads of criteria and we highlight which is applicable to that particular child).

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