School report: Do you think this is worth the paper it’s not printed on?

[JustEatTheOneInTheBallPit]

My daughter is in year 8 and her school reports contain basically no information about her academic progress.

The report consists of 3 columns, entitled: “Organisation”; “Respect”; and “Engagement in Learning”.
Subjects are in rows and so each subject receives a score for each column. That is to say, I can go down the list to English and then across the columns to see how much my daughter respects the subject.
The “how much” is depicted by a number - 1 to 4, where 1 is seriously under performing and 4 is excelling. (3 is average.)

There are no words or other descriptors on the report, other than her name, form and attendance.

I am not so out-of-touch that I can’t understand why these reports need to be stripped back. Not only are teachers very over-stretched, but they are almost certainly subject to an onslaught of angry parents, if they say too much.

My daughter’s numerical scores are reflective of my expectations of her. I have not received a page of 1s, when I thought she was a solid 4. I would like to think most of us know where our children are at and nothing in the report should come as a huge surprise.

That being said - is there any value to this sort of report at all?? Is this not the absolute definition of a box ticking exercise?

From this report, I cannot tell whether my little darling is very good at creative writing, but struggling with spelling. Or whether she works well alone but is terrible as part of a team. Similarly, I do not see words such as “pleasure to teach” or “settled in well”, which might put my mind at ease, when I see that she’s been not herself lately and I wonder if it might be something to do with school.

And, to boil it down to its most basic, the report doesn’t actually seem to have a column that identifies academic attainment. Respect, Organisation, and Engagement are sufficiently wishy-washy that we can coast right over any blockers-to-her-learning that might be there.

For context - there is no parents evening in tandem with this report, at my daughter’s school. The summer report is exactly the same, but you can book to meet up to 6 teachers around Easter.

AIBU to think that these reports are actually now so irrelevant that they might want to retire them altogether?
When I was a child, a report was often the only printed update that my parents received all year. They relied on it to determine that I had been attending all of my lessons, staying on top of my homework, and keeping up with the syllabus.

Now, I can log into an app that gives me this information minute-by-minute.

Interested to hear from other parents as well as teachers.

Do you / would you find this report valuable? Is it now a waste of time? Are your child’s school reports like this too? What is it like to be the staff generating this report?

AIBU to think this report is sort of useless?

The report shows whether they think she is trying hard, which is good.
However without any indication as to attainment how can you tell what subjects, if any, to focus any extra support you may care to provide?

So I would say it is insufficient.

DD Yr 8 reports at indy school: 3 written reports per year + end of year. Each subject is graded separately on effort + achievement plus comment on 1 thing she does well plus 1 thing she needs to improve on. Each report also has freehand comments from Tutor and Housemistress. End of year report also has Headmaster comment.
Sent out 1 week prior to teams parent/tutor evening.
Face to face parents evening in January.

I imagine the above is very time consuming but classes are smaller and the teachers have more prep time.

It’s too early in the year to give an attainment grade - they’ve probably only done one or two mini tests in most subjects and they need more data to work on than that. Look at it as a holding pattern- this report tells you that nothing is awry, things are as you expected them to be and the attainment grades will be along shortly.
It’s just a snapshot of how the year is going so far.

I think I'd be fine with it alongside an explanation of any 1s or 2s, or the opportunity to go in and discuss same. For 3s and 4s I'd be ok with no explanation, although it's a shame for the child to not hear the praise/encouragement associated with a 4.

Will there be a fuller report at the end of year though?

We have the same three columns - called different things but the same basic concept. But we also have a column that tells us what grade our child is expected to reach (based on that child's assessments and then apparently it's "aspirational" from there) and we have a colour coded system to say if the child is on track to meet that, working ahead, or not there yet which is also done in 5 levels so something like, "Not even near - CRISIS point" "Working towards it" "On track" "Slightly ahead" "Kicking ass".

The first three are actually quite helpful (one is for homework so that's good) but obviously, from an academic perspective, it's the last one that's most helpful.

DDs school (Outstanding Comp in a disadvantaged area) does:
Attitude to learning,
Target Grade for the year
Working at Grade for the year so far

I can see her results for all assessments on Go4Schools.
I get a report each term and a meeting with her tutor in Autumn and Summer term and a parents evening with all teachers in the Spring.

Additional SEN drop in cafes are available to discuss DDs autism and any support she needs.

I know exactly where she is in terms of attitude, attainment and support.

If it's too early to give a grade, it's too early for the report. Waste of everyone's time. It's not like teachers have nothing to do.

I think this sounds fine. Parent's evening is the time for more feedback.

I’d go along with that - it’s part of the usual bollocks clamour for data and SLT piling more work on the heads of people who already have plenty. But that will probably be the reasoning for no attainment data.

I think that sounds absolutely crap.

Either do a report or don't bother in my opinion. That's a complete waste of time as I assume if they were at a 4, the teacher should have told you that by now anyway.

It's no more or less informative than reports with a narrative, which consist of copy and pasted statements (sometimes with the student's name added - even the right name if you're lucky). If it's mostly 3s and 4s you know your child is fine. Mostly 1s and 2s, they need help. Isn't that all you really need to know?

This report sounds like utter nonsense. A child could be trying their best but to no avail. They could score 4 for effort but actually need support. This report isn’t helping anyone.

I'm heavily involved with this in my job at a secondary. Our reports are similar, but I'm amazed you are not getting any form of attainment grade, not at any point in Y7 either?
Since they did away with national curriculum levels, schools are free to report how they like in KS3. You should find that by Y9/Y10 the reports will have a target attainment grade (usually based off their SATs performance) and current predicted grade for each subject.
Our teachers are told not to put any comments unless there is a problem or the child is under performing.

Thanks for your thoughts so far! Many of them mirror where I’m at:

This report is fine enough, because it’s not much better or worse than a copy & paste exercise.

But, given that the info that it offers is rather limited, and in light of how little time teachers have, and supposing that we all have access to the school app (through which the report is actually made available!) - which gives parents real-time information on homework, attendance and grades…. Why are we bothering!? Surely the time spent on this would be better spent elsewhere? Or not at all.

Sorry, to those that are asking and to clarify further…

The end of year report is exactly the same. It still contains no record of academic attainment and no comments from any teacher or form tutor. Just the same 3 columns.

@SereneFish Help at what? Some DC aren’t always attentive but are very clever.

I am not sure any report can say much in mid October. I think schools must report to parents by the end of the academic year and the government says what such a report must include. Just Google “school reports on pupil performance” and look at what is required. Before then, any reasonable school would hold a parents’ evening and contact parents where insufficient effort is being made and there are potential problems. The teachers are presumably assessing progress at various points in the year and dc will receive feedback that parents can talk to dc about.

I find this completely and totally baffling. There MUST be some academic attainment reference. It's a core part of the high school process. I'd actually e inclied ot ask the school how and when they are planning to provide some updates on academic levels and what their policy is.

"Respect" is a bit vague - respect for learning, the teachers, their peers? You can't lump them all together as the answer might be different.

@JustEatTheOneInTheBallPit Rhis is the law on reports. Plus attendance. If the school doesn’t do this, it’s not giving parents a report that meets requirements. As you can see, progress and attainment is required so I would complain. What you receive is pointless

My kids school is similar, except it's all about academic achievement. They get a score of where they are, either Advanced, Intermediate or Core and within each of those they can be developing, secure or mastered. They are then put in codes so AM would be advanced mastered. It's quite confusing at first. They then get a grade for effort in each subject.

I do wish there was at least a small paragraph about how they're doing.

Yes, I’m a bit baffled by it too. That said, she’s only year 8 and a PP said I can expect academic attainment scores by years 9 or 10.

We also have the opportunity to meet with up to 6 subject tutors around Easter time.

@JustEatTheOneInTheBallPit All annual reports must contain what I posted. You don’t need to wait for y9.

I think this early on in the year, just having an idea of if she is respectful, organised and engaging in the work is ok. Any words are likely to be cut and pasted anyway if primary school reports are anything to go by, without really any useful information and just a waste of teachers time.

There should be a way to speak to someone though if the numbers are completely unexpected but i guess you could contact the school and ask to speak to someone. By Easter the teachers will know the students better and be able to give better feedback.

I think DS had a similar spread of reports/parents evenings. It always felt very different from primary school though.

@Jessie1259 The teachers don’t want to spend time agonizing over anything meaningful though. These tick boxes are quick in comparison.

It's insufficient information and it would be a much better use of time to write 2 sentences.
FYI, for the poster above who is so confident the teachers at her DDs indie school have 'more prep time', I've worked in 3 independent schools. In all of them the workload expectations have been much, much higher around marking and reporting than in state - but no, we did not and do not get more prep time, we just work longer hours than I ever did in state. In fairness, I think state teachers these days are tied up doing a lot of things that you would expect social care to be doing instead, but please don't kid yourself that the teachers at your children's indie schools get given more time alongside the higher expectations on this kind of thing. (And no, we don't get paid more either, but behaviour and environment is better which balances out the workload issue).