Sons school report refers to ‘she’

[Shinysal]

My son has almost completed his first year in secondary school and received his report card. Each teacher has completed a page and he has 12 different subjects. 3 seperate teachers have referred to him as ‘she’ and one has done it through out the update.

The music teacher has put the wrong instrument and marks against his test according to my son.

The overall report is very very good so just wondering am I being unreasonable to be disappointed that the teachers have not proof read it but I do appreciate they are busy and have lots of kids. Just concerned that they might not even be for the right child!?

Perhaps he’s asking those teachers to refer to him as female

and now you know!

I suspect copy and paste...

😂 yes if that’s the case then explains it!

A lot of the reports are copied and pasted, maybe the teachers forgot to change the she to he.
Or your son uses different pronouns for different subject.
As the teacher or school.

Copy and paste.

I took some delight in pointing that out to one particular teacher who stated in his report that DS needed to pay more attention to detail.

Yeah. There won't be any proofreading of the eleventy billion reports they'll have written. Might even be ticking the right box for a list of statements. It'll be the right child but they haven't swapped between he and she on the report writer program.

The music teacher probably teaches all of year 7.

Hi OP,

Was each report typed or computer generated?

I had an issue one year with Reception reports that all of the sections I typed up were accurate, but there was an error within the computer generated reports which the office printed. He/Him pronouns were used for a unisex name, but the child was a girl and her Mum was upset. I understood why, apologised and reassured her that the parts I’d typed up were right and that this was a genuine computer error in the generated document. I reassured her that I knew her DD well as an individual.

It is of course understandable that you would like your son’s report to be accurate. Hopefully his school can clear things up and it won’t happen again.

Copy and paste is probably to blame but there is also a chance they’ve confused your DS with some one else, especially given the wrong instrument and scores. This is even more likely if his name (first or last) is similar to another pupils or it is unusual for the culture the teachers are from.

I would double check with any teachers where your son doesn’t think what they are saying reflects his experience.

reports are usually put together through a spreadsheet or database these days (so you type in to a box). I did eventually get the hang of how to write them without using he or she so I could copy and paste without the pronoun mistakes but it’s easily done.

not the kind of thing proof readers catch either as it’s not obviously jarring.

the music thing is obviously less good and I’d raise that.

Tbh even before report writing programs and copy/paste databases, it was really easy to get report blindness.

Not noticing a wrong pronoun is really easy to do so I wouldn't be massively bothered about it.

The wrong instrument or marks recorded incorrectly would probably get a mention or a request for correction.

Thanks everyone, this is reassuring that from experience they have the right child (except for perhaps music!), he does have an unusual name which is unisex so might be the cause!

He confirmed that he only goes by the pronoun he.

I will gentle mention it on the receipt for his report.

Comment banks and copy and paste are to blame. This has slipped through the proof reading. I have over 1000 reports to write. It happens

It will be either:

1. Correct info and data about your child but have just forgot to change a she to a he when copying and pasting similar comments from another child. In other words they have not proofread properly which they should have done but I am sympathetic as they have hundreds of students to write about and given a very short amount of time to do it.
2. Given you information about the wrong child entirely.
3. Your son has asked those teachers to refer to him as a she and they have (rightly or wrongly) complied with this. A conversation with your son will (possibly?) clear this up if this is the case.

If multiple teachers have done it, it's most likely to be 1 or 3.

If you compare his report to classmates they will all be very similar...copy and paste job. I think they have bank phrases for those struggling, those doing ok and those excelling.

I think every report I’ve had for my kids has had wrong genders in it or wrong information. I do find it irritating but appreciate that teachers are often very busy and doing reports in their own time so I ignore it.

My family surname is right at the bottom of the alphabet, we learned very quickly that the school teachers do their reports in alphabetical order when my children's cousin (same school and age) has a surname beginning with 'A' and had beautifully written piles of writing in her reports, whilst mine had errors upon errors! Their teachers are fabulous and work so hard, so as long as I know my child is doing alright in class, I don't mind if they're called he, she or it!

Gosh. I had no idea reports were like a simple cut and paste and this is merely something to be expected. Personally as the parent of a SEN child who is not so great at school but has a lovely personality I place alot of store in the actual written reports. More fool me then.

Yes, we had so many copy and paste errors. It was irritating but we just shrugged our shoulders and ignored it. There was no point complaining. Having parents evening was a bit more useful. The tick box reports started to lack meaning.

I was database manager in a huge comprehensive. I was horrified by the number of spelling and grammar errors teachers made in reports. As PP have said it's normally down to cutting and pasting. And TBF teachers are very hard pressed.

The cut and paste will be about stuff it’s appropriate for - what’s been covered, a generic good/ok/poor comment etc. the teacher will have had your child in mind and some of it will be unique to him/her. But teachers have so many reports to write and there’s only so many ways to say ‘x has engaged well with the work and made progress, especially in y’ so chunks will be copied.

SEN children got individual reports at my school.

I taught secondary. So most parents were interested in is my child doing OK academically.

we did early reports in year 7 just before Christmas which were done by the form tutor and were personal.

then grades went home every half term with no writing attached - so we’d say eg their target in maths is to be at excelling (we had five words to describe different attainment levels) and it was just on target/slightly below target/cause for
concern.

my school found that parents were generally
much happier with frequent reporting of how their child was doing (so if they started to struggle it could be picked up quickly) than with one single long written report at the end of the year.

To make time for the shorter reports the end of year reports were cut down to comment banks for each subject and only the form tutors wrote a personalised bit.

Children with EHCPs had that system and also a separate system with their EHCP targets being reviewed by each teacher every half term which was completely personalised - no comment banks or similar.

My dd's school referred to her as they so I emailed them to say that I had one dd not two. I requested that they should refer to her in the singular instead of the plural. That put paid to their gender identity agenda, they didn't have a response to that. Schools are meant to be educating our kids, not brainwashing them with gender identity shite.

i co planned about one of ds's where he was referred to by the wrong name and other facts were incorrect. He went to a small special needs school, so we are not talking about one teacher having to do 100 reports.

As an ex teacher I can confirm that sometimes cut and paste occurs across reports, although they should be thoroughly checked and personalised.

I'd imagine the teacher has well over 100 kids and is guilty of this.

If DS had requested to be referred to as a female at school, every section would use the term.