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!?

Wait until you sit through parents evening and wonder if they are talking about the right child 😂

I once got an OT report for my DS who was referred by the wrong name throughout. I did send that one back and ask if it was even the right results (massively important for a child with a physical disability) but the OG had gone on Mat leave (may explain why she’d totally cocked it up!) but they did re assess him and issue a new report.

I guess it depends on whether you think the information possibly being wrong alongside the pronoun matters.

Personally I’d be more concerned if year 9/10.

'They' and 'Their' is also correctly grammatically used when you refer to an unknown or unspecified sex.

It helps when you can use a specific variable to automatically apply the appropriate pronoun , but that requires reports to be run in a different way to creating a simple text string - it's a lot easier to have 'Please ensure they bring their PE kit' than pulling up (and knowing about in the first place) the field codes and entering them into the text body.

OK it's not good enough but these reports are generic and way too frequent imo. If there is a problem teachers will have got in touch with you by now.

100%

Amazed how many posters think this is okay. Accuracy matters or what’s the point? I once had a call from a very apologetic science teacher who had mixed my twins’ results in their reports but it was last day of term so he was emailing updates. I appreciate mistakes happen but would be a one off rather than in the subjects.

"Olivia has had a fabulous year and contributes well in class. She is a valued member of the form".

Response - that's wonderful news about Olivia. Could you let me know how Ellie did?

(Response I sent in once - names changed obviously).

Schools often use statement banks and change the pronouns. If they are writing a page per student, I’m not surprised they haven’t proofread all of them. Secondary teachers can teach over 100 students.

As an old-school mum and gran, I'd be very tempted to circle all the "she" references ( and any spelling/grammar errors) in red biro, and write at the top "Sloppy work, could do better" then return it to the head teacher.

That's poor organisation by the school. They should make each teacher responsible for the proofreading of their own form group, then they'd each only have about 30 maximum to do. If it's just proofreading, it doesn't matter that Mrs Smith who teaches science doesn't know how Chloe's doing in art.

I had this issue with a report I had written because a member of SLT had checked the report and changed the pronoun of thechild to what they thought it should be rather than the correct one I had written.

I'm not paid weekends and school holidays, which is when I write most of my reports, as during school time I'm... in the classroom.

In fact, report writing eats into the time I spent marking pupil work and planning lessons (also in my 'own' time). I teach more than a hundred pupils, and have to write a report for each pupil twice a year. So that's more than 200 reports a year. The time for that isn't factored into our timetable. It's simply expected that we will find/make the time. And we do - late in the evening, or at the weekend, or over half term (I wrote my Year 9 reports on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week).

I often copy and paste reports (and change bits to personalised them). I've got pronouns and children's names mixed up before. Parents complain. But you know what? Every moment of additional time spent on writing and proofreading reports is less time I spend on ensuring a great learning experience for my pupils.

Oh my word. We do exactly this... but I think you are forgetting how many subjects pupils take. It's not 30 reports. It's 30 kids x 10-14 subjects. So if each teacher proofreads their form group's reports, they are proofreading an absolute minimum of 300 reports 😅

We've reduced full reports to only two year groups. Everyone else just gets data and a fairly generic end of year review.

I'd love a 'half term' away from the office to catch up on all my admin!

Seriously, I agree there is a UK wide issue with people being expected to work beyond their paid hours - it's not just confined to teaching. It remains that in most other jobs, you'd be pulled up on repeated mistakes of that nature (I don't mean one-off typos but whole documents being wrong) no matter if you'd had to work till late to complete them.

I once sat in front of a teacher at parents evening for my Y8 son who was very nice about him, had his book open and showed me his work and said what a pleasure he is to teach. Called him the wrong name towards the end but I thought hey, doesn't matter.

When we walked away my son said "that totally wasn't my book" 😂

Do you never take a week's holiday?! How odd.

The parent gets a report, not 14 different reports - there comes a point when inputs from 14 teachers must be collated into one document - that's the point at which it should be proofread.

Obviously. But it's still more than 300 subject reports each form tutor is proofreading! Just because they are put together into one document, that doesn't make it any less!

Of course, but as with most people outside academia, I only have a few weeks' holiday to juggle - I can't 'afford' to take random 'half term' weeks, more's the pity.

Poor you...

I appreciate your sympathy 🙂

I used to teach all of KS3, so that was over 400 reports to write!
I did have to copy and paste a fair bit or I genuinely wouldn’t have had the time to do them all.

I was careful to proof reading them and then they got proof read by another member of staff and then SLT.

I’m actually really quite shocked by this. No excises. Teachers should get this right. It’s really unprofessional

I’m a teacher. Cut and paste is common but reports should be proof read. I would be in a lot of trouble if I did this. It just wouldn’t be tolerated where I work.

You sound like a fun person to be around.