School reports...

[bummer]

just had latest ones. It is early days and I am fed up of everyone saying how clever my children are. Ok they do always get excellent reports but it's very early days and I have no idea how bright they are or are not in comparision to their classmates, comparing with the state figures means very little to me. Anyone else in similar position when it comes to understanding if the teachers just praise everyone when they are at primary school level or do teachers say when it is not so????

you have to read between the lines, I reckon. If your child has a 'good' grasp of phonics, to me, that means they could do better. If they have an excellent grasp of phonics, well they're doing fine.

etc. etc.

Teachers daren't say anthing remotely critical these days, so yes you have to read between the lines. If there are any 'little joe is good at x but needs to focus on x...' those might be the things he is less able to do. But maybe there's just nothing to worry about!

Jeremy Clarkson in the ST wrote this week that his teacher said 'I hope when Jeremy is in Borstal it is near enough for us to visit' Imagine a teacher putting that now!But oh so much more interesting.

You would read too much into the reports I write then. If I write good, I mean good. And I do criticise, but only where there is some chance of improvement. I wouldn't criticise a child who was working to the best of her ability, yet still performed to an average level or below. I am realistic about the level of achievement expected given current effort and what might be achieved with more effort if that is possible. I suspect many teachers are the same.

totally agree,pretty meaningless to me all throughout dd's time at infant and junior.Now she's in senior school,we get levels which she needs to translate for us.

why are teachers not allowed to say a child is below average in something.

They are.

I have a friend whose dd was seriously behind in most subjects esp maths.When she went up to senior school her parents were told how seriously behind she was for the first time.They'd assumed she was merrily pottering along not the brightest spark but nothing serious.They were furious that it had taken this long for anyone to sit them down and sya "look your dd is really really slow and very behind".The senior school asked if she'd missed large anounts of her schooling

Sometimes it is surprising how things are missed. I was a secondary school teacher, and the number of children we had coming into school who were functionally non-readers, yet came with no information to that effect from primary, was quite scary. And now my ds is in primary, and I honestly can't see how it could happen. But it does.

The reason that we don't give 5th out of 20 is that this doesn't really help the child to improve. If top, they tend to think they don't need to work, and anywhere else and they think there is no point in trying

The most important thing is seeing if they have said your child is making the progress expected.

For over all comparitors

ks2= 4 would expect ks3=5 would expect 5 a* to C grades at gcse....the average child.

Less than 4, less
ks2=5 ks3= 6-7 6-9 a* to c grades

I am guilty of writing postive reports - I write what the child can do because if there is a problem I will see the parents about it. But my dh who proofs read them laughs about it because you need to read all of them to work out who is top and who is bottom. I also say "..is working in the top half of the class" or "...bottom half".

For the first time ever I have written totaly honest and forthright form tutor reports. I have tried to be helpful and positive where appropriate, but when a kid's behaviour is bad in lessons I have said so, and pointed out that their behaviour is limiting their progress

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No, infact the head of year complimented me on them.

In the past I have follwed he 'trend' to put in weasle words like 'lievely and talkative'.

This time we only had 250 characters ....about 3 sentences and I thought, sod it, If he were my kid I would want honesty.

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I liked dd2's nursery report

'likes to lead the other children in role-playing games'

Why does it matter how a child is doing compared to anyone else? As long as problems are picked up and addressed surely that's enough? Anyway parents evenings are where I've always found about any real issues that my children have. School reports always seem to be fairly meaningless.

so a sample would be. X has made a good transition to srcondary school. X Has taken part in A B C activities and is making good progress, well done X.

Or, Y is an able by who has had problems making the transition to secondary. He can work well, but often his behavior in lessons is preventing him making progress. To improve, he needs to concentrate in lessons.

We don't do comparisons in reports at all. the child is graded as 1, 2 or 3. 2 means they are making the expected level of progress, 1 is better, 3 is underperforming for that child.

So you could get kids in the borron sets with 1s, as they are making more progress than we could reasonably expect, and lazybones bright kids on 3s

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Snorkle, sounds like your son is a genius!

Sorry, am slow, I mean dd!

Obviously there can be errors in the system. But you can't devise a system that cannot be circumvented in some way. We use tests, examination results but often in the end it comes down to good old fashioned 'gut feeling' for how well a child is working. I have had two boys moved out of bottom set using the latter this term. And I was spot on both times.

We aren't all mindless automitons

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