Confused by report

[Moomalicious]

Hi, I'm not much of a regular poster but really hope that you can all offer me some sensible advice as I'm not sure whether I'm being overly concerned about this.

I received DS's reception report on Friday, it's very good and I'm really pleased with his progress this year. In the Teacher's comment section however, it says that xxx has some lovely friends in xxx and xxx. The problem is that the second child named is a boy that DS actually dislikes and never plays with. To explain a little further, DS is going into a split yr1/2 class next year with 9 other reception children and 20 current yr1's and the only other boy from his year is the one mentioned in his report. The letter that accompanied the class list explained that they were divided by ability and maturity and that consideration was taken to friendship groups, although they may not be with their 'best' friend.

So, I can only assume that the report is one of two things; a justification of why they are in next years class together or DS's teacher knows nothing about him at all?!

Should I speak to the teacher? I'm a little worried that they might be forced into a friendship that neither child wants next year and even more concerned that his teacher really doesn't know him at all.

Thank you.

How do you know that they don't play together at school, or work well together as part of a supervised group?

I know based on what DS has said and the fact that this child has never been mentioned in my house other than as a moan from DS that he doesn't like him. Also, they don't work together in a group much as his class is split for phonics, guided reading and numeracy and they are in different groups. I'm not suggesting they are arguing or fighting or anything, just that it was a big shock to see his name on the report when I know they aren't friends! I've no concerns about them being together in next years class and they may even start to like each other, who knows the workings of a five year olds mind where friends are concerned. My query was specifically about the inclusion of this lad on DS's report.

It's that personal touch that people have been complaining about reports lacking.
You could always ask the teacher what her evidence was for her assumption.
How many other Y1 boys are there in his new class?

Very strange - I can't impagine writing other children's names on a child's report.

Me neither. Sticking to bland and inoffensive statements is so much safer.

I clearly remember when my daughter was in reception being approached by another mum who said how much her daughter loved mine and how pleased she was they were such good friends and how her daughter talked continually about my daughter... I smiled sweetly while thinking why has my daughter never mentioned this child all year.

If you get a chance make an off the cuff remark about how surprised you were to read this, not worth making an issue though. tbh you aren't the one spending the whole day in their company and seeing what interactions take place. It could be at the time of deciding on class groups they got on well and played together. I wouldn't worry about friendships being forced. dd (Yr4) has had one particular child in her class since Reception and they are now being separated. The friendship has long since run its course even though they work well together. She has friends in other classes and it turned out, despite her protests to us, she had named him as a friend each time they redid classes previously. Friendships can be very fluid at this age and one day's dislike may be another's best friend.

Lol @ Goblinchild, I have to say that was what I was expecting!

Mrz, we have that a lot, DS seems to be a very popular little boy who has little interest in anyone other than his best two friends. We are just in the process of sorting out birthday invites for September and he is struggling to get to 5 children to take bowling despite us having a stack of invites adressed to him for over the holidays! It might end up as just 3 invites the way we're going.

LIZS, I think you have it right, an off the cuff remark may be just what is needed. I'll give it a shot on Monday morning and see what kind of response I get. I suppose it could just be a genuine mistake, there are a couple of other things in the report that are wrong that I'm chalking up to the stress of writing 30 reports, and I've decided to just ignore the fact that his name is spelled incorrectly a couple of times!

Thank you ladies, any differing opinions would still be appreciated though.

Sorry, in response to your question Goblinchild I'm not sure. I only know of two others so far but I'm sure there must be more than that!

Thank you to everyone who replied to this yesterday. I caught DS's teacher this morning for an informal chat and am afraid I've come away even more worried and confused than before.

She told me that DS has one best friend (which obviously I know all about lol) and generally plays with everyone else in the classroom. She was really quite cagey about it and couldn't/wouldn't explain why she had chosen this particular boy to make mention of in his report although she didn't disagree that DS doesn't like him. Surely it would have been better to simply write what she told me, especially as it was lovely to hear that he enjoys playing with everyone. Why single out this boy in particular? I can only assume it is because they are the only two boys from reception moving into the y1/2 class next year.

I also asked her about a couple of other things in the report that seemed wrong to me (said that DS can read MOST of his yr1 key words, when he has been able to read all of them for some time and also didn't mention that he could count in fives although it stated he could count in 2's and 10's). Her response to this was that she wrote the reports 3 months ago. 3 months ago? That's Easter and a full term before the reports were due to go out surely.

It ended up as a very garbled conversation with a queue of Mums building up behind me so I excused myself and shuffled off! I just think it's quite a bad show all in all to be honest.

'Her response to this was that she wrote the reports 3 months ago. 3 months ago? That's Easter and a full term before the reports were due to go out surely.'

I know several teachers that do this, because Report writing takes a lot of time. The sensible thing is to do the bulk, and then update nearer the date they are due out.
Most use the May half term.
I console myself that whilst I'm usually last minute, at least my comments are fresh and up to date.