What do you really want in a school report?

[letthembe]

So I am sat here, at the start of my report writing mountain, deadline is set and my 'journey' to the summit has been broken into stages. But what I want to know is what do parents really want to read in the child's end of year report?

Personally, I'm only really interested in the general comments. And I hate reports written on report assist!

I'm with you there Montymum - we have a parents' evening mid-year and if a child wasn't making progress then the parents would be aware by then at the latest, we'd have progress meetings on a regular basis and there'd be a support plan in place which would involve school staff and specialists if necessary. (Though tbh in the most recent case the actual action was a referral to social services as the lack of progress was all about what was happening to this child outside school)

at Issy we had just that last year with "little curtain could practice catching a ball in the holidays" as opposed to ducking whenever one comes his way!

What I really do not want is being told that Coryds enjoyed making a Roman model, when I know for a fact that Coryds was off sick during the part of term when they studied the Romans. I get that a lot, having children with chronic conditions and it doesn't really inspire confidence that the teacher is closely following my child's progress.

So I am now nearly at the end of my report writing journey, just have to sign them and get the children to finish their comments (nice touch)...then out into the big wide world on Friday. Let's hope the parents like them.

My favourite report to date was for ds last term. Was usual stuff and then ended with "XXX now has more good days than bad. Well done XXX!"

Will be saving that one.

lettthembe you sound like you really put work into these reports, well done. DD2's school does not use report software, theirs are all very personalised - we had it today, it makes it clear that DD has done very well in maths (3A in Yr 3) but that they were expecting more (4C) and highlights in which ares she needs to improve (chunking, grid method and engaging with mental maths). This is great, it gives us something to work with when she starts again in September (I have no intention of making her do work in the holidays).

The report was also very concrete about DD2's writing and reading skills, setting out the things she should now be working towards, all in all a very good report.

I'll be interested to see DD1's report, the school is much bigger so I doubt they have as much time for personalisation (she is Yr 5, we have a 3 tier system)

In DS Y1 report it said "he can order all his numbers upto 100". No doubt we would have been pleased with this comment if he couldn't have done this before, however he entered the school at this point so it was the very least we could expect that he could still do it

What we want to know is, is he where he should be? What's he done well? What needs improving. All his reports so far are so sickly sweet they are worthless.

Unless you are MNer or a teacher the levels mean nothing without clarification- last year my DDs school gave whole levels without the sublevels which meant that apparently some had made no progress (went from 3c to 3a or 4c to 4a) and as they were in Year 4 were wondering why they didn't get all 4's as surely it's a Level4 in Year 4.
Nowhere did it say - average, above or below for either year group or child. the comments were better but most parents want to know if little cluttered is - doing OK for a Year 4 and pulling her finger out and doing OK for her expected levels of achievement.
We wait with interest for reports this term.

before he entered the school. Not sure where the comma and however came from

I guess that what I want for a school report is two-fold. On a social point of view, I want to know whether DD is interacting well with her peers and her teachers, is she confident to join in and put her hand up in class when appropriate, does she sit still/pay attention/do as she's told/line up nicely and all that malarky - and does she seem to be enjoying school???

Once that is clear, I want to know how she is doing academically. She is bright, and I worry that she has been allowed to coast in some respects this year. So whilst I do want to know what she can do, I am particularly keen to know how much progress she has made since the beginning of the year and whether she is working to the best of her ability (as opposed to just ticking boxes that say yes, she can do X, Y, Z as a minimum target). Then I want to know what level she is working at re the NC levels, and where they expect her to be at the end of next year (she's going into class 2 in September). Finally (and possibly most importantly), I want to know where she is struggling and I can help both by offering some activities at home over the holiday and by being aware of it and supporting during the next school year, and where she is just trying and I can gently encourage her to put in some more effort give her a kick up the bum by challenging her with fun activities to (re)ignite an interest.

What I fear is that we'll be given the same wishy washy waffle as last year

I do not want to know what they "have had experience of" - I know this as I am aware of what topics my child has covered at school.

I want to know if they are below, average or above.

If they try hard and are well behaved.

That they show concern for others and are friendly and polite.

If there are any areas for concern/ celebration.

I do not want to see pages and pages of generic comments.

I want to know you know my child.

p.s I am also a teacher and hate the stupid report writer software.

We have a system called Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. This provides very general information about how your child is doing. Ds1's last report had two headings for every topic - "effort" and "progress". That doesn't give any information about how a child is doing overall - your child could be well below average but still get great scores for effort and progress provided he or she was consistent. I'd love to know how DS1 is doing academically. I suspect he is pretty smart, but if he is struggling in any areas I'd like to know about it so we could work on it at home.

So most of my class have added their comments to their reports today before they go home tomorrow. This meant they were able to read their General Comments box (the part I like best - it tells you about the child, therefore it's very personal). One boy read his, sat back with a huge smile on his face and said, "I like that, that's me!" And that made my day! Hope his mum agrees that he has "a wonderful cheeky charm and ready smile for everyone".

I would like a report not needing mumsnet or entering any official website to decipher its meaning. I had this last year. Reading mumsnet I got a link to the Website where I could find what each sentence was related to and got to know that my dd was doing OK (average but well).

So I would appreciate a report that ANY parent can understand fully. When you sit down and write your report perhaps you should imagine a parent who is not familiar with all the in an outs of the national curriculum, assessment, targets, etc. A report that you could give to another member of your family not familiar with the profession of education and that person should be able to have an idea of how the child is doing in class.

Part of the problem is we are meant to report on certain things and therefore some of it becomes jargon and basically fluff. I have really tried to make mine really personal, with the Foundation Subjects i have tried to stick to the highlights, the stand out moments. But I am also absolutely honest and if they have been difficult or fussy I let the parents know (nicely of course). But it's nothing I haven't already said at parents evening.

I want a simple Very Good, Good, Average, Poor or Very Poor score for both Effort and Acheivement on all subjects.

ie - Maths Effort - Good
Maths Acheivement - Average

Then I will know What my child is acheiving in each subject AND how hard he is trying.

I think that's fair enough, but what if comes out as very good effort but very poor attainment across the board. How would that make the children and/or parent feel? A tiny bit harsh and not great for self-esteem.

As a parent, I want to hear it so I know not to bawl my child out for laziness when he's trying his best. I wouldn't show the report to the child.

Treas, LOL at misinterpretation of heavy hint from teacher that your DC is way too inclined to spend school time talking.

If there's good effort but poor achievement, then try to state where the poor achievement score is coming from -- is little Johnny a bad test-taker? Is the homework not getting to school on time? Is he talking instead of working or does he need constant prodding to focus on classwork so it doesn't get finished? Does he stumble when called on? Is it instant recall of times tables or ability to correctly read word problems in maths and do the necessary steps in logical order? Is reading fine but comprehension poor? (does the language score get divided into reading fluency, writing, comprehension or just one score?) Overall, if you can pinpoint the aspect of the performance that is dragging down the achievement score, parents can be asked to give help and encouragement.

I always appreciated a report that had specific suggestions for improvement.

I always sit and read my children's reports with them (they are 12 and 10, and I've done this for a few years now - oh and they are still in primary school because we live in Canada now and they don't move until they are 13).
Our reports have grades for all the subjects, and then Good/Satisfactory/Needs improvement for 'work habits and effort' and 'attitude and social responsibility'. They obviously use some software because after the grades and general comments there is a section that tells you what they covered. I always read this bit last, but I do find it interesting none the less. dh will also use it when he sets their summer work for them.

Reports are always interesting in our house as dd gets 'dd is wonderful in every way' reports, with excellent grades and good habits/attitude, and ds gets 'ds is a pain but funny and we like him too' reports and quite bad grades and poor habits/attitude.

What I look for is a sense that the teacher knows them. For dd I like to see at least a few improvement areas otherwise it gets a bit saccharine (I know that she loves her teachers and they generally love her too, but she's not an angel!). For ds I like to see that he has been pushed to do better, I expect to see comments on the things he's not great at, but I'm sad if there isn't anything about his strengths too. He had a really poor mid-term report and got a serious talking to, so I was pleased that the end of year one was much better (grades, attitude and comments too). dd got an academic award, so it was great that he had improved too, as don't like it when she has something to celebrate and he doesn't (he is dyslexic which accounts for many but by no means all of his school issues).

English, Maths and is he sociable eg. he doesn't pummel other kids head into the desk! Yes, this did happen!

Oh and scrap this 1,2,3,4 and working towards this blah blah.

What happened to A,B,C and D, it was easier for us old ones to understand.

As well as all the above comments ;

Spell the childs name correctly!
If you have twins in your class don't submit identical reports with just the names changed!
Don't make any spelling or grammatical errors (that looks very bad from a teacher)

Don't teachers get any advice on report writing when they are at college?

child's name (sorry)