Teachers comments in workbooks

[TeachersPleaseSitUpAndTakeNote]

Please whatever you do, DONT follow a positive comment with a negative and deflating cOmment in your students books -

Example

This is very good work (child's name) - well done!
What a shame your work wasn't this standard earlier

I can't tell you how much damage to self confidence this has caused (my child) .........

I thank you - not!

I might have worded it differently but this seems to be something I would say to the child if I had been given a lot of work that was sub standard then a child showed that they were more than able and had been being lazy. Have you asked your child if their other work is as good or if they put as much effort in all the time and if not why not?
From the lack of detail in the comment I presume your child is quite young though as there is nothing linking to the work itself. Good for them to realise this at a young age rather than coasting from early on.

but the child may not have been capable of more earlier... sometimes things just click. dd's writing has improved suddenly recently... (lots of input from school on handwriting and the blessed full stops and lots of input at home on same plus some extras made no difference at all for ages... then whoosh, sudden improvement)

You don't know the dialogue that had been gone on between teacher and pupil before this piece of work was marked. The comment may be totally relevant in the classroom context. Maybe the teacher had written such a comment and discussed it with the child orally?

Do teachers write comments for parents or pupils?

Maybe -shock horror- the teacher genuinely meant "it's a pity your work hasn't been this standard generally because you would have been in the running for a prize-this deserves it". My dc have certainly had teachers that would feel sorry that the sudden boost in standard had come to late for them to recognise it in a prize giving that the prizes have already been awarded.

I don't think teachers should be obliged to only write positive comments. If they only write positive comments, then they don't mean anything.

We had one teacher who always wrote "good" as a baseline at primary. Very quickly we cottoned on that "good" basically meant "you completed this work without too many mistakes" and it didn't give you pleasure. The next teacher we had was very sparing with his comments, but a "well tried" meant you glowed all day, and told your parents when you went home.

Well I suppose it does prove to the teacher your DD has read the feedback Verity. In some marking I ask a question and the children write a short response, e.g. Well done, you've used the connective "and", now can you think of any more interesting connectives? To which the child might response with a few other connectives.

But "thank you"

Never had prize giving at any of my schools nor any of my dds so that 5 schools...

Or how about: "This is very good work (child's name) - well done!" followed by "you should be very proud of yourself for the improvements you've made recently"
Although even that's not a target.

Sometimes it is necessary.

We've just been OFSTED-ed and I had written something like "In question 3 you thought cleverly about whether party clothes were good examples of everyday clothing. For question 4 and 5 you answered on sources which were not in the question and just described them. You need to concentrate more in lessons to show me how good you can be." The inspector thought that a reasonable use of feedback, even if it is deflating, because overall the work was not of standard and the pupil's principle target was to work closer to a level they were capable of.

But sometimes kids do just piss about, and hand in work that is nowhere near their best.

I could pull them up on it verbally, but I'm more likely to forget and then the child gets away with putting very little effort in.

If I write " :-( I don't this is your best work, so-and-so " then they will actually read it. I always make sure I look back next time I formatively mark, and if there has been an improvement in effort, I will praise them for it.

Everyone knows that the offspring of MNers never mess about in class and they are all above average.