pointless phrases in school reports

[Labro]

Best one yet has come this term from.the games teacher 'your ds has missed far too many lessons'

Thats really helpful and insightful - ds has been signed off games for the last couplw of weeks on the advice of our gp!!

Anybody else got any good ones?

mrz - who do think attempted to teach me to spell?

'You'

obviously you weren't sharp enough to learn

Mrs - I was after I left primary school.
There are loads of threads on here about the failings of primary education. The people delivering the lessons must accept some of the responsibility.

Mrs - I was after I left primary school.

really?

Erm... I don't personally think that MN is a representative enough group for you to extrapolate enough evidence for what you have rudely posted up thread.

And it's also quite rude to derail somebody else's thread like this too.

FWIW Primary education has shockingly failed my ds, but I personally learnt everything I knew up until my degree from my primary teachers. Goodness knows what the point of secondary is, - or perhaps I just mean 80s secondary.

Starlight, my favourite primary school teacher taught me to the delights of reading. Secondary school taught me the delights of truancy. Real life got me a pair of degrees at other peoples expense. Most teachers I know are oxygen thieves.

Starlight, I have a family member with SN whose end of year report contained something along the lines of 'Overall we believe X's presence at the school is of benefit to the other children'. I'm still not quite sure whether it was a massively unfortunate turn of phrase or whether they meant to make her sound like the class pet.

As a highly qualified and competent primary school teacher [buwink], I do agree that there are many failings in the education system. Some are due to crap teachers, but there are many that are down to bureaucracy and government interference.

Back to the op.... There is no excuse for inaccurate reports. They are proof read before being sent out, so awkward turns of phrase and inconsistencies shouldn't slip through.

Dd's teacher (who was my best friend at school) wrote I am sure Dd is capable of great work but unfortunately I haven't seen any of it!

I would have hoped so charming, yet this particular gentleman has also managed to write a seperate paragraph about PE which tells me at great length about son's 'very negative attitude' (again; son hasn't been doing PE!)
Red, still don't think my thread is the correct place to be rude about teachers as a whole group, I'd politely ask that you start your own thread on that subject.

Bloody hell, red. Write us all off, why don't you. I assume you educate your children personally, as the rest of us are clearly incapable. I also assume you have done at least a PGCE and and NQT year so that you have proper grounds for your comments.

And, back to the subject of the thread which red has so rudely shat upon - FWIW, I would never write that a child is a pleasure to teach unless they genuinely were. So I am living proof that sometimes these comments can be taken at face value :)

I once picked up a Year 11 class part way through an academic year. One student was in hospital for the entire time I taught the class. Nevertheless, I had to come up with a full statement for their Record of Achievement - including strengths and targets. Not an easy task seeing as I'd never met the student, let alone taught them.

(Goes back to planning next lesson on the delights of truancy including differentiation for the least able and those in receipt of Pupil Premium)

Ho hum! Here we go for a teacher bashing article! Don't forget the hours it takes teachers to write these school reports (I've calculated at least 3 hours per child X 30 children) on top of the usual 60 hour week of planning and marking. And before people think I'm moaning, I'm not. I love my job and went into it with my eyes wide open, so I'm just stating facts.

We all know not all teachers can be tarred with the same brush and for sure some reports must be of the "cut and paste variety" but on top of what new name quite rightly says, some teachers, like myself, take a great pride in their report writing. I dread doing it, but once I get started I find it a great opportunity to be very honest.

I am a primary teacher so only have to write for the 25 in my class, but the easiest ones to write are always for those kids at the extreme ends of the behaviour/achievement scale. The harder ones, and the ones that I put off and leave until last are those middle-of-the-road kids, the "invisible" ones who can so easily get overlooked, don't stand out for any reason, good or bad. They are the ones for whom the report writing can be more challenging. However, I still try not to trot out standard "could try harder" phrases. One of the other hard things is trying to be honest without offending parents - especially when talking about social aspects of the child's development.

I still have all my old school reports and looking back, some things haven't changed at all. But I think my parents were more interested in the social comments about relationships with others, general attitude etc than anything academic. My favorite from year 8 was "freckleygirl has an anarchic presence amongst her peers". I'm still quite proud of that comment today! ¡

Zombie thread

Be aware that the OP is from March '13.

We liked that our DD really enjoyed a field trip to X PLACE, which in fact never occurred. All DCs in the year got it. For once I was not the only parent to raise this.

Although I do suppose it shows teachers we do read the things.

I have to say it seems a lot of work.

I'd much rather understand what is being taught that year at the beginning of the year (maybe in plain English on the school website - ours has A1 - C1/ A2 - C2/ A3 - C3 for Maths Curriculum - which is less than helpful).

At the end of the year - I'd much rather have a list against which marks are given (numeric so x marks out of total possible - or letter grades) + attendance + comment on behavior.

Instead - like many parents I feel I need to read a novel and often feel by the end of it quite jaded that the report says anything at all and wonder whether the reported NC Levels are real or just plucked from the air (maybe inflated) to please us.