Question to primary teachers about reports.

[Readytomakechanges]

Do you all write reports in a very clinical fashion?
I.e. Child can do this, but not do that etc.
Feeling quite deflated reading 5yo DD's report.
I remember my school reports being something along the lines of "child is delightful. She's kind, enjoys playing with... and a pleasure to teach etc." There would also be the stuff about how I was meeting certain goals etc.
DD was in a different school for nursery, but unfortunately we had to move her. Her nursery report covered all the objectives, but also spoke about what a lovely character DD is.
Is it standard for reception reports to appear more like a work appraisal nowadays? Or is it possible DD's teacher just wasn't keen on her?

Mine had the odd sentence about the child and also "what I will miss about reception" but a lot of it felt like tick lists of topics/objectives met that year.

We have a good balance of both types of comments and I feel like they have a good measure of DD.

Usually there is a broad commmet about the child at the very beginning or end of the report?'

Just had our Reception report and it's 50:50 about my child and their achievements. I.e. dD2 is very well mannered, has made a lot of friends and settled in well type thing in addition to the goals

There is a positive comment at the end from the head teacher, but that feels generic.
The class teacher jumps straight in with: DD will explore all areas of provision but knows where she prefers to learn. She can be reluctant to try new activities, or extend her learning for fear of failing.

Even the 'positives' seem to be laced with a 'negative'. Such as: "Although DD's reading exceeds the expectation for reception, she still needs to continue to develop her basic reading skills. At times she can miss out whole lines of text."

I would have thought something like "DD's been making great progress with reading and is now exceeding the expectation for reception. Well done DD. We will continue to work on comprehension with DD by encouraging her to not skip lines when reading bulkier texts." Would have been a nicer way to write that.

DD wanted to read the report and I put it out of the way and just told her it's great and we're proud of how hard she's been trying at school as I'm concerned it comes across negatively, but I'm wondering whether I'm being too sensitive.

hmm probably a mix of the teacher just having far too many reports to write and having requirements on what has to be included and perhaps just a teacher who really doesn't go in for the stuff that as parents we would like to see. I normally laugh my way through our reports, we have had the wrong children's names in them, telling me how they can now do something that they could actually already do before they even started the year and which was even mentioned in their previous year's report etc. I think they are a waste of time and take more notice of parents evenings where the teacher actually talks about them as an individual.

Most schools have an expected style. Many have statement banks from which stock phrases are chosen.

I used to have to chose 3 - 5 statements of what they could do, plus 1 - 3 next steps, for every subject. The only truly individual section was the final section of 5 lines max.

So glad I'm no longer teaching!

choose!

I personally prefer the accurate info rather than the woolly flim-flammery you sometimes get. Has the teacher made any reference to interpersonal skills etc? I'd expect that.

I think it's something teachers can't win with...my dsil received a report about what a kind and helpful little boy dn - but she knows that and was more concerned about how his reading which he had previously been struggling with had come on (or not) in the summer term and what he needs to work on....i think she'd have loved a report like yours op!

I don't envy teachers having to do a million of the buggers.

I don't know why, just something about the way that it's written seems as though the teacher's not keen on DD. I don't suppose everyone can like everyone, but she's only 5.
I'm supposed to complete a form to add my comments and return by tomorrow and I'm not sure what to write.

It may be generated through boxes ticked rather than written by a human. I have gone back and edited mine to make them sound less clinical but it may be policy not to.

I'm a KS1 teacher and do a bit of both - you have to say what they have covered, what attainment is like etc and then we have a general comment which I do from scratch for each child with more of the behaviour and character type stuff in. Where I work each report is 5 sides of A4 and I have a class of 29, There will be similarities because there are only so many ways of saying very similar things but all the general comments will be totally personal

just wit until they get to secondary. we don't get any comments at all -just a string of numbvers that we have to try and decipher

DD had scores given for every element of each subject: A-C for effort. 1-3 for ability. There was a large paragraph about both English and Maths. A paragraph on science. Then a very large 3 paragraph section at the end talking in detail about her character, interests and behaviour. The teacher definitely knew her. It was a lovely report.

Dd's (5) report was mainly ticks in boxes and a bit of narrative. I wouldn't expect anything more really at her age.

Unless there are significant concerns I wouldn't read too much into it - the poor teacher has to write 30 reports and there might be kids with real problems to worry about.

I would like to know what 'understanding The World' means though...

Depends on the school. I moved to a new school and had to change my language and style. I felt they could have been written by a robot (would have been quicker too!) I had to remove all the personal descriptive stuff and put in lots of clinical statements (although avoiding terms parents might not understand). They were so long and dull! Can't have been great to read and unlike previous years parents didn't comment about how it really summed up their child.