Popping my head above the parapet to say that I found the KS1 SAT results a refreshing change. Just to get something quantitative, for once.
SAT scores gave me an idea of how my child was doing academically compared to peers how other children are responding in the same environment and other children same age, nationally. Also, I liked reading how our school teacher assessments compare to teacher assessment nationally in 2006 (our school is almost all 2a-2c and hardly any Ws or 3s). I think maybe our teachers tend to be conservative in their scoring, because DS had higher Task scores than Teacher Assessment scores; I've spoken to one other parent who said something similar.
I dared to ask 2 other parents if their children got 3s (we know only a few did). One lady was relaxed and honest and said "yes" "everyone" knows that her child has been gifted at reading since reception. Another lady refused to answer, saying "I'm not one of those parents who brags about how their child does!" Which amused me in retrospect, because A) obviously her child DID get a 3, and B) if I asked her "Does your child have excellent social skills?" she probably wouldn't hesitate to answer at length and surely good social skills are more important to success and happiness in life than brains?
(Speaking as a perfect example of why this is obviously true.)
The qualitative stuff in the long written reports just comes as limited -- so much "waffle" and "opinion", any specifics to do mostly with the chemistry of that class and teacher, perhaps none of it novel information (I'm pretty aware what my children are good or bad at, already). Not unhelpful info, just incomplete.