Can teachers please go out on strike against the fantastic waste of their time that are REPORTS

[MerryMarigold]

My sister is a teacher and she agrees! (She's been a teacher for 10 years and she said nearly all the parents say the same thing).

I feel so sorry for teachers spending time on these. I had fun 'decoding':
"Takes a real interest in" = is good at
"is beginning to" - is actually pretty rubbish at, but let's try and say it in a positive way

etc. etc.

He's in NURSERY. Can't they just make some insightful observations on how he plays? I am dreading 14 years more of this type of thing! Please, please can this change? Who is it helping?

I'd much rather have one line "Ds1 is very kind to other children, but his concentration could improve." Any teachers out there who would rather write one line per child, or maybe one line per subject for the older kids?

YES, YES, YES!!!!!

I think it should be the next mumsnet campaign "Let reports be interesting" (unless all those at MN Towers send their kids privately, where I'm sure these kind of reports do not exist).

I don't remember the process whereby the reports of my childhood ('maktaitai started the year with good intentions but has achieved remarkably little' was a memorable one) morphed into the massive paras of cut and paste stuff.

I am usually the poster child for modernisation inititatives but this one backfired spectacularly.

To be fair, you usually CAN decode them, and they are less upsetting to read while drinking White Diamond at the recreation ground heading home, but the exponential increase in time teachers have to spend on them from super-early years has not really improved the contribution reports make.

TBH if a parent is convinced that a teacher doesn't really 'know' their child, then they are not going to be convinced by a lengthy 'X is developing her understanding of Y' style report.

Fully with you on this one. Especially in favour of changing the format to a more open one- write what you need to about this child, rather than a paragraph on History, one on Geography, one on DT.

Are there any parents out there who really want to read 3 sentences about how their child performs in PE?

In my school, we write 750 characters per pupil per subject. It was reduced from 1000 characters this year and there was outrage from the teachers.

There is no way that any of us would want to write just one line.

I quite enjoyed doing mine, found it really rewarding to reflect on how they had developed this year (Early Years) ok we have ongoing process but an end of year overview, well it made me quite proud

What?

OK, I concede that it's OK writing the general comments and maybe English and Maths. But the rest? 2 pages of waffle that I don't want to write and most parents don't want to read.

Why do you think parents don't want to read the reports? We have many parents who come to parents' day and want to go over every line of the report. There is plenty of interest in non-core subjects.

well at EYFS it's all important - Ok we suggest next steps for maths/literacy but all round development is of interest - creative, physical, social etc, there are milestone developments in all these areas
I hope our parents want to read them.

We write maths, english and a general comment. The rest is a standard paragraph per subject of what we have done this year. Still takes hours but better than the 12 pages of waffle a friend of mine had to do 1 year.

well, I'm a parent too and I have no particular interest in reading a bland statement about how DC is "developing skills in ICT... or DT ...or RE.

I work in a playgroup and follow the EYFS ,we do transition reports for all the children who go off to school. We keep their profiles upto date all year then do these reports .All done in or own time no extra pay for it - for what - when they get to school they are baseline tested and I doubt whether our reports and profiles are ever read .

Reports at school beyond EYFS - yes I agree they should be done but how little Jonny is performing at reception and below - NO.

I've just been told to change one of my reports because it will, "leave you open to criticism". The statement in question?

X needs a lot of adult support and guidance during this lesson as he regularly chooses to wander around the classroom and distract others.

Apparently the fact that he chooses to wander around is my fault and so I shouldn't mention it never mind that he does this, and far worse in his class teacher's own lessons (I teach the class once a week).

I'm wondering about changing it to: X has been present for my lessons this year.

There's no excuse for bland reports. They should all be very sharp and clear about the individual pupils skills, progress and next steps. Why one earth would anyone write bland reports?

oh well mine are anything but bland, they are quite detailed with examples
I hate cut and paste stuff, I like writing

change it to X needs a lot of adult support and guidance during this lesson to discourage him from wandering around the classroom and distracting others

oh yes , shouldn't put anything negative in it even if you can evidence it , always needs a postive slant . (if you can't find one !)

I have written about 150 of the things over the last week or so. Some of them are, I'm afraid to say, a little bland. But by the time I get to report 137 I'm struggling.

I quite like writing reports. I always leave it to the last minute because I think I come up with the best phrases for the more tricky pupils when under time pressure. If I come up with a good phrase, then I may use it again for other pupils, but only if it is spot on. I would never cut and paste a whole report as no two pupils are the same.

Agree wholeheartedly. And since when did it become a crime to wirte even the most vaguely negative comment.....

mitochondria if I had that many I believe I would feel differently

MmeRedWhiteandBlueberry Are you a secondary teacher? I can see why secondary reports would be more detailed for each subject.

If you are a primary teacher and can advise me on how to make my 2 sentences about PE/RE/DT etc 'very sharp and clear about the individual pupil's skills, progress and next steps', I would be grateful. Not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I honestly find it incredibly hard in the space we are given. If we had 750 characters per child per subject, I could indeed make it meaningful but don't even want to think about how long it would take.

SE13mum
...he leaves his seat at inappropriate times, sometimes in the middle of a lesson....

???