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?

There are euphemisms for otherwise negative statements, eg struggling, spirited, unique learning style.

I think it is important to focus on the positives and encourage a student to maintain the positive side of their learning style. Yes, if they misbehave, this needs to be said, but there is no point in labouring it. This kind of informatio should not wait for the school report - it should be shared with the parent early in the year.

Thanks ninah but I am keen that the reports I write are pretty honest and so I want it to be about his choices.

X is an ill mannered hyperactive little monster?

RollaCosta, unfortunately getting to his seat is part of the problem.

Do ay of you that are primary teachers ,reception, actually take any notice of EYFS learning journeys and tranistion reports from previous settings ?

We online report to give a half termly 'snapshot' - it's crap since parents could just pick up their books to read similar. We are also meant to enter a dialogue with each student; parental feedback indicates they don't care what students think, it's what the teacher thinks that's important to them. Given I teach a 180 of 'em, I'm not sure that leaves any time for teaching but SMT are gung-ho for it.

Bring back those succinct reports:

XX could not do any worse in English.

Following year:

I was wrong

Am off to try and write something meaningful.

He's quite polite - he always apologises for doing no work/stopping others from working/rolling around the classroom/stamping his foot if he doesn't get his own way...

hopalong,

I teach mostly in the senior school, but also years 5 and 6. I am just as detailed in my junior reports, and they don't stand out particularly from the reports written by my junior colleagues.

SE13mummy

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

how about.

Next year I would like to see x make more positive choices about his concentration in lessons.

or something of that ilk....

I got away with

x is often aggressive towards his peers and members of staff when he doesn't get his own way!

Head couldn't really argue as he had been on the tail end of one incident...

I would say, "X struggles to remain seated for the the whole lesson".

But MmeRed, 'struggles to remain seated' implies that he has, at some point, sat in his chair!

cece, I have gone on to say that 'in order to make progress in Yr? X needs to focus on his own work....' and other things. There are also lot of positive things about his subject knowledge but I do think a report needs to be useful - no future teacher is going to thank me for pretending that he is a model pupil. I also think that for some parents it is the report that counts; no amount of chats at the beginning/end of the school day confirm something in the same way as an official report.

agree with that, certainly
are his parents supportive of the school?

If this is the case, you should have informed the parents months ago - not leave it until the end of the school year.

I agree that it needs to be useful and honest.

DS1 got this last year!

DS1 frequently contributes golden nuggets of information for the class to enjoy.

I feel sorry for his teacher

His parents are very aware of the school's concerns. Their approach to parenting is more laissez-faire than most KS2 classrooms can accommodate so whilst they are broadly supportive they don't give the impression of really minding that he's not making the progress he's capable of or that he's preventing others from doing so. I'm hoping that seeing it in black and white will give them an opportunity to see it as less of an opinion than the beginning/end of the day chat and more of an issue IYSWIM?

As a parent I find the reports a complete waste of time as they are never about the children and are obviously written with ofsted / government record requirements in mind.

Personally I don't want a load of educational jargon - if my son is a lazy so and so I'm quiet happy for him and me to be told tat he requires a rocket up his a@£$.

A negative report is not going to damage him forever, if anything hearing the truth from a teacher, rather than mum who doesn't know anything, might just might get him to pull his finger out

Wow I'm amazed. I didn't realise you guys actually wrote reports. I could have sworn the ones I receive are computer generated.

The only bit of our DSs school report I am interested in is the objective quantitatve test scoring they do of reading, writing and mathematical age ability versus their actual age. The opinions are like wall paper although amusing decoding them.

The teachers will no doubt tell me personally about behaviour/attitude if it is bad - which it is not.

Most parents are lovely and appreciate honest reports but I think there is another reason why teachers aren't as blunt as they could be and that is the increasing number of phone calls/letters/emails from parents who take issue with how their child has been described. Anything negative by some parents is challenged, demands made for the report to be changed or there's an immediate request for support in the area you've identified needing work (which can be just a target) /a request for specialist assessment.

My DCs (yr7 and yr9) reports both primary and now secodandary are about the children.

The primary ones were two sheets. First sheet was maths, english, reading and science.
We didn't get levels just whether they were average, below average or ahead for both effort and attainment.

There was a paragraph about what they had learnt, what they were good at and areas where there was room for improvement.

2nd page was basically what they had covered in the other subjects and paragraph on generally how they performed. Then finally a note on behaviour good and bad points. The reports were very informative.

At secondary we get one report which is just basically numbers which cover levels, targets, coursework etc and also graded on behaviour, effort, organisation punctuality for each subject, then later in the year we get one with personal comments as well.
DDs year 7 one is online to read as it is written. Her art one made me laugh

"DD is a bundle of energy who shows lots of enthusiasm for both her course work and homework"

don't blame you IndigoBell for thinking reports are computer-generated!

my DH's DDs are twins, but non-identical (actually you'd barely believe they were related!) - in juniors every year they got virtually identical reports (they were in different classes!). ridiculous. they told us nothing of what they were capable of - it wasn't reflected that one was strong in literacy, the other was dyslexic and struggling.

they also told us about what they'd done in class for vairous subjects... never mind that one of the girls had missed some of it... ARGH!!!

nice to see that other teachers make more effort! their school was astoundingly bad in other ways too TBH.

At secondary school my lazy (young and beery) technology teacher made us write our own reports - we had to pick pre-made statements out of a list and put them together. I'm not sure he even knew our names let alone what our performance in class was like, so we probably could have got away with putting absolutely anything!

I quite enjoy writing reports - I always try and see if I can get away with negative comments and so far have been quite lucky! We are allowed to say negative things provided we include a positive as well.

'has yet to make the connection between effort and results' is one of my favourites!!

My 12yo DD's report from her secondary school in France is mainly negative. Even the positive comments are given a negative slant!

French parents & teachers seem to like think criticism is the best form of encouragement