WWYD? School report is partly a work of fiction.

[Al1son]

DD1 is 13 and attends a Mainstream Autism Base in High School. She does a part time timetable, attending mainstream classes for some subjects, covering the curriculum in the Base for some and has dropped others entirely.

She's brought her school report home today and three teachers whose subjects she has not done at all and who have had no contact with DD1 this school year have given her current levels, personalised comments on her behaviour and skills, target levels and whether she is on track and grades for effort.

We had a similar situation in December when her progress check contained similar works of fiction. I emailed the head of year who phoned me with a list of reasons why this had happened and reassured me that it was a one off caused by staff sickness, and other misc difficulties.

So what would you do? Let it go as they are meeting her needs fairly well at the moment and it's not worth upsetting the applecart, email the head of year again or write a letter to the head, copied to the chair of governors.

The funniest one is the teacher who has given her very good for effort but says she should participate more in class discussions! She'd have a job!

Alison, it depends on whether you want to make an official complaint, or just flag up the problem.

If you do want to make an official complaint, as you have already raised the issue with the HoY without a resolution to the problem, you would usually now escalate it to the next level - in most, but not all, cases that would be the Head of School.

The school should have a complaints procedure/policy which are sometimes on the school website, but more often than not you will need to request a copy from the office.

The usual system goes, Teacher, HoY or HoD, Head of School, relevant Governor, LEA.

That said, as Eviltwin said, it most likely will get bumped back to the HoY to be dealt with, but I wouldn't let that put you off writing directly to the Head, who then has a responsibility to write back addressing the complaint.

I thought that with the national curriculum, work was marked and officially recorded by the form or subject teacher. Also don't these pupils have homework that is marked and recorded? Surely all that is required is for teachers to check their records to see what little Johnny has done this term even if they can't remember who he is?

It is really sad to read these comments.

I too have been disappointed at the vague comments in school reports that quite often you wonder who the report is about.

I remember specific words used on reports but never any suggestion on what the next steps are to move forward. We wait all year for feedback on our children (because if we ask the teacher anything then we are seen as a PIta) but then dont get anything useful or constructive that tells us where our kids are at.

The worst thing is getting identical comments on all your kids reports.

There has to be another solution for report writing that doesnt take the teachers weeks and weeks to do but gives parents an open and honest update.

Really really depressing thread this, more so that it seems to be tacitly accepted. If it was a one-off and the school were mortified that would be fair enough but very clearly it's not.

I'm not sure what the solution is but it does look to be one of the areas where technology has allowed one too many corners to be cut.

Vicky it was no different with hand written reports. You still got a whole class with identical PE reports ( for example). The 3 children who were excellent would be noticed and get individual reports. The 3 who mucked around would be known and have individual reports, the other 25 would hVevidentical bland comments.

Have identical!

And what is really sad about it is that when I was at school, teachers could be truthful.

TiP would do better if she worked harder
Tip should talk less and listen more
Tip made little contribution to the class other than her pleasing absence (yes really)

Nowadays, a school that wrote that would be pilloried by the Daily Mail and sued
so the whole thing is bland and tick box with euphemisms like "excitable" (PITA) "creative" (away with the fairies) "forthcoming" (a bully)

Maybe we should all ask our schools to write less and mean more.

Talking peace - so true. At least you can look back a the report and know how you really were in the class.

I dont have a clue about what my children actually can do at school

I have no problem with writing stuff like

"If Jack focussed more consistently in lessons, he would be likely to reach his potential", or "Jack's attainment would be increased if he concentrated more and spent less time chatting"

However, if we wrote the kind of things that teachers used to, parents (especially MN parents) would be up in arms about it.

We can't win.

I would prefer to see honest statements like this. At least parents would know that their kids aren't concentrating, or are struggling with whatever parts of the curriculum, what their social life at school is really like, how good/bad they are at sports.

Parents have blinkered views on what their kids can do. Teachers have lots of kids to compare and normalise childrens true abilities and I think more honesty would be beneficial