Would you expect to have any personalised comments on a school report?

[Neolara]

Dd is in Year 9. With 2 days of school to go, we have not yet received a school report. In the last year, the school has introduced an online portal where parents can see how well their kids are doing. It includes numerical values that correspond to target, anticipated and current gcse grades. You can also see if your child has been sanctioned and their attendance. I think it gives a pretty good snapshot of where my dc is at any one point. However, there are no comments, just numbers in columns. No narrative about the children or detail of any kind. Nothing about the kids character or social relationships.

Given that we haven't yet received a report, it has just occurred to me that the school may not be sending out reports this year. They may think the online portal is sufficient. I was certainly anticipating something a bit more personalised. Do you think a report without any personalised comments is OK? Or is this just normal these days?

I see 282 students as a secondary subject teacher of a core subject . There are about 5 non-attenders in that, and their reports are obviously shorter, but still have to be clicked through. Still time Consuming.

Even if you do receive a written report, it is probably generated via clicking best-fit comment boxes.

My son’s year one report is two sides of a4 but the written comments are in what i assume is the largest font of comic sans they could get away with (14) and one section is in font 16 comic sans. Ive counted the words on the first line and multiplied it by the number of lines to work out a rough amount of words on the whole report. 350. Not becUse i cared, but to give a rough idea for people on here. There are written comments on re english maths and science only. The rest are attainment and effort grades only. Two spaces after a full-stop too. Teacher showing her age there! And finally there are a number of proper nouns with no capital letters. Yet his report comments on his use of capital letters.

His music attainment grade is ‘developing’ yet his dance teachers, street and ballet, and his private musical instrument teachers have all commented at some point about his rhythm etc. He also loves to sing and his notes are good. When questioned, his teacher said they hadnt seen this at school. When investigated further it seems the school places no Importance On music and are actually trying to remove it, starting with individual and small group instrument lessons.

Dont put too much importance on reports. Even secondary school attainment grades throughout the year. They might not give a true picture due to the aims of the senior management team. Everyone on-target is better (even if not true) than people not meeting targets.

Ours used to have comments for each subject once a year. Some were more personalised than others. Eg. Some would have areas they needed to work on in the subject. They got rid of this and now just have comments by the form tutor once a year which are personalised. Plus by someone higher up. I don't mind this as if it lessens teacher workload the good teachers might be less likely to leave the school!
We get termly grades for attainment in tests and also for behaviour, homework etc in each subject. I find this useful

morewashing you might have to write a report on art that you teach once a week, but you see the kid for the whole week. Much easier to write a personalised comment about any subject when you know the pupil well. You’ll know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to draw on that to comment on their art.

If you see a kid once a fortnight for a year, you barely know them at all.

Normal.

Even when my DC received "comments" they were 1 sentence chosen from a database and sometimes "odd".
You get personal feedback via patent consultations and email/phone calls/postcards etc.

morewashing you might have to write a report on art that you teach once a week, but you see the kid for the whole week. Much easier to write a personalised comment about any subject when you know the pupil well. You’ll know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to draw on that to comment on their art.

I really would not expect comments about my child's personality, though. Just their performance. What areas they need to work on next to improve their grade. Bringing personality into that surely just adds bias, doesn't it?

It’s not about personality. It’s about knowing the kid. Much easier to write a report about a kid you know well, compared to one whose face you struggle to reliably bring to mind when their name is mentioned.

But doesn't their work speak for itself, noble?

My primary son had a 3 page report broken down into individual subjects. A lot of it was filler (this year in art we have covered . . .) and some fairly obviously copied and pasted.

I don't have an issue with copying and pasting, sometimes you do have the same thing to say about different children, but it just seems like a massive waste of the teacher's time.

I'd prefer below target/ on target / exceeding target for each topic, maybe a sentence explaining why/how they are below or above, and a brief personal comment. Even with fancy spacing and boxes, less than a page, saving trees and ink into the bargain.

Two sentences won't tell you anything your child doesn't know already, and probably needs to be couched in 'positive' language (for those parents) so meaning becomes obscured.

I could write DD's report:

French - Tries hard but has learned next to nothing still needs to come to grips with basic grammar and vocabulary
English - progressing well but spelling and punctuation still considerably behind need more attention
PE - has made excellent progress since joining the school but is still hopeless however hand eye coordination is still weak

Do you think that when a teacher writes reports they have all that kid’s work next to them, they look at it carefully and then compose their comment?

noble, not necessarily, but I expect the comments to be about their work. Taken from the records that are made throughout the year. I don't really understand what else you would be commenting on. Going just from what you remember about them seems too unreliable and not the point of the exercise I would have thought.

Don’t know about art teachers, I’m a maths teacher. Comments from the records made throughout the year would be looking at test results. I would say ‘Johnny did well in his geometry tests but struggles with number’. The parents could gather this themselves from looking at the tests.

A more personal comment would be ‘Johnny’s strength in the visual and creative arts has transferred well into our geometry work this year where he has performed exceptionally well on transformations of shapes and solving angle problems. His continued resistance to learning his times tables means that he is performing lower than expected in number assessments’.

Most teacher comments at secondary are a bland waste of time. I should know, I wrote enough of them. Thank god they were scrapped.

noble, yes, a parent could gather the information from the test papers if the mark scheme is straightforward and we received them all and knew what proportion of the overall assessment they accounted for.

We get a grade at the end of the year/term but don't know exactly how the grade is compiled (average of how many assessments, grade curves etc). There doesn't seem to be consistency regarding what is considered meeting targets or not either. The comments helped tremendously decipher all this.

Between the two comments you gave the one you said was 'more personalised, does not really give more information except demonstrate you know the child in question is good in visual and creative art. The first one would be sufficient.

Added to this the annual report is a handy and concise single reference document which saves looking through several exercise books and loose written tests. Good for parents and teachers to refer to, I would have thought.

The first comment gives test results with no info as to why they are as they are. How is that helpful?

Btw grades aren’t usually compiled in any particularly meaningful or consistent way. Often made up off the top of the teacher’s head.

Parents evening would give more context and explanation than a comment knocked out in a minute among 200 other comments.

the annual report is a handy and concise single reference document

It’s a waste of teacher’s workload to write comments. If you knew how little thought went into them you might change your mind on how valuable they are.

The first comment gives test results with no info as to why they are as they are. How is that helpful?

It highlights the area which requires improvement. If, with the aid of revision guides etc, you can get your child to improve their performance in that area, the job is done regardless of what was holding them back.

Btw grades aren’t usually compiled in any particularly meaningful or consistent way. Often made up off the top of the teacher’s head.

Err right....should you be admitting that?

Parents evening would give more context and explanation than a comment knocked out in a minute among 200 other comments.

Yes, but if it happens early on in the year parents are left guessing until the next one.

It’s a waste of teacher’s workload to write comments. If you knew how little thought went into them you might change your mind on how valuable they are.

I'm not hung up on comments. Just like to get meaningful information. As you have indicated yourself grades can be "made up off the top of the teacher’s head.". So comments can be more indicative of how my child is doing. I just want to be able to encourage my child to utilise their study time in the most effective way.

highlights the area which requires improvement.

No it doesn’t. Second one says Johnny needs to learn his times tables, first just said he didn’t do well on the number tests. This could be for many reasons other than times tables - lack of revision, missing the test and doing it late, not showing working blah blah etc.

Err right....should you be admitting that?

It’s the great school data lie to parents. The more people that know about it the better. You can’t measure progress. You can’t accurately give a GCSE grade to a kid who has never sat a GCSE paper. You can’t predict GCSE grades in Y7. KS3 grade reporting is a national mess since national curriculum levels were scrapped, and wasn’t great before then.
You think those numbers mean anything solid and comparable between subjects? Think again.

It’s the great school data lie to parents. The more people that know about it the better. You can’t measure progress. You can’t accurately give a GCSE grade to a kid who has never sat a GCSE paper. You can’t predict GCSE grades in Y7. KS3 grade reporting is a national mess since national curriculum levels were scrapped, and wasn’t great before then.
You think those numbers mean anything solid and comparable between subjects? Think again

So, in your opinion, what is meaningful, concerning the attainment information schools supply?

You've said, comments are a waste of time, grades are meaningless. So exactly how can parents support their children to do well or even know how well they are doing beyond actually teaching them from scratch themselves or hiring a tutor?

Schools could provide more useful data.

But in the meantime, talk to your kid. Make sure they are doing homework. Look at their books. Talk to their teachers at parents evening. When they do a test, ask what other kids in the class got (they’ll know). Keep an eye on sets.

And support the school on behaviour. If your kid isn’t getting good effort grades, or loads of demerits (or whatever the school system is) put a rocket up their arse.

I do all that, as far as I am able, noble.

My child does their homework, gets rewards for good behaviour, we go to parents evenings.

Sets are more difficult to keep an eye on. The information is not made readily available. It's a large school, there are certainly sets and possibly streaming. But schools will not really comment on other students progress so we cannot see how our child performs in comparison. We have no right to information regarding setting, I don't think.

It's a shame because we are at a stage now where good revision and exam technique will make a difference. We want our child to be able to put their study time to best use. Direction from teachers is very useful.

I do sometimes from HOY commenting on what a fab report it is. Also sometimes from form tutor. Essentially, the report is a page of numbers. Never had a comment from a subject teacher.

Talk to their teachers at parents evening. When they do a test, ask what other kids in the class got (they’ll know)
But this would be pointless too as you've said it's impossible for teachers to grade children's work or know how they are progressing and it's all just made up

No Julia, I said that the grades were made up. Assigning grade boundaries to topic tests, end of year exams and the like is just crap.

But if your kid is consistently getting well above class average in tests, then that’s a good sign. If they are consistently getting test scores around the same level as the class genius (kids know who the brainy kids are) then that’s very positive. If they are getting 30% and the class average is 60% then that’s something to be concerned about. If they are holding position in top set maths then they’re doing better than someone in a numeracy support group.