End of Year Reports :-(

[SheerWill]

Don't really have the energy. Have spent my entire half term writing them - we're expected to write 1500-2000 words per pupil so it's like being back at uni. I love my class more than anything - they're fab kids, but this is ridiculous. My own ds is at his cm all week so I can write them. I'll go back to school still exhausted and ill. Thankfully I'm moving on to a different school in Sept as this one has resulted in me being on anti ds and still struggling to cope - I always thought I was good at my job, but self-confidence has been totally destroyed by a bully of a ht. sorry to rant - but just needed to put it somewhere (not facebook :-) )

1500 - 2000 words per pupil! [faints]
I manage 300 tops... and no one has ever said that I write too little.

As a parent, I would rather have 300 words well thought out and specific to my child than 2000 words of generic waffle

Tell your head they are a knob when you leave

Doesn't help when my laptop is super slow too. Makes me want to throw things! Grrrr

We teach topics through some bollocks my ht made up caled the knowledge quest, with stages like elicitation, immersion and evaliuation. Rather than report on subjects like geog, we report how how well a child immerses themselves in a topic - utterly stupid. We do Lit, maths and science + general comment separately. As a parent I would find these reports baffling and not informative at all. Fell like I'm totally wasting my week off :-(

Oh how appalling my typing was then - there is no hope - I will write endless waffle! And spell it all badly!

Well of course it's a struggle - 30 lots of 1500 - 200 words is 45,000 - 60,000 words.
That is as much as a short novel!

I would rather write a short novel, maybe call it the Demon Headmistress (bollocks, someone's already done something similar). :-)

I really should stop procrastinating and do some bloody work. Feel like lying on the floor kicking and screaming like a toddler, ? I don?t wanna! It?s not fair!?

Lord, that sounds awful SheerWill

Sorry you are having to do this. What a nightmare.

Can you not write a proper individual 2-300 words opening paragraph that tells parents what they want to know and then have 3 or 4 standard waffling about immersing etc that you can reuse and a final individual couple of sentences?
Especially if you're leaving in September.
1500 words is just bonkers.

I'm putting thr 2-300 words in their general statement. I have to stick to the format I've been given or my life will become hell at school. It's just easier to keep my head down.

Have been doing more copying and pasting than last year, but still have to make it individual to each child. I owe that to the parents and children at least.

But you're right the whole report it just utterly bonkers. Have just completed 1000 words and need a cuppa and some chocolate. Im sure if I worked at a different school I would be stick thin :-) At my school my mental health is reliant upon tea, biscuits and chocolate - and citalopram :-)

I too am in report writing hell! Our reports are also 1500 - 2000 words per child. I am using last year's as 'template' for this year's, with some tweaky here and there.

Going back to them now ....

Oh then I get to proof read the rest of my team's reports (that's another 5 classes)! Arghhhhhh!

If we write more than 800 characters, our report system cuts us off! (And yes, I did mean characters, not words).

That's crazy. Using cut and paste (entirely justifiably re: course content bits) combined with personal stuff, I can knock out a set of reports in a couple of hours, if left in peace.

I find report writing at my current school absolute torture! So I keep distracting myself with Facebook, Mumsnet and crap films on Netflix.

That sounds truly horrific and wholly unreasonable!

I agree with the suggestion that you have generic paragraphs for each stage done well/ok/poorly, etc.

And slip in random items of fruit while you're at it. "Jemima is a valued member of the class. She apple contributes well to discussions..."

I'm in the same boat. 1500 words here too ( just done word count!) It is sooooo painful. I actually feel like I have to squeeze every sodding word out. Some holiday!

It's like a form of torture!

I've managed by English, Maths and General comments. Starting the foundation subjects box today (that's 250 words). We do have Monday as a report writing day and we can work from home.

Good luck moleyjay, I feel your pain.

There's an app for that

samdutton.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/school-reports-theres-an-app-for-that/

I'm sure there are Union guidelines/rules about how much you should write per report - at secondary it is 40 words (I usually end up having to write a bit more than that). I have no idea whether this is the case in primary, but that sort of number of words per subject would seem a reasonable guideline. In the case of being asked to do something clearly unreasonable, like 1500-2000 words per report I would definitely be talking to my Union!

Cardi - seriously? 40 words? I teach secondary. Have just done a word count on the Yr 9 reports I wrote this week - 18906 in total. I teach 83 Yr 9s, so that's about 228 words per child.

I'm having a night off report writing so I'm fresh for my report writing day tomorrow.
Instead... marking .

I know - write much more too, but check it out. We aren't supposed to.

We are our own worst enemies. If we just did what we were paid for the whe system would collapse and we might be able to talks out sensible co tracts and staff numbers.

Well I've broken the back of them today ... Thanks to gallon of coffee! But I still have to edited them all onto the school format, proof read, then proof read the rest of the team's - 150 (at least I get a day's release to do that).

cardi - I did try to check it out and can't find anything anywhere. Do you have a link?

I'm having a weekend off report writing as my jobshare teacher has the memory stick they are saved on and it is her turn to add her bit.

We use Incerts to generate the reports, but then add personalised paragraphs for the core subjects and a general comment.
THEN we have to carefully proof read all the Incerts generated stuff as it is full of clunky phrases, has actually downloaded spelling mistakes this year too and uses horrible phrases like "is almost able to...."

I spent 2 and a half hours last night and only managed to proof read the first 10 children's reports.

Each report comes to about 6 sides of A4 and I KNOW that parents will scan it and skip to the general bit. I know that's what I do with my own child's report.

I'm actually beginning to miss when we used to handwrite them as we were expected to write a lot less.