Let us compare end of year reports....

Well now, is your sprog meeting expectations, working towards (averageness) or exceeding expectations?
And in such cases, do you actually know what this means?

With such a limited report tool, and including the fact that statements for the small individual pupil box have been generated by a package - would you expect to see spelling mistakes and grammatical errors?

Basic spelling and grammar errors from both the class teacher and the head teacher?

Sprog has come home with some one else's report but this has been sent back and the correct report issued....

.....and has now been awarded a pink pencil which has two fingers at the non writing end - an attendance award - or bribe as it may be called. Sprog has shown me the potential for misuse of this pencil, both delighted at the sedition of it and worried about swearing.
Sprog is conflicted by the possession of the two finger pencil.

So to recap, Sprog has a seditious pink pencil and another child's report. When this was sorted out, the report that had Sprog's name on was pretty much the same of the other child's. And the school staff have low literacy levels.

In the morning Sprog and his friends are encouraged to run round the concrete walled play area until the bell rings for the start of school. They are not allowed to play though. There are no diversions permitted during the daily mile. It is like an episode of Prisoner Cell Block H. There is then a Warder who locks in any parents or carers who have not left the premises by the time the bell sounds...…..

I just cannot understand all this. The world of education seems to be without meaning.

 

My grandchildren aren't yet at school, but I have similar fears and worries for when they do.

 

I am very taken by the idea of a two fingered pencil. This was from the school? Amazing! Did they not LOOK at it?

I want one now.

 

The two- fingered salute is a great example of the traditionally British insult. Far superior to the one-fingered 'bird' imo

(Perhaps the staff don't realise!)

 

But on the subject of reports, the whole thing is beyond ridiculous.

It started when a single hand-written comment was deemed 'insufficient', and then came carbon paper sheets, where a paragraph was expected for each child/subject.

Because of the amount of writing needed, a certain amount of repetition became inevitable.

Then when computers and 'word-processing' came in, the 'we've got computers, and we're gonna use 'em' attitude came in, leading to yet more meaningless verbiage. And so came 'banks of comments' and pick'n'mix.

I had a neighbour ask me why their kid's report had so much meaningless twaddle, and I simply said, that they do it because they're told to.

 

I remember my own school reports. ‘A satisfactory term’s work’. I once got a progress star, which was like an asterisk. ‘What does that mean?’ Said my father. I used to use my own report bank from previous years to generate the acceptable report.

 

@nelly: way above my paygrade, I personally proof-read as many reports as I can before they go to print. The standard of SpAG is generally poor, the wrong pronoun is used constantly because they copy and paste without checking their own work, they don't know the difference between first and third person , and miraculously, every child in every year needs to focus on exactly tbe same thing in order to make progress.

I have offered to email a helpful and tactfully-worded helpsheet but the offer was met with horror that an upstart old bat in the office should presume to instruct teachers. It wastes four full days of my time (but i get paid so what do I care) to correct reports every term, but my main gripe is what a pointless waste of time, paper and ink it has become. Reporting by numbers. You might as well train a pigeon to peck at the keyboard.

 

AND don't expect your sprogs to be taught much at all while they are out of your sight. However their books will be a delight of multiple coloured writing to be offered up to the altar which is ofsh!te.
You are right to be concerned.

 

type novelty pencil two fingers into google

 

there is a free app available online. Worth a look to see if it will help you.

http://www.rayslearning.com/report.htm

 

Sensible. Save all your old reports. Sensible use of copy and paste.

 

Quite possibly. Or they are so tired and have so little time to write so many reports that the quality inevitably goes down.

I have had my correct reports changed by SLT to incorrect English, an English teacher no less. I had typed them up all into a word processort spell & grammar checked them and then printed them out proof read them to be sure that they made sense. Made final corrections and spell & grammar checked them a second time. Some of the reports that were issued bore little resemblance to my final input into the system.

So it might not be the teacher that has low literacy.

 

When writing form tutor reports, I have been told to use capital letters for all subjects, not just languages; spell practise with a ‘c’ when I was using it as a verb; had tenses changed (the conditional form takes the subjunctive, people) and had apostrophes added where no apostrophes were needed. Good old SLT. I was irritated, but never surprised. How could I be when we were regularly told in briefing to report concerns to “the principal or I”?

 

I once wrote 18000 words in four days whilst teaching full days as well.
I challenge anyone to do that well.

It was a crazy system at that school!

 

And don't even think about the use of "he" in a report for my daughter, where we were also informed that she was making limited progress in history. Not surprising really as it wasn't one of her GCSE choices and not seen on her timetable.

 

Not just me then. Sounds exactly like somewhere I used to work.

 

Lol! I wrote a sentence including "when he deigns to ....." it was changed and sent out as "designs" lost the little respect I had for that particular line manager.

 

Yep. The SLT member who previously proof-read ours used to change punctuation unnecessarily. He was a big lover of the semi-colon and if you hadn't littered your reports liberally with them, he would make room for them.

I like to think my reports are fairly personal. The English and Maths comments tend to be similar as they've all been in the same lessons and done the same stuff. My targets are personalised and my general comment is personalised.

However, reports are very time-consuming and tiring to write. It's no wonder mistakes are made.