Are report programmes making a fool out of teachers?
May half-term is National Copy and Paste week for many teachers. This is the time of year when teachers everywhere ‘write’ reports using formulaic phrases unashamedly nicked from some reporting software that promises ‘solutions’ to all your report-writing headaches.
These pieces of software should be reformed or banned.
Torpid Templates
Pupils and parents deserve better than the exceptionally thoughtless reports ceremoniously coughed out of school in the summer term. Pick up a handful of reports from the same class and you will see the same ‘stock’ phrases that are
This is the first post I disagree with from teachers toolkit.
Reports add to workload and are a waste of time. Face to face meetings are more useful.
Cannot agree more that written reports are a monumental white elephant.
Hours are spent writing and checking this paperwork exercise, for parents to skim for 5 mins and file in the drawer.
Would be better if schools had an end of year parents evening instead where real feedback can be given.
I too disagree. In fact I disagree with the idea of even writing reports in the first place! There’s a good chance some of them never get read by the parent. I don’t blame teachers for copying and pasting. The idea that they are required to report on certain students at certain times of the year because it fits with the calendar is a typical box ticking, paper pushing exercise! Teachers should be contacting parents and ‘reporting’ regularly throughout the year praising or highlighting concerns as when they arise. What’s the point in saying “they produced a lovely piece on the Tudors last October, which they should be very proud of” when it’s now May?? Valueless and meaningless. Why shouldn’t teachers use automated systems and tick a box? Report writing is in essence a box ticking exercise. Lose written reports altogether and have an end of year evening encouraging face to face reporting.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe there may be a huge difference between being a primary and secondary teacher. Both teachers workloads mount up in the different ways but in terms of reports primary teachers on the whole write reports for their class of 30 students they teach for the majority of the day. Whereas a secondary teacher can teach 5-30 different classes within a week which equates to 100-600 reports to write. So I can understand why they would use a report writing function and also why a tick box method might be used.
My argument would be if personalised reports are needed about an individual, maybe have the grades and progress shown, but include a report about a student from their tutor teacher.
I agree with you to an extent, however, as a primary teacher I can tell you we may only have 30 reports to write but many comments as we teach all areas of the curriculum. I teach English, maths, science, geography, history, PE, RE, DT, art, Spanish and music so 30×11 = 330 comments plus a personal comment for each child would be 360 comments in total. In a secondary school they will only be writing a comment for each child they teach in their specific subject area. I am by no means trying to demean secondary teachers as they do a great job but don’t forget we don’t simply write 30 comments as primary teachers. Each report I am currently writing is 3 pages long.
Yes, and I wrote the article as a primary teacher so I know the pressures and also the woeful gaps. Stock phrases stand out like a sore thumb and make reports meaningless.
Absolutely!! I’m glad someone pointed that out! Each one of our reports is approximately 1500 words per child, reporting on a whole curriculum of subjects! That’s 45,000 words!! It takes hours and hours and hours of work!
A friend of mine once manned a water station during the marathon. While he said the same thing to every single person as they got water, the message was unique, relevant and personal to each individual.
Stock phrases are there because they sum up what teachers want to say. If there are 5 people in a class who are pushing above and beyond why should saying so become an exercise in creative writing?
I agree! I have phrases I used in reports that are my tone of voice, my style of writing. They’re **my** stock, which is entirely different to a report bank of someone else’s stock phrases. The worst problem with primary school reports is those which require a comment for every NC subject – that’s where the workload arises…. commenting on 30 individual pupils’ progress in non-core subjects without repetition of phrasing between similar pupils is just pointless work. And judging “the expected standard” in Y3 Art? Or Y1 PHSE? Well, that’s a rant for another day 😉
What a horrible and unhelpful article. I guess the author hasn’t actually been a class teacher responsible for writing a full set of reports for a long time, especially in the age of the new curriculum and never ending paperwork. I think I’ve spent well over 50 hours over the last three weeks writing my class set of reports (during my holidays and evenings, after already working 50+ hours a week teaching, planning and marking). I came here looking for ideas to change the way we do it next year but found no constructive advice, just criticism. If many (almost all?) teachers end up copying and pasting, or using stock phrases, you’ve got to wonder why – it is because the report writing system doesn’t work, is an immense workload, and largely pointless. I’m very keen to simplify my school’s format next year to make them quicker to do and therefore hopefully teachers will be able to write more meaningful comments.
Actually, John is a part-time primary teacher who has suffered from throat cancer, and I suspect to keep in him the classroom, he would prefer using report-writing methods to help produce meaningful reports for parents, whilst also sustaining his health, that then ‘actually lead to some form of improvement’ rather than just writing reports for the hell of it … which we have all had to do in our careers It is important for us all to refrain from making assumptions about fellow colleagues and what works for them … The job is hard enough for all teachers.
I stumbled across this conversation whilst musing what to do about end of year reports in 2020 during the COVID-19 crisis. This is a time when we have all had to think and take stock of what is important in life. I run a school that usually has 400 + happy pupils in it making noise and laughing etc today there are 9. They are still laughing and making noise and being taught lessons! The other 391? Well they are – most of them- engaging with their parent at home with our home learning set up. It is the best parental engagement we have ever had – it is actually amazing! Now back to reports.. We do copy and and paste some section like the chap who said about the water station – there is only so many ways to say the same thing – but the one thing that is always personalised and the one thing that ALL parents read and are desperate to know is that “personal comment” bit. What is my child really like? So that’s always been first on our reports and always been individual for every single child. Slimming down reports for COVID-19 (2020) – most likely! But keeping the bit that means the most – tell me you KNOW my child!
Okay… Let’s step back for one second. There needs to be a balance here. A balance that is missing from a lot places in the education system… let’s ask our selfs a couple of questions:
1. Will the parents read the reports? Some , the ones who care. Let’s make sure those have some personal bits.
2. Do I need to spread 30 + hours on my reports? No, they need the facts.
3. Do parents actually know what their child is learning? Probably not unless they read my termly newsletter . Therefore a nice copy and paste of that would be good.
4. Are teachers human ? Yes ( I think) and therefore cannot make 30 + unique reports for every child.
5. Does there need to be some personal notes? Yes, a nice personal touch here and there would be good…just case they read them. Remember most parents keep them and then children read them again when they’re 30.
That’s balance it out a bit when you copy and paste a nice comment just make it fits the child’s personality!
Last question, would an end of term parents evening do? Yes with a small, less an A5 report card with grades and targets.
I gave up reading the reports the teachers sent home years ago, not because I am not interested in my children, but because I know the reports were not about my children. They were a cut and paste pointless waste of my time. Wrong names, mispelled names, half sentences… All the reports were always good and my children were and are very successful at school, but they didn’t talk about my children. They talked about stereo-typical ‘good’ children, not my weird and disorganised boys.
I assume if there was ever an issue then teachers would contact me to discuss.
When you start writing personalized articles, teachers will start writing personalized report cards. Hypocrite
Dear Jim – this message is for you. Thanks for reading our website! Keep up the good work. Ross.