... is not caring.
Parents of upper primary students will not be comparing report comments with eachother. It doesn't matter if they are all pretty much the same. The students will not feel less loved if I've not added a personal comment (I hope).
Today I've powered through report comments in record time. Two whole year levels - 6 classes - in just a couple of hours.
This semester, Year 7 students have been developing their aural skills, learning new ukulele chords and composing their own songs. H can notate complex rhythms and melodies with a very high degree of accuracy. She can progress smoothly through a wide range of chords, playing songs with skill and musicality. H composed an effective and imaginative song, demonstrating a very good understanding of how rhythm, melody, chords and lyrics work together to create mood and emotion.
This semester, Year 7 students have been developing their aural skills, learning new ukulele chords and composing their own songs. J can notate simple rhythms and melodies with a good degree of accuracy. He can play a range of chords on the ukulele, progressing smoothly between them. J composed a song, demonstrating some understanding of how rhythm, melody, chords and lyrics work together to create mood and emotion.
The other trick to writing report comments fast is Pepsi Max. But I think you might already know that.
ReplyDeleteThe parents do care, and do compare. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteReally? You still compare comments - not just grades - in year 6 and 7? Clearly, the teachers aren't using enough indecipherable jargon!
Deleteno, we quickly realise that the report contains indecipherable education-speak and nothing personal to our children and, somewhat miffed, don't bother to read it.
ReplyDeletePart way through high school, our school decided to speed things up for all teachers by giving them choices of set sentences to use on that new-fangled machine called a com-pu-ter. Of course, said set sentences had very little bearing to any individual student because the choices were all the same regardless of subject.
ReplyDeleteYours at least give more feedback than those...but the students will still care (heck, we cared when we were in Yr 10).
I'm not a parent but I think your examples are fair. You've obviously thought carefully about what the course is about and how to convey students' range of achievement. I think I'd come away with a good sense of where my kid was at and hopefully I wouldn't be too bothered that you hadn't commented on some delightful (/not delightful) aspect of their personality...?
ReplyDeleteIf only you had written this post 2 years ago when I was spending hours torturously composing reports of my own... :/