Last Man Standing

This Week

18th June 98

"Malcolm usually works well and is making satisfactory progress ...."

Having mentioned long school holidays as one of the joys of teaching in my last entry, this week things have moved onto one of the lower points ; writing school reports. The reason for the slight delay in publishing this latest entry has been due to my having spent the last ten days writing 183 reports about the pupils I teach at school (and the rest of the time watching either the world cup or England v South Africa test match cricket.)

Although at first sight this appears to be a fairly straightforward, if time-consuming task, a number of problems soon become apparent upon starting, mostly due to the fact that many of the names in my mark book dont immediately summon up a face in my mind. (Perhaps any parents who have just received their childs report should stop reading here, this will explain my desire to remain anonymous as some of the school governers have internet access !!)

When writing reports in November these missing faces are almost acceptable, after all it is difficult to learn 183 faces in two months. But asking a child to remind you of his or her name after you have been teaching them for the last 9 months is rather embarrasing.

However one consolation comes from the fact that these missing faces usually belong to a similar type of pupil. The class troublemakers (usually with names like Brendon or Damien) and the extroverts (Zac's and Clarrisa's) have usually been learnt by November. The brainboxes (David's and Lucy's) following behind in February and March. This just leaves the quiet, average achievers anonymous in June. Therefore an honest and informative report for one of these children would read "I do not know who Malcolms is, therefore he has made little impression on me in the last nine months, so must work quietly and be making satisfactory progress."

Unfortunately, this type of honest reporting does not seem acceptable to the school management, so I am left writing "Malcolm usually works well in my lessons. He has produced some pleasing written work however on occasions needs to give more detail. He usually works sensibly in practical lessons. His test and exam marks throughout the year have generally been of a satisfactory standard, showing that although Malcolm has found some areas of the work difficult, he has reasonably clear understanding of most topics." - five lines of bland statements which are probably true and which most definately no-one could argue with ! So if you received something similar on your childs report and are wondering what it means, I hope this gives you a clue !

This method is usually failsafe, however there is one group of children for whom even this type of report doesnt work : the Ashleys, Kims and Alexs of this world. "Ashley usually works well in my lessons. He has produced some pleasing written work" appears to be a perfectly acceptable introduction to a report, however doesnt look very good when in actual fact Ashley is a girl !!!

Picture of the week

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