It's been a while...

 

It feels like I've dropped off the side of the Earth!  Finishing up my last assignment, starting the final term of the school year, and beginning report writing - it feels just like that!

My Y8s are about to start their high school testing and getting ready to move on, we're taking the time to reflect upon how far we've come.  I've tried to instill in my class that we need to celebrate our successes and learn from our failures or "could have done betters" in order for us to grow as individuals.  All of the students have something they can be proud of and things they need to work on, it is a "feel good factor" when they want to tell the whole world, how well they've done.

Writing reports are part of our job for me, like all educators, it gives me time to reflect upon each individual student, time for me to celebrate their successes and give them some feed forward for their "can do better" going into next year.  

In conversation with one of the PRTs (provisionally registered teacher) about report writing, it got me thinking about how I structure my report comments:

• What is something they do exceptionally well?
• How have they applied it
• What else can they do well?
• Is there any evidence of it?
• What do they really need to work on?
• How can they do it?

All my comments are written straight to the point but in a positive manner.  Our report comments for each learning area aren't that big so being concise is very important.

Everyone also has their own way of which order they do it: some like to do one learning are at a time and others like to do one at a time.  I'm one of those people who like to do it one at a time, I prefer to focus on one student at a time as mentioned above.

There isn't an easy way of telling you how to write reports or how to reflect upon the progress of each student.  You need to:

• Take on what everyone else does
• Try them out
• Throw away the bits you don't need and keep the ones you do
• Set yourself goals (especially when working to a tight deadline)
• Re-read as you go

We're lucky we have a buddy to check our reports, which helps me feel at ease because after your 20th report, you're not as efficient at picking up the errors as you'd like to be.

Take the time to reflect upon each individual student, recognise their successes and give them some feed forward.