Report Card Madness
I know I’ve blown my post a week goal – but as always everything hits at once. PD days, Teacher’s Convention, Read Around the Planet (I’m co-ordinating 9 classes for that one… I’ll let you know how it turns out next week), and of course – Report Cards.
Report Cards – the most dreaded of all teacher duties (with winter supervision being a close second). For those of you who work on your reports all term, and hand them in early with a smile on your face… you’re the bane of my existence. Every term I try to do that – I have it all planned out – get my mark books all laid out… and before I know it I’m a week late with my cards!
This is a very stressful time of year, and one that pushes new teachers quite often to the breaking point. As SIS (student information system) coach for my school I’m inundated with e-mail and phone calls asking for help. Quite often it’s not even a question about the software, but about how to approach report cards – get them started, and how much (or how little) individualization is needed.
The short answer – ask your Principal what they want. Personally I always approach report cards the same way. I write four general comments for each unit – one for each “grade” – A, B, C, & D. These are usually paragraphs with curricular objectives explicitly stated. Here’s an example of my grade six Sky Science A comment:
This term ^Name has explored the wonders of the universe in our Sky Science unit. ^He/She has a firm understanding of how the rotation of celestial bodies cause phenomenon such as the seasons and phases of the moon, and can correctly predict these occurrences by examining their positions in relation to the Earth. ^Name can also identify different types of celestial bodies (e.g. planets, stars, comets, moons) and tell if they emit or reflect light. ^He/She also completed a research project based on a planet of ^his/her choice, and was able to describe in detail what made ^his/her planet different from the others in our solar system. Finally, ^Name looked at how technology was used in the past, and is being used today, to further our knowledge of space. ^He/She can easily identify the differences between telescopes (both orbital and terrestrial), shuttles, satellites, and probes, as well as the advantages of each one.
I then can go back and tweak the qualifiers to fit the individual student. I often use this handy list my staff came up with years ago – it makes it easy to find the “right word”. As thorough as this approach is – it makes for LONG report cards. And really – who is going to read all that. Especially when I usually teach around 10 different unit (in different subject) each term? My report cards are 3 – 4 pages long! Great for another teacher who wants to see what a child is doing – but lets face it most parents (and most teachers) won’t invest the time to read that novel. They’ll look at the mark and effort score and move on. So why do all the work?
However the other extreme doesn’t work well either. What does “A pleasure to have in class” really tell anyone? I think that’s almost a bigger waste of time and paper then my long winded reports. So my question this week is this (you knew I had to get there eventually…) How do you do report cards? What do you think is valuable and what isn’t needed?
Oh – for the record – for the first time in my teaching career I handed my report cards in 2 1/2 hours early! Granted I was still the second last one in the school – but that’s besides the point.
I have a couple thoughts on report cards. First of all, I think they should be useful documents. By that I mean they should inform parents and other teachers “in a nutshell” how the student is doing for that term. I do not think they should be a listing of all the curriculum outcomes – if you want to know those, there are other documents for that! But, I think they should briefly touch on the basics covered in each topic and how the student did on each. I create one basic comment for each subject and change the qualifying words to individualize for each student. I think it is also very important to comment on the “whole student” which is under the personal growth and development section for our school board. This is the chance to personalize the most and look for growth in non-academic abilities which really make each child a stronger learner. I was appalled when I heard that many schools were dropping that comment. The second quandry I have about report cards is how to mark special needs students. I have the same philosophical discussion in my head every time I have to write the reports. Should I mark them according to their program goals, or should I mark them against provincial norms? I feel bad when I have a student that makes amazing growth, yet still only achieves average or below average for their grade level, and then all they get is a “C” on their report card. I feel it doesn’t represent them fairly. But then, I don’t want to give teachers the wrong impression the following year when they take over my students and don’t realize “how” I was grading them. I’ve come up with giving them grades on provincial norms on their reports, but really being personal and pointing out their growth on their program plans. I, like all other teachers, know how much work report cards can be. We all strive to put as much as possible into them so we can communicate as many things as we can in such a short document. It is so difficult to summarize a student for who they are within the guidelines. I think report cards need to be the best balance between the need for information and the reality of time and effort available.