Report Writing – Formal vs Informal

Why do we write student reports? Formal reports that is. And print them out in most cases. On paper. To be filed away and never used for anything useful except to reflect upon when we’re older.

Gone are the days when a report from your teacher was an important document to help you get some ‘real’ paid work. So what is the purpose of the reports we do?

Feedback to parents of their childrens’ progress? That’s a legitimate need, but can it be done quicker and easier? And is a ‘formal’ report necessary? Individual and ongoing email communication with parents is far more genuine and individualised, and easily tracked. Or electronic portfolios of work, which can show in much more detail to parents and potential employers just what the student is capable of.

Here are some absolutely crazy things which occur at schools during the report writing process:

COMMENT WRITING
Teachers struggle to write comments because they are either not focused on individuals outside of the grades they are achieving – in which case the parents aren’t going to learn anything new from the comment – or the teacher is not a gifted writer and does not thrive on writing as a form of expression. There are many other reasons I’m sure, and copying and pasting generic comments works but is kind of cheap in my opinion. I still do this myself but I try to be as genuine and personal as possible.

There are usually about 5 or 6 generic student profiles/types which means you only have to write 5 or 6 actual full comments. The hard bit is personalising them which I do by commenting on a specific situation involving that student where possible. Without regular interaction with a student you don’t have much hope of writing a decent comment for them.

Comments on a formal report are hard to be original in writing but if you talk with a parent in person you can often demonstrate a deeper knowledge of their child which is far more reassuring than a lightly personalised comment.

PROOF READING
Teachers are usually expected to have a buddy who reads their reports and checks them with a number of things in mind : spelling, grammar, punctuation, copy/paste errors, proper formal style, and whether the comment matches the grades and learning attitude indicators.

That’s not the crazy bit, though it does seem a little over the top considering what most people use their school reports for, and who will actually read them. A quick email with a few errors accomplishes everything we are trying to achieve with school reports!

The crazy bit is when 50% or more of the reports are not up to the exacting formal standard and are returned for correction. This means that yet another layer of proof readers has gone through the checking process. Why did the first one even happen?

Checking (yourself), rechecking (buddy proof reading), and then re-rechecking (as the deans put the final report together).

With an email which accomplishes exactly the same, you have just yourself to check and it serves the purpose fine. We don’t even have this level of checking for testimonials which actually matter in the “real” world.

Imagine the amount of time which could be saved, and the far higher quality of communication that would occur, if we scrapped formal reports but insisted upon one email conversation per student per term…

SIGNING REPORTS
The Deans and Principals of schools (and sometime Form Teachers) like to read the comments and reports before signing. Great. Wonderful thing to do.

Unfortunately, when there is a deadline for reports to go out, and when too many reports require fixing after the proof reading fail, there is little time to read. Lately, all that can be done is a quick signature to complete the “formal” image which is somehow so important…

DELIVERING REPORTS
An actual document which is printed, folded, and signed – on special paper even – has already taken a lot of time to produce (beyond the actual writing that is). Then it has to be delivered to the parents, often through the hands of the students themselves. The good students are happy enough but the students with reports to hide will often rip out sections or just not deliver the reports home.

Deans spend time either posting reports or chasing up parents via other lines of communication to ensure the document arrived. Surely a simple email password is enough protection considering how insecure a paper report is?

OVERALL
Comparing the effort with the gains from the effort… is it worth it to write formal reports? No… Or is it? Maybe it’s a lot like the parent interview situation.