Having hung up my whiteboard pens earlier this year in order to readdress the balance between work and life, I’ve begrudgingly found myself falling into what I term “The Parent Trap” when it came to the end-of-term reports.
The Parent Trap is the inevitable black hole of an obsession with my own child’s progress from a well-experienced educational perspective. I’ve been on both sides of this and I know many others who will relate to this phenomenon too.
To help me tell this story, please meet two characters: “Greater Depth” Debbie, and “Working Towards” Tony.
The Parent Trap is the difference on parents’ evening between spending a breezy 10 minutes chatting about Debbie with her nurse mother and admin assistant father versus the ten-minute-long professional hot coal walk of a dialogue with Tony and his ITT lecturer mother and deputy head father.
I’ve sat on both sides of the table. As a parent to a Tony, I’ve endeavoured to raise queries with emotional intelligence. I’ve no intention of reducing the recently qualified teacher before me into a stuttering, sweaty mess, nor do I wish to see Mrs June flap with her papers and repeat how well he gets on with others.
After all, that is how I’d like to be treated and I’ve been pretty proud of my efforts to date. I have, however, fallen into the black hole this July. Perhaps the absence of an opportunity to question further pushed me over the edge when reading his end-of-term report.
Again, I’ve been on both sides of this. I don’t want to write or read the equivalent of an undergraduate dissertation on a child, not even my own. I do, however, want to see that his teacher has a holistic view of my child. I’m all for shading in some boxes. They get the job done. He is always sensitive to others and usually pays attention. I’m glad he’s “usually” listening and not just “sometimes”: that’s progress from Reception. His English and maths comments reflect the past two parents’ evening conversations and it’s lovely to see the back page where he’s written about what he enjoys, notably cinema club and maths.
My Tony is not exactly doing the backstroke through the 2014 curriculum. As an August-born boy (yes, you’d think we’d have timed it better), he is a walking statistic. This is what leads me to my disappointment. The non-core section of his report has clearly been copied and pasted for every child in his year. It discusses over nearly an A4 side the coverage in each topic, which I already know because I read the topic sheets each half term. Nothing in it is at all specific to my child. No celebration of his acute interest in science or history. Nothing that celebrates his gymnastic ability. Nothing that indicates attainment in any subject area.
As a teacher, I always found report writing a skill. A steady balance of succinct narrative as well as a gracious insight into the child as a knowledgeable outsider. This year, after a change in curriculum and a change in leadership, my child’s report seems flat. A half report. A narrow insight discussing that which the school is now most interested in: cores and scores. A report is, by definition, an insight into what you observe, hear, do or investigate.
Is the narrow report a reflection of the narrow curriculum or worse were they simply not watching? I don’t suppose Debbie’s family even noticed.
The writer is a former teacher in England
