Most parents find their child’s report cards confusing and uninformative. That is what nearly all the parents that I interviewed for my research told me. In fact, it was the one thing that every parent talked about – how they couldn’t get the information they needed from report cards.
I could go on for ages about problems with report cards, about the home/school worker who told parents not to believe what teachers wrote, about how teachers try to soften the blow of telling parents that their child is not doing too well, and how parents don’t understand this way of thinking and writing… and, in later posts, I probably will.
But today I want to tell you about an initiative in Ontario, Canada. The school system has decided to make report cards easier for parents to understand and has told teachers not to use letter grades, but to use these phrases to describe a child’s progress;
‘making excellent progress’
‘making reasonable progress’
‘making progress with difficulty’
These phrases seem OK to me, except that I think the phrase ‘not making progress’ should be included on the list. It was the rest of the article that had me wondering if these changes would make a difference
In the article the representative from the school district spoke about having to deal with parents who expected their children to get A’s – presumably these children were ‘making excellent progress’ – and who got upset and worried when their child got less than an A and wanted to know what the problem was.
I know that parents are often surprised when the get their child’s report card. Many parents of children who have been getting good reports are upset and concerned when their child suddenly gets a poor report. And it shouldn’t happen.
I don’t mean that poor reports should not happen, I mean that parents should not be surprised. Teachers should have told parents that that were concerned about a child’s progress long before it comes to report writing. Then parents could do something to help their child. As one parent put it ‘By the time we get the report cards is can be too late to rectify the situation’.
I have known parents think that all was well with their child for years until they got a report that stated that their child was not learning as well as they expected. Is this poor reporting by teachers? Probably, but the problem still exists.
I suppose that you can’t expect teachers to keep parents more informed about their child’s progress when they have 30 or more student- although I know some who do, and do it well. So, it is up to you to make sure you get the information you need. Do not assume that all is well with your child’s education, keep in touch with your child’s teacher, find ways of fostering home/school communication.
You should never be surprised by the reports your child brings home. Your child’s teacher should have forewarned you so that you could do something about it
