Your child’s report card: do you know the code?

Very soon your child will be getting his end of year report card, possibly the most important of all the year’s report cards. But will you understand what it says, will you understand the code?

About 80% of parents never fully understand their child’s report card. In all my dealings with parents talking report cards (and to a slightly lesser extent, parent-teacher conferences) creates a very lively discussion. For most parents the report card is the main means of knowing what their child is doing in school, but very few of them actually get the information they need and want.

The main reason is that report cards are written in code. Teachers, stressed st having to write thirty or more report cards make the task manageable by using words and phrases that are meaningful to them but make no sense to parents.

For instance, teachers may be instructed to tell parents whether or not their child has ‘achieved the acceptable standard’ for the year.

What does that mean?

Whose acceptable standard?
An acceptable standard in what?
How has this been achieved?
Why is the child’s work only ‘acceptable’?
What ‘acceptable’ work are we talking about?

This is just one example of how teachers use code in report cards. The classic one is a standard, if old, joke in classrooms across the world. You know the one. The one that says ‘Your child is trying’.

For parents is may mean that their child is working hard and doing his best, for teachers is was (is?) code for ‘I wish your child would stop bugging me!’

I know that teachers don’t normally use code words on purpose. It is just that using them makes writing report cards easier, and sometimes they are even directed what code words to use. These words and phrases have meaning for teachers, and teachers think that they mean the same to you.

So, when you get your child’s report card look for the code words. They are not hard to miss. Then make sure that you contact the teacher to find out exactly what they meant to say and get them to say it in words that you understand.

You need to know what your child is doing in school, don’t be put off by ‘teacher code’.