Any KS1 teachers? or parents with KS1 children

I work in a school and I have a Year 2 child.His report this year was very similar.Set sentences on what he'd acheived which were identical to the other pupils.But the teacher had put in about 3 comments which were personal to him, and showed me he really had got to know Cameron.

But yes, as parents we were disappointed how universal the reports were.The entire class got "has good mouse control but needs to improve keyboard skills" including the ICT whizzes who know their way around a keyboard blindfolded.

I teach juniors, but the same applies. We have a generic statement..."This year in History, Billy has been studying the tudors..." etc, then a sentence about that child, "he has taken a great interest in all of our history topics, particularly the Tudors."

Sometimes, there's not always something to say for everything...I tend to pick out three or four subjects for a positive comment and one or two for a "room for improvement" comment.

Your comments could be mine. My son got his report on Friday and it is so generic and boring. Even in the personal and social comments there seems to be little about his personality and I could be reading about any child. As another teacher I realise that we get tuned into what is a prepared bank of statements but just one thing that is personal to my son would be fantastic - even if it's to say what a little **** he is!

I also want to talk to them about whether he is going to continue to receive additional support as he has done for reading this year and if so, why I've not seen his IEP - don't you just love the parents who are teachers and know the systems!

This is exactly what I do too.

Our reports were awful this year! They spoke a bit about their English, maths and how they are within class...but then the rest of the report listed what they'd looked at during the year then with two columns, one for attainment and one for effort, they'd put a + if they'd done really well, = if they'd just done ok and - if they needed improving. Whilst it might be alright it was difficult to take in. Personally I preferred it when it was all written out.

My son is in Year 2 and his report last year was pretty much how you described - very bland and generic.

This year's report was much more detailed with comments about his work, where he had done well, where he needs to improve, what he enjoys etc. I put it down to this year's teacher being much better ?.

ours are great - they must put a lot of effort into them

for literacy, numeracy, welsh and science they have a big paragraph on how they are doing then any targets that need extra work

for the other subjects dt, it, history, geography, art , music,pe,re and pshe they have the targets for their age then if they need support, work at appropriate level or exceed level

then there is another big paragraph of teachers comments and recommendations

plus we have a slip we can send back in if we want a meeting to go over any areas of it in more detail

i realise we are really lucky now

This is exactly the format ours take, and yes, a lot of effort IS put in. However, I'm fairly certain that you'll find that EVERY teacher puts a lot of effort in when it comes to reports, whatever the agreed format. They take HOURS, all of which have to be done around school hours, so evenings and weekends mainly.

I hate report writing software/statement banks, they are useless. We write all our reports from scratch and they are very individual to the child. Yes they take hours, but quite frankly if as a teacher you can't demonstrate your in depth knowledge of every child by the end of a school year then it's a very poor show imo. Legally you should be offered the opportunity to discuss your child's report with their teacher so if you haven't been offered, make sure you ask.

From Bird, who has written individual reports for 15 years and never used a statement bank?

P.S. I'm taking primary here btw, can't speak fro secondary reports before anyone jumps down my throat?

I'm a Year 1 teacher and have done reports for a class of 30 - it does take HOURS.

However, even though we use Report Assist which does produce generic statements, I try to put in individual comments about most of the subjects, especially what the child is really good at, or really needs to improve on.

And we have a general comments bit at the end, which we wrote freehand, so that it was personalized. I wish we had loads of time to do them all properly and individually written, but you would need about 3 weeks off school to do that for a class of 30. It's such a mammoth task.

I'm intrigued now. I got my son's report (reception) last week, and from what you have written (and a couple of comments from other parents) I suspect that the teacher has used statement banks. I don't have a problem with that as such (I remember my mum writing reports 20 years ago, and how much time it took), but there isn't any specific comments that are definitely him rather than ANOther child. I have asked for an appointment to discuss his report, so will ask for examples of the work he's enjoyed this year (I get absolutely no feedback from him at all!), and hopefully get a better idea of his areas of strength and weakness.

This is the exact reason we have done away with computerised statements. We use a very simple format now which gives a number for effort and A- Average, AA- Above Average and BA for Below Average for attainment.

We then write a short paragraph about the child. All are done from the teachers point of view - no computerised statements. Our parents prefer it.

My daughter report sounds similar to the one you have had. I know the teacher has just clicked on comments to imput into the report, it could have been a number of childrens reports.

My stepson is a older, but last year when he was in year 6, his report had a different boys name in it twice, a friend who has a child at the same school had the same problem.

It didn't seem as if the report was tailed to the child just cut and pasted!

I know it is probably a long process to write the reports, but you wait all year for it and then are a bit disapointed!