Report Card Comments

Report cards and comments differ from one school to another. Progress reports are a great way to monitor a student's behavioural and academic progress and highlight areas a child may need help with developing.

In some IB schools, they develop their own way of presenting teachers' report cards. Along with the IB learner profile, PYP report card comments must contain the attitude and achievements of the child.

IB teachers won't usually make comments based merely on the summative assessment, but on the overall performance of the child. Everything is taken into consideration - the Unit of Inquiry's formative assessment, rubrics, attitude, profile and more. This includes subject specialist report cards comments like Math and other disciplines.

Being an IB teacher isn't an easy job, it needs a lot of passion, enthusiasm and non subjectivity, especially when it comes to writing a progress report for a child. The days are long gone, when a teacher could just take a calculator and compute the students' grades.

For a small minority, completing the cards isn't a big deal - but most teachers generally dread report writing time. Completing the comment sections can be time consuming - especially if you have twenty students in your class to get through. Checking through discrepancies for a large class can cost the teacher time and a ranting from the parents, if things aren't satisfactory. Teachers who have less than fifteen students in their class can obviously ease the process and increase communicating the reports to the parents.

Tips For Report Card Comment Writing:

1. Decide on a progressive portfolio for your class. It will help you to look back on what the child has done from when you introduced the unit or topic until the summative assessment.
2. Keep the class learning expectations and take it as your base when writing a comment. Give a degree of mastery of the expectations and provide the next step that the child should take to continue achieving.
3. Be honest with your comments. Highlight the progress and achievements that the child made and throw a positive light on any negative comments.

Teachers are not alone during the report writing period.The students of the class face some anxiety as do the Parents. They are usually as nervous as their child - especially when they received the report card during Parents Teachers Meeting.There can also be some discrepancies between what is written in the report card, and the behaviour the parents witness at home. During PTM - especially at elementary level - there are mixed emotions. Parents should realize that some students attitudes or learning styles differ from what they show in the classroom.

Here Are Some Suggestions For Parents:

• Ask your child a question about his/her report card comments (Why did your teacher say this comment about you?) Parents should ask this question for either positive or negative feedback.
• During Parents Teachers Meeting, discuss both positive and negative comments in the progress report card.
• If the comment is not good, ask the teacher for some advice as to what you can do at home to improve your child's learning skills.
• Be Proactive with your child's school performance.

When a Teacher and a parent work together to achieve a common goal, problems including learning disabilities or behavioral problems will be addressed sooner and everyone will benefit.