Staff Guidance for Subject Reports 19_20 .pdf

1. Staff Guidance on Report
Writing

2. Aims of Reporting System
● To provide personal and positive reports that reflect the school’s ethos
● To ensure reports are individual and meaningful for each student with relevant and
achievable goals linked to skills
● To increase parental engagement and support of student at home
● To achieve uniformity in quality of reports across subjects and staff
● To improve the clarity and effectiveness of this form of communication with parents
and students

3. Mindset around reporting
Need to get back to basics and change our
perspective and attitudes around reports and
their purpose
Previously incorrectly seen as summative and
with little impact or further actions
Must be seen as valuable feedback tool for
students and parents, equally as important as
Parents’ Evening
Realise it is a vital opportunity to communicate
with parents and garner their support to improve
academic performance and ATL

4. Allocating the ATL Grade
The grade descriptors on the next slide should be used to make an overall judgement. Two descriptors
met will see that grade awarded to the student. In line with the school ethos, having high aspirations and
high expectations for all students, we would expect staff to award the grades fairly regardless of ability,
background or previous outcomes. The grades should not be awarded on a comparative basis; they are
designed to reflect the individual and that fact that all students can achieve Outstanding.
We would expect almost all students to at least receive good or outstanding in most if not all categories. If
a student is awarded satisfactory for all categories we would expect the teacher to have already flagged
up this student with the HOD; they may already be on subject report/ homework report or other
interventions/ tools.
If a teacher grades any category for an individual student as ‘Requires Improvement’ the parents should
have been notified previously and they, along with HOD and form tutor, should be actively intervening. The
narrative report if written, should comment upon progress made in the light of the intervention.

5. Allocating the ATL Grade
Apply Always, Usually, Sometimes, Rarely to descriptors to award Excellent, Good, Below Our Expectations, Cause for Concern
Descriptors are designed to ensure they are awarded based on the individual, not comparatively, thus making them SEND
friendly and adhering to our school ethos of inclusivity, dignity and aspiration.

6. Written Reports
Written comments -
❖ Must reflect school ethos and values
❖ Should be positive
❖ Should provide targets/next steps and how to achieve these
❖ Should not mention either behaviour or attendance as this is covered by the ATL and attendance
data
❖ Should not talk about what has been covered in class or the curriculum programme of study

7. Written Reports
● Write the report as three to four sentences, not bullet points.
● As the limit of 350 characters includes spaces, single space after all punctuation and be specific in
what you write
● Remember to spell check your reports
● Meet the deadline set
● Use full name that is on Go4schools
● Make sure the sentences link and the report has a logical flow.
● It is still only 200 characters – the 350 was introduced as staff found it more time consuming trying to
reduce the report length than actually writing it.
● 1000 characters appears when it is a character report. The expectation for subjects remains the same.
● Make sure the comments reflect the book, the data and the ATL

8. Written Reports
Template:
Part 1: a positive, personal comment about the student
Part 2: a target/an area they now need to focus on to move their learning on
Part 3: how they can go about working on this area for improvement
Part 4 (optional): where they can access resources to help

9. Written Reports
Sample reports:

10. Primary Written Reports
Primary reports will include the same strands of content as secondary such as:
● a positive, personal comment about the student
● a target/an area they now need to focus on to move their learning on
● how they can go about working on this area for improvement
However these will be produced in a different format. See examples on the next two slides.

11. Primary Written Reports - Example 1:
Molly is a happy, helpful and sociable member of the class with a lovely attitude to school. It has been really nice to see her confidence increase over the school year, as
she benefits from having greater belief in her abilities. She is extremely conscientious producing work to be really proud of. Molly works with enthusiasm and is starting to
more regularly contribute to class discussions.
Molly clearly enjoys reading and talks with enthusiasm when talking about the books she has read. She uses her understanding of characters, settings and events in
other stories to make predictions. It would be nice to see Molly using more expression in her voice as I know she is very capable and needs to now build up the
confidence to be able to do this.
Molly enjoys any opportunity she has to write. She has a great imagination and has produced some excellent creative writing this year. She has shown signs of using
capital letters, full stops, exclamation marks, question marks and commas for lists, but at times needs to be reminded to use these in her written work. Molly should make
use of the word banks that are available to her and check her work for mistakes and missing capital letters or punctuation marks. She really needs to apply her phonics
into her spelling as this is holding her back from making the progress she should be with her writing.
Molly generally understands new concepts well and knows the appropriate time to ask for help if she gets stuck. Molly has grown in confidence this year and now has the
self-belief to have a go and not worry if she gets things wrong. She can compare and order lengths, mass, volume/capacity and records the results using >, < and =.
Molly now needs to be able to link her learning together to know the right operation to use in problem solving activities. She needs to remember that when doing problem
solving questions that we learn from our mistakes and be more determined to work more independently on these using a range of resources and strategies to support
her.
Over the course of the year, Year 2 have experienced a variety of activities in PE. These have included: Dance, Gymnastics, Ball skills, Team building and Fitness. They
have been encouraged to show balance and control when moving and practising their skills as well as showing sportsmanship.
In Music Year 2 have been learning lots of new songs this year and have been learning how to perform them on the glockenspiel. They can play and sing at the same
time and have all performed a solo of these songs to the class. They have also learnt about high and low notes, and are starting to understand how music notes show us
when the music gets higher or lower.
In Spanish this year we have learned how to describe our eyes and hair in simple sentences, learned about the seasons, different clothes we might wear, opposite words
and different animals and their habitats. The children have continued to learn through song and continue to be enthusiastic. Muy bien!

12. Primary Written Reports - Example 2:
Marley works exceptionally hard, is extremely conscientious, and produces work to be really proud of. He has a high level of independent working skills and is a good
team member, making valuable contributions and supporting others. Marley has a well-developed imagination and a perceptive understanding of the world around us. He
has a positive attitude towards all aspects of his school work, and sets a superb example. He is always helpful and willing to undertake jobs around the classroom.
Marley talks with enthusiasm about aspects of books and says why he likes them. He has progressed well with his reading this year. He uses phonic knowledge to
attempt unknown words when texts he is faced with are challenging and shows an understanding of the elements of stories, including main character, sequence of
events, openings and endings. Marley is using fantastic expression when reading and it's always lovely listening to Marley read. He must now work on his expression
appropriate to the grammar, e.g. pausing at full stops and raising voice at questions as sometimes he forgets.
Marley has developed as a writer this year and can confidently apply the range of techniques that he has learnt. He writes familiar stories including relevant details that
sustain the reader or listeners interests. Now Marley needs to edit as he writes to ensure that he has not missed out words or inadvertently changed tense or indeed
made careless errors.
Marley is talented with his Maths work. He has had a solid grasp of almost all the concepts we have covered this year and has achieved them to a high degree. Marley
solves problems involving multiplication and division, using materials, arrays, repeated addition, mental methods, and multiplication and division facts, including problems
in contexts. Marley now needs to work logically when faced with problem solving and challenge activities. He needs to read questions carefully and understand the
importance of doing this and remember that sometimes there are two steps to a problem.
Over the course of the year, Year 2 have experienced a variety of activities in PE. These have included: Dance, Gymnastics, Ball skills, Team building and Fitness. They
have been encouraged to show balance and control when moving and practising their skills as well as showing sportsmanship.
In Music Year 2 have been learning lots of new songs this year and have been learning how to perform them on the glockenspiel. They can play and sing at the same
time and have all performed a solo of these songs to the class. They have also learnt about high and low notes, and are starting to understand how music notes show us
when the music gets higher or lower.
In Spanish this year we have learned how to describe our eyes and hair in simple sentences, learned about the seasons, different clothes we might wear, opposite words
and different animals and their habitats. The children have continued to learn through song and continue to be enthusiastic. Muy bien!