Reporting to Parents in Primary School: Communication, Meaning ...

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Reporting to Parents in Primary School: Communication, Meaning and Learning teachers, parents and children. Fieldwork spanned the summer and autumn terms of 2007. A national online questionnaire survey of a stratified sample of primary schools (412 of 3,292) was conducted in late Autumn 2007 which sought to represent practice more broadly. It resulted in a satisfactory, if less than ideal, response rate of 45%. 0.3 Formal rEporting policiES and practicES 2. All our case study schools have clear procedures in place for reporting to parents although not all have a written policy. The questionnaire survey shows that approximately one in four schools (28%) have a written policy on the use of school reports and approximately two out of three schools (67%) have a written policy on parent-teacher meetings. 3. A school report is prepared for each child in our case study schools and sent to parents annually towards the end of the school year. They tend to follow a standard commerciallyproduced format and contain a space for a brief comment in relation to every subject of the curriculum, other aspects of learning and schooling, specifically social development, attendance, homework, and general attitude to learning. Teachers say that they draw on a wide range of information in writing their reports, from their own observations in class to results of assessments, including standardised tests, and homework. The thrust of this evidence is confirmed by the survey. Of significance in the survey however is that while 5 out of 6 schools reported that they do send written report cards to parents approximately 1 in 6 schools3 reported that they do not provide parents with a written report. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference 3 As noted above there is a margin of error associated with this estimate. Due to the lower than hoped for response the margin of error or confidence level is plus or minus 8 points. 20
Reporting to Parents in Primary School: Communication, Meaning and Learning between rural and urban schools in provision of report cards. Three out of four rural schools provide a written report card to parents whereas eleven out of twelve urban schools do so. In terms of the type of report card, approximately two out of three schools use a commercially produced report card and the remaining one third use a school produced report card. 4. Teachers and principals are very concerned to represent children’s learning positively and honestly in school reports and in meetings with parents. This is captured by the expression of one principal, ‘nothing should come as a surprise’. Teachers and principals expressed their concern of the potential negative impact on children of critical reports. They are also wary of writing down their interpretations of children in too much detail, preferring to discuss issues in faceto-face settings. Schools keep school reports for many years after pupils have left the school. Over 2 in 5 schools (43%) store report cards until the child is 21 years of age (consistent with NCCA’s 2007 assessment guidelines for schools, p. 80), one third of schools store report cards until the child has left post-primary education and one in five schools keep report cards until the child leaves primary school. 5. All six case-study schools arrange a parent-teacher meeting annually, typically in the middle of the Autumn term. One school schedules this meeting in the summer term after the school report has been sent out and this then provides a focus for the meeting. The standard format is for teachers to be available on a particular afternoon/evening and for parents to be offered a slot of about 15 minutes during which they, usually the mother, has a one-to-one meeting with the child’s teacher/or with the learning resource teacher if the child has special educational needs. Some schools are more creative in 21
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A. School Reports Reporting to Pare
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Eport card 2 Reporting to Parents i
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