Our report cards went home with the students today. Watch teachers collapse in exhaustion all over the school. Three times a year for about three weeks at a stretch report cards become my life. It's a long, tiring process that's about 50% evaluation and 50% paperwork.
The process starts, of course, with tons of marking, making sure you've got a representative series of marks in each subject so that you can average out and come up with an accurate letter grade. Multiply this by twelve subjects (three of them being math strands). Once you have a series of marks then report cards are a go.
Being this was a first term report card, the workload is somewhat heavier than later reports. You have to set up your classlist into the report card software in the computer, plus general information, standard comments for subjects like Religion, though this information will now stay in for the rest of the year. You can now slot in your first term marks into the appropriate places.
Next comes anecdotal comments for each child for each subject. Luckily computers have made this somewhat easier than it was when I was hand-writing my report cards early in my career. It's possible to do a lot of cut and paste work for students with similar achievement and work habits. In your comments for each subject you must note strengths, weaknesses and say what the next step in the student's development will be next term.
After your academics are done you need to fill in the Learning Skills area on the second page- homework habits, initiative, participation, group cooperation, problem solving skills. This section takes more time because it is quite individualized and it's not as easy to cut and paste such comments.
Lastly, you have to tally up the child's attendance and lateness record from September to November and add that in, too. Then for any student with special needs you have to check with support staff for further feedback and assorted appendices.
Hooray, at this stage, after massive proofreading that never catches all the mistakes, you're ready to put it all on disk and pass it on to the principal. These can be the most nerve-wracking days. Will your reports pass inspection? Will they be full of silly typos or errors your brain was just too fuggy to see? Will there be massive re-writes suggested? Once the principal gives her thumbs up then you need to go through her suggestion page and make any changes to the report cards she's asked for. At this stage the report cards are printed out and signed and passed back to the principal for her signature.
When your file comes back you need to photocopy all three pages of the report, make sure the originals are stapled and filed in the student's permanent record and make sure the copy goes into the proper envelopes to be sent home with the students. All parents must come in for a teacher interview in the first term, so after getting letters back from the parents saying which of the two interview days they're free and how many siblings your student has in the school to coordinate family schedules you make your way through juggling around a parent/teacher interview schedule. This must also be coordinated through the special education teachers, English as a second language teachers and French teachers. Once a schedule is worked out you need to write slips for every report card letting the parent know the date, time and location of their interview. Everything is coordinated and placed in the envelopes. You must check them twice to make sure that the right documents are in the right envelope (A Gr. 4 teacher just passed me in a panic here saying that she just got a call from a parent saying they got the wrong report card- this is embarrassing, but really easy to do when you're sorting 30+ report cards).
Being in Gr. 5, the report card procedure goes on one more step. Students in Gr. 5 and above are given their report card early so they can read their report cards and write comments on the feedback page of their reaction to their marks and their goals for improvement next term. Then reports go -home-, hooray.
Putting aside the gathering in and filing of feedback forms from the parents, re-arranging interview schedules for parents who can't make the time you selected, dealing with report card questions on the phone from parents and preparing files and work samples for Thursday and Friday's parent/teacher interviews, all one has to do is teach all day, keep up the lunch-hour Fiddler practices, mark some more and start revving up the process to start all over again for term two :).
So, as I gear up for parent/teacher interviews (which is a whole journal entry in itself :)) that are presently three days away, you'll forgive me if I go take a nap.
The process starts, of course, with tons of marking, making sure you've got a representative series of marks in each subject so that you can average out and come up with an accurate letter grade. Multiply this by twelve subjects (three of them being math strands). Once you have a series of marks then report cards are a go.
Being this was a first term report card, the workload is somewhat heavier than later reports. You have to set up your classlist into the report card software in the computer, plus general information, standard comments for subjects like Religion, though this information will now stay in for the rest of the year. You can now slot in your first term marks into the appropriate places.
Next comes anecdotal comments for each child for each subject. Luckily computers have made this somewhat easier than it was when I was hand-writing my report cards early in my career. It's possible to do a lot of cut and paste work for students with similar achievement and work habits. In your comments for each subject you must note strengths, weaknesses and say what the next step in the student's development will be next term.
After your academics are done you need to fill in the Learning Skills area on the second page- homework habits, initiative, participation, group cooperation, problem solving skills. This section takes more time because it is quite individualized and it's not as easy to cut and paste such comments.
Lastly, you have to tally up the child's attendance and lateness record from September to November and add that in, too. Then for any student with special needs you have to check with support staff for further feedback and assorted appendices.
Hooray, at this stage, after massive proofreading that never catches all the mistakes, you're ready to put it all on disk and pass it on to the principal. These can be the most nerve-wracking days. Will your reports pass inspection? Will they be full of silly typos or errors your brain was just too fuggy to see? Will there be massive re-writes suggested? Once the principal gives her thumbs up then you need to go through her suggestion page and make any changes to the report cards she's asked for. At this stage the report cards are printed out and signed and passed back to the principal for her signature.
When your file comes back you need to photocopy all three pages of the report, make sure the originals are stapled and filed in the student's permanent record and make sure the copy goes into the proper envelopes to be sent home with the students. All parents must come in for a teacher interview in the first term, so after getting letters back from the parents saying which of the two interview days they're free and how many siblings your student has in the school to coordinate family schedules you make your way through juggling around a parent/teacher interview schedule. This must also be coordinated through the special education teachers, English as a second language teachers and French teachers. Once a schedule is worked out you need to write slips for every report card letting the parent know the date, time and location of their interview. Everything is coordinated and placed in the envelopes. You must check them twice to make sure that the right documents are in the right envelope (A Gr. 4 teacher just passed me in a panic here saying that she just got a call from a parent saying they got the wrong report card- this is embarrassing, but really easy to do when you're sorting 30+ report cards).
Being in Gr. 5, the report card procedure goes on one more step. Students in Gr. 5 and above are given their report card early so they can read their report cards and write comments on the feedback page of their reaction to their marks and their goals for improvement next term. Then reports go -home-, hooray.
Putting aside the gathering in and filing of feedback forms from the parents, re-arranging interview schedules for parents who can't make the time you selected, dealing with report card questions on the phone from parents and preparing files and work samples for Thursday and Friday's parent/teacher interviews, all one has to do is teach all day, keep up the lunch-hour Fiddler practices, mark some more and start revving up the process to start all over again for term two :).
So, as I gear up for parent/teacher interviews (which is a whole journal entry in itself :)) that are presently three days away, you'll forgive me if I go take a nap.