This term is already going by so quickly! It feels like yesterday that we were coming back in after the December break.
However, already there are only three weeks left in this half-term. That’s no time at all. Since September, I have often thought that the year seems to go by so much more quickly. Now that I am a teacher, I see the year in chunks. Months and weeks are no longer a thing, it is half-terms, terms or academic years. In no time at all it will be the exam period and then the end of my first year as a teacher.
At the start of this week I was off school ill. This is something that I found hard to adjust to. Teaching is one of those jobs where you know your students rely on you to learn and it is always disappointing when you cannot be there to support them.
Getting back into school after illness can be somewhat tricky too. You may need to recap any tricky topics that the students need to have a thorough understanding of. You also need to catch up with things that you have missed while away. Often even being off school for one day can double your workload when you get back in.
I think this is why many teachers feel guilty when they are off school. I think that as teachers we all feel that we always have something important to do and that delaying these jobs will just make school harder the next day. I found myself doing school work even when I was off ill.
This week sees the second round of school reports. I am fortunate in that the group I am writing comments for is quite small and so I do not have 25-plus reports to write. Having said that, this is my first time writing reports independently. I feel a little bit nervous about this and I am sure I will ask someone in the department to give them a check-over before I hit send.
I am thinking hard about how to structure these reports and what other information to include. Previously when writing reports I have been paired with another teacher – in reality they wrote the reports while I just observed to see the expectations.
I think this part of teaching is something that the training year doesn’t particularly prepare you for. You get guidance on how to teach, be a form tutor, marking books and even extra-curricular activities, but I don’t think the training year really helps you with some of the administrative aspects of being a teacher.
In the end, I am approaching the report-writing by following some key rules. Most importantly, I am attempting to make each report as personal as possible.
Everyone remembers getting their school report years ago, when you would read through the comments and there would be that inevitable misplaced or incorrect use of “his/her” from a bodged copy and paste job.
I know that in-depth individual comments are not always possible for every report – but as I only have a small number to write I want to aim for this.
Next, I am ensuring that I start the reports with something positive that the students have done over the last term. This could be effort in lessons, quality of classwork or even controlled assessment. I will then follow this with a comment that could be considered formative – something that can help the students to improve in lessons and help them achieve the grade they deserve. I will also include a comment about the recent mock exams that the students had in December.
So hopefully the reports will give a rounded view of how students are currently working in school and some comments that can help parents to support the learning of their child. Now time to finish off these reports...
- SecEd’s NQT diarist this year is a teacher of science from a school in the Midlands.