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Plays well with others

Parent24 Editor, Scott Dunlop
Parent24 Editor, Scott Dunlop
Remember how it felt to be appointed courier on that last day of school? Carrying home the formal Manila envelope with what was possibly the WORST (or the best, because not everyone was like me!) news of the year? There were times I wanted to hide the scribbled comments and percentages away, although my parents always supportive of me. Now that my own kids are the postmen of their doom, I wonder how they feel about their reports. How important are those marks out of 10 or 100 and the comments written next to them?

Now that I reread my old reports, I wonder if my teachers knew me at all: “Scott has no understanding of the basic concepts of arithmetic” is a favourite, but that was true. “Scott is making a vast improvement with Latin”, when I’d attained a fairly pathetic 45% - not so much. “Scott is polite and considerate” (except when he’s up the tree behind the tennis courts, smoking).

I guess it’s difficult for teachers to express something original about each child. Perhaps they shouldn’t feel the need to say anything, unless it’s necessary. As a secure parent, I don’t really need to hear how polite or friendly my child is. Then again, my kids enjoy hearing the praise. All I want to know is if there’s a genuine problem or obvious difficulty.

Reports these days, as far as I can see, are more designed to highlight problems and praise achievements, thank goodness!

I always make an effort to praise my kids and encourage them to do better in the areas where they can improve, and they seem to be okay with their reports. I don’t want them feeling anxiety about having to bring them home. Some parents make a huge deal out of reports, while, for others, report cards don’t matter much. Even important comments go ignored.

Here are some actual report card comments I saw on a “joke” site which I hope your kids never get:
  • Since my last report, your child has hit rock bottom and has started to dig.
  • Your child has delusions of adequacy.
  • Your child is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
  • Your son sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
  • If this student were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
Thank goodness the teachers of today are more focused on practical remarks- Let the old, scary report card days be gone, I say!

Tell us your strangest or funniest report card story, and you could win a R250 kalahari.com voucher. Send us an email to chatback@parent24.com and you could be the lucky winner!

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