Are you writing Reports in Term 4? One leader's view!

It's that time of year again and I know you're also wondering... Where has the year gone? Every year seems to go by faster!

We are back into the business end for teachers, term four - which usually means - REPORT WRITING! 

This is the time when teachers gather and collate many of their final summative assessments for the year, collect up evidence of student voice and sit down to pen end of year achievement reports. Term four typically sees teacher input hours outside of contact time escalate, whole rooms at home get taken over by children's folders, work samples, modelling books, portfolios and the like, while the need for family support also escalates concurrently! We know this is a snowball about to tip of the edge of the mountain, and gain momentum. Therefore teachers need to utilise all of their personal organisational and self managment skills to carry them through the next few extremely busy weeks ahead. 

Every year we seem to review our report writing protocols in order to maintain consistency. And every year we have a small few who challenge our vision or philosophy on report writing! I think challenges keep us alert to what is truly important, and change is inevitable as we learn and grow across time.

The recent changes that include the difficult process for teachers to report using plain language has been an interesting challenge, one we constantly face as teachers constantly use jargon in their professional world. There is a useful link here on TKI that helps us to remember in particular who our audience is when we write a report and write for that audience.  

I believe consistency is essential for teachers to moderate comments, as well as to provide parents and learners with reports they can trust as part of the evidence of their learning. Teachers owe it to learners to write professionally sound reports, but also for themselves to maintain both their professional integrity, and their reputation. High quality reports are evidence of professional self management,  the importance a teacher places on learning and learners and a clear understanding of their obligations as a teacher. Sloppy report writing is evidence of poor time management, lack of preparation, and a blatant disregard for a teacher's obligations to the learners in their class.

As educational leaders, I see our role here to firstly engage teachers' moral purpose. This is about supporting teachers to understand their ethical obligations within our professional systems around report writing. do they understand their commitment to both the learners in their class and to their parents/whanau? Report writing is a significant way for teachers to maintain professional relationships in an open, honest way. Reports allow us to give the learner and their family the respect they are entitled to by honoring their rights to high quality information about their children.  A report is a formal, long-lasting document that is re-read many times over a person's life.

We are obliged to give each and every child's report 'exceptional attention'! As Fullan, Cuttress and Kilcher (2005) claim,  this involves us all making a commitment to 'raising the bar'. 'Raising the bar' is something I expect from each and every teacher as they give exceptional attention to the reports they are about to write.

Furthermore, our leadership role will be about what Fullan et al (2005) refer to as 'building teacher capacity' to write well constructed reports. Do they understand why we expect outstanding writing standards? Do they realise our vision for excellence? Do they understand what a well written report looks like? Are we as leaders, clear about what teachers understand in this process? these are just a few of the questions we will be addressing at a report writing session in week 1 this term. As part of our process for capacity sharing and building.

Fullan, M., Cuttress, C., & Kilcher, A. (2005). 8 Forces for leaders of change. Journal of Staff Development, 26(4), 54–59.