Our aim is that any report should remain 'active', should produce a dialogue between home and school and should, as appropriate, generate a plan of how best to support each child in the future. We have therefore adopted the cycle outlined below.
Michaelmas Summary Report – Michaelmas Half Term
To provide you with an early picture of how your child has settled in the new academic year, a summary report is sent out shortly after Half Term in the Michaelmas Term. The report is collated by the child’s Tutor or Form Teacher from internal written reports by all the child’s teachers. As with all written reports, the rule is that it should contain no unpleasant shocks or surprises because we should already have discussed any worries with you.
[Parents of the few pupils who may leave at 11+ also receive reports on their child’s English and Mathematics 'Mock' Examination results and there is an 11+ leavers’ Parents’ evening to discuss the children’s results.]
6th Form Parents’ Evening - End of Michaelmas Term
The 6th Form children take their Mock exams at the end of the Michaelmas Term and a meeting is held at the very end of term at which teachers meet with parents and children to discuss the results and make any necessary plans for the future.
Lent Term Reviewing and Reporting – Early Lent
When we arrive at the beginning of the Lent term, we undertake a full ‘internal’ review of each child in the school, drawing together all information gathered since the last review and again deciding upon any action that needs to be taken, as appropriate.
Following the internal review, two kinds of reporting take place in the first weeks of the Lent term:
Parent Review meetings KG-Form 3
At the end of the Michaelmas Term, parents of children in KG-3 are invited to send us their own ‘review’ of their child’s progress and welfare. Subsequent to our internal review, extended and detailed ‘face to face’ meetings are arranged for parents, with the children’s main teacher/s, to review children’s work and general welfare and to plan for the remainder of the year.
Written reports for Forms 4-6
In the older year groups, where children are more ‘subject taught’, it is not so easy for a single member of staff to report on all aspects of a child’s progress, so we provide written reports for Forms 4-6. The written report invites a parental response and any concerns arising from this response are followed up in the course of the first half of the Lent term.
In the older age groups, our concern is to foster the children’s growing independence and to encourage them to feel responsible for their own learning. To this end, in addition to the general pastoral monitoring and care to which the tutors devote so much time, we introduce some timetabled individual slots where a child and a tutor can sit down together to review things and to make plans. As children get older, a reporting system in which we write to parents, who then communicate our views to their children, seems somewhat indirect so, while we keep parents fully informed of their child’s progress, we believe that it makes sense also to talk to children more directly about such things.
Parent meetings for Forms 4-6
At the end of the Lent Term, Parents’ evenings take place for Forms 4-6, providing an opportunity for parents and children to discuss progress with a child’s subject teachers.
Summer End of Year Report
The annual cycle is deliberately designed to provide more communication with home in the first half of the academic year. The aim is to ensure that all is well and that all is known to be well or that, where necessary, any action to support a child has been planned and is followed through as early in the year as possible.
While we keep parents fully informed of any concerns, should they arise, the final formal piece of communication will arrive after the year is over in an End of Year written report for each child in the school. The End of Year Report forms the basis of the transfer of pupils between staff for the forthcoming year, offers parents an opportunity to respond in writing with any concerns and so begins the next year's cycle.
