Inside: Read to find some helpful tips to save time writing report cards and help with the stress and overwhelm of this big job.
Do you feel stressed when report card time comes around? Would you like to save time writing report cards and reduce the stress and demands on you?
I think every teacher would say yes to these questions.
There should be training on how to manage the time-burden of the reporting season for every teacher.
But unfortunately, there isn’t. And we’re left to muddle through ourselves.
But many of us dream of how we can reduce the long hours of marking and the time spent hunched over our laptop screens typing hundreds of student comments, all the while wishing we were spending time with our family instead.
Report-card-writing-season is inevitable for pretty much all teachers, but in the effort to help with this busy and demanding time for you, I want to share some ideas that have helped me.
Here are some great tips to help you with your valuable time.
You need these in your life!
How to Save time writing report cards
For many years I had let the overwhelm of report card writing take over my life.
On one occasion, I remember being so disorganised that I had left a large part of my marking until the very end. I felt so stressed!
At many other times, I would just type away on my laptop every night for weeks on end while my family sat in disapproval because they felt like I was neglecting them.
The mental energy it took to complete the marking, then type all of the report comments for multiple weeks would be so draining. It would then continue when I went to bed, with the thoughts of each child in my care plaguing my mind and keeping me up half the night.
Insomnia set in due to the stress of being overworked.
Do you have this problem too?
Working late into the night is not good for anyone and it certainly doesn’t help to promote a happy home life.
(Please read my post called 5 Easy Ways to Reduce Teacher Stress. It discusses the effects of chronic stress and how to reduce this load on your body. See if you are impacted by this too).
Enough was enough! I had to make some changes.
So, over time, I taught myself tricks to be more organised and learn from my mistakes.
I also listened closely to other teachers and how they worked smarter at reporting time, hoping that I could become more productive with my time.
I now use these strategies regularly to help reduce the burden of this time-intensive task each semester.
Tips to save time writing report cards
1. Start Early
Starting early in the reporting term is key!
This sounds obvious, but being organised enough to start as soon as possible is what will make all the difference.
I promise you!
2. Be up-to-date with assessment marking
This also sounds obvious.
Make sure that you keep up-to-date with all marking of your student’s assessment, as best as you can be.
This will help reduce the size of the task. (I’m talking about last term’s assessment marking here).
Make sure this is done by the end of the term or over the holidays. Don’t carry this load over into the new term.
Many of my colleagues are very good at this keeping their making up-to-date.
I see them grading assessments, as soon as the students finish or the day of completion. Great Tip!
Personally, it’s not my strength. I’m can be a procrastinator at times.
This reminds me of a time when I was sitting at home on the bed in my home office. I felt so overwhelmed looking at the large piles of unmarked student assessment that sat all around me. I felt sick to my stomach at the job ahead of me, but I knew I was the only one that could do the work – I had created the problem from my disorganization and procrastination, so I just had to push through it. And this was all before I could even start writing reporting comments. Yuck!!
Lesson learned.
Don’t do what I did- it’s not fun!
It definitely increases the stress and makes reporting time a much bigger job than it needs to be.
You don’t want to add to your stress. Take my word for it. So…keep the marking up-to-date!
3. Begin in a word or google drive document
If you can start writing your comment into an excel or word document this will definitely have you more organised well before reporting is officially opened in your school software.
I got this tip from other really organised teachers, who had shared this bit of knowledge with me.
Wow! What a genius idea! By doing this, it gets you ahead of the game and helps you free up the tasks for when you need to complete the more thought-intensive time.
To do this, I start typing into a spreadsheet with the overall student comments first.
I use a table set up with all of my students’ names running down the first column. I then add two further columns for semester 1 and then semester 2 with the details I will complete about their general working behaviour.
The great idea of this is that it will then help you to have a ready reference in the latter part of the year, to help remind you what you wrote in the first term’s comments.
You’ll be sure not to repeat things you’ve already said!
4. Use a generic comment bank
Use a standard comment-bank of statements for each subject.
This makes adding each phrase very quick and easy, without having to use time-intensive thinking.
You can then always add personalised information to this if you want.
I also use a standard General Comment bank too, with statements about behaviour, work habits, participation and homework etc.
This is easy to then just copy and paste each sentence.
Once you get some comments structured into paragraphs the way you want, you can easily use these as guides for your students, tweaking where needed.
See Teach Starter for a downloadable comment bank.
5. Do as much at school as possible
Write your report cards at school.
The longer I’ve been teaching the more I have realised not to negotiate on this as I value my home and family life too much.
If you can input your comments at school as often as you can, there is very little, if anything, that will need to be done outside of school hours.
Doing this has really helped me to gain more work-life balance.
I stay at work for as long as I can each day until maybe 5:00 or 5:30 pm (sometimes later).
In reporting time, you’ll find if you do this, it will allow an uninterrupted block of time to type up your comments, without distractions, and then you can go home and leave all the thinking at school too.
These days I don’t take much school work home anymore.
It helps on the family-life front, as well as the sleep front.
I can then leave the job at school and have a clearly defined separation between work and home.
I discuss this work-life balance tip in my post called 2 Top Tips to Achieve Work-life Balance. These tips have really helped me gain so much more balance as a teacher. Find out for yourself!
6. Use student reflections for guidance
Use written student reflections for reporting comments helps in two areas:
- When students reflect on their own behaviour, they take more ownership over it.
- I can then use these student reflections to help guide what I will say in the behaviour comments in each student’s report card.
I find using student reflections to be a very helpful tip. Because, later, I can use their reflections to qualm any concerns from parents over my overall comments that I have made.
7. Be systematic when reporting
Lastly, be systematic when your writing your reports. This is all about having a clear list of what you need to complete with a deadline.
Don’t jump around the place with all the various reporting tasks. This will waste time.
Use a list and jot down all the jobs that need doing, helps keep you on track and focussed. Download my free printable to-do-list to keep you organised.
- stick to marking and finish this
- enter comments one subject at a time
- then add the grading marks
- finish off with the general comment
- lastly don’t forget to proofread what you’ve done
I find this systematic approach will save you time, which is the whole point!
Report Card Comment Banks
If you are interested in a helpful report card comment bank to download, signup at Teacher Starter. They have a great resource to help you with your comments. Go to Teacherstarter.com/au/teaching-resources/report-card-comments
I hope you enjoyed my tips to save time writing report cards and use them to help reduce your stress and stop the overwhelm.
Bonus: Don’t forget to download your FREE Working Smarter tips here:
Remember you’re worth it!
Michelle x
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