The report comment that breaches school policy
You are writing Semester 1 reports for your Year 5 class at Kooringa Public School. The school's report-writing policy states that comments must: describe achievement against the achievement standard rather than compare a student with peers; include at least one specific, practical next step; avoid labels such as 'lazy', 'weak' or 'struggling'; and be accessible to families who speak a language other than English at home, using short sentences and no unexplained jargon. Your draft comment for Maya reads: 'Maya is a lovely girl who always tries her hardest but is well below the standard in writing. She needs help with everything and her sentences are poor. She should read more at home.' Maya has been at the school for 18 months and speaks Tagalog at home. Her most recent writing sample shows she can write a coherent paragraph with a topic sentence but struggles to use punctuation to separate clauses. The report template has a 60-word limit for comments.
1. Identify every breach of the report-writing policy in the draft comment, quoting the words that cause the problem. For each, state which policy requirement it breaks.
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'Lovely girl who always tries her hardest' is a personal comment rather than a description of achievement, and 'always' is unverifiable. 'Well below the standard' is a deficit label and an implicit comparison; it is also not tied to any evidence, so it breaches the requirement to describe achievement against the standard. 'Needs help with everything' is vague and overstated, and it gives parents no picture of what Maya can do. 'Her sentences are poor' is a judgemental label rather than a description of a specific writing behaviour. 'Should read more at home' is a next step, but it is not specific or practical, and it locates the whole solution outside school. 'Poor' and 'well below' also work against the accessibility requirement, since they are judgemental rather than plain description and give an EAL family nothing concrete to understand.
2. Rewrite Maya's comment within the 60-word limit so that it meets all four policy requirements. Explain the choices you made.
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One version: 'Maya can write a coherent paragraph with a clear topic sentence. Her next step is to use full stops and commas to separate clauses, so her ideas are easier to follow. We will practise this in small-group writing sessions, and reading her work aloud at home would help her hear where sentences end.' This is about 55 words. It opens with achievement against the standard, using the evidence from the work sample rather than a label. The next step is specific and names what Maya will do, not just what she lacks. It shares responsibility between school and home, which is more practical than telling the family to 'read more'. Sentences are short and jargon-free, and it replaces 'poor' with a description of a text feature, so the family knows exactly what is being worked on.
3. Why might 'well below the standard' be inaccurate as well as against policy? What evidence would you need before using any phrase describing a student's level of achievement?
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The phrase claims a position against the achievement standard, which is a specific document with descriptors. The only evidence in front of you is one work sample, and that sample shows a genuine strength: Maya can write a coherent paragraph with a topic sentence. A single sample cannot support a whole-level judgement, and the phrase is comparative in effect even though it does not name a peer. To make any level statement defensible, you would need several samples across different text types, a check against the actual descriptors, and moderation with a colleague or team. Even then, the report is stronger if it describes what the student can do and the next step, because that is actionable for the family.