Could Do Better...

By Mrs Jennifer Spies

Posted on 23 October 2009

"Has done ill, showing little or no ambition, even in mathematics."

School report for A A Milne, aged 12 (creator of Winnie the Pooh)

Could Do Better - School Reports of the Great and Good (Edited by Catherine Hurley, 2002)

Term 4 is often fast and furious, and for many, final assessment and reporting adds to the busyness and pressure of the final term. As a teacher of Mathematics, I have taught many students who struggled to achieve in my subject area, and writing final reports created a challenge to fairly and positively sum up their year's performance. Some of the students who lacked in mathematical ability were creative, some were generous and thoughtful, others were compassionate and loyal friends, and others great encouragers of those who were in need. How important then, to create opportunities in my classroom to enable students to share these strengths. If I was really serious about educating the child academically, emotionally, physically and spiritually, then it was important to factor this into my lesson planning, delivery and evaluation.

It is easy to forget that every report we write will become a permanent part of a student's summation of their school life. And it is so easy to concentrate on how our subject matter relates to the student rather than how the student has managed the challenge of our subject matter. Much of school life is about being assessed, graded, evaluated and ranked. This is usually well reflected on report cards and sometimes the easy option is to use a comment opportunity to simply verbalise what is already reflected in grades and marks. All students have gifts and talents that need encouragement and nurture, and we have a great opportunity as report writers to search for and highlight the positives in our students' lives.

So what then do we know of A.A. Milne? He went on to study at Cambridge University (on a mathematics scholarship!) and write stories that would capture the imaginations of generations of children.