Report cards written in alien language, parents say

Can you read between the lines when it comes to understanding if your child has failed to make the grade this year? Parents say that is becoming increasingly difficult.

Parents want a return to the report cards of the 20th Century with clear information regarding how their child is progressing in class ­because teachers are too scared to say if a child is failing.

NSW Upper House MP Mark Latham said school teachers were under the misguided notion that they were protecting children’s feelings by not telling them how they were going but parents needed to know.

“These reports have been dumbed down over time and parents find them less useful to how their kids need to improve,” he said.

“The kids who are getting Cs, in the old days they would have been at the bottom of the class — the system now just avoids reality, the whole ­emphasis is on wellbeing and not making children feel ­excluded.”

Parents want an honest appraisal of how their child is performing and what they get up to in class.

Central Coast P&C Federation president Sharryn Brownlee said reports were now written in jargon, meaning parents did not know when their child was falling behind because it was hidden behind bureaucratic euphemisms such as “sound progress”.

“It has become an alien language, parents can’t understand what these grades mean for their child,” she said.

“Also the teachers don’t want to say the child is not doing well because it might mean the child isn’t being taught well but if you don’t tell the truth, they can’t do the ­remedial work required and the child will fall even further behind.”

North Shore P&C Federation president David Hope said blunt assessments from teachers were useful and said parents liked NAPLAN because it gave them a very clear indicator of academic achievement.

“What NAPLAN does in a very narrow way, it shines a light on how the school is going generally,” he said.

Examples of reports from the past include comments from a Macarthur Girls High teacher in 1962 describing one student as a “good worker” who got a pleasing result with a mark of 75 out of 100 in history.

But that student also received a stern “has not worked as well as she should have” in geography.

In 1974, students at public schools given a C grade translated to “needs improvement” — a clear sign that a child had fallen behind.

But under the current A-E grading system that same C grade now means “sound” progress has been made.

By 1984 parents with children at Kogarah Public who ­received a D grade were told he or she “needs to improve”.

But now that same grade means “a student has a basic knowledge and understanding of the content”.

Originally published as Report cards written in alien language, parents say