It’s coming around to that time of the year…yet this year I’ve made a tyro mistake.
I was wondering last week why it was so quiet. I didn’t have any marking to do, and I couldn’t be bothered to start writing my reports.
So, now it’s the following week and I’ve got 100 essays to mark and 100 reports to write. And there are 3 extra-curricular activities happening after school.
I’m so scattered I accidentally locked my partner in the house this morning.
Are you feeling this way too?
Here are 3 Tips to make your Report Card Writing a Breeze:
- Don’t wait for your school’s computer program: write your report cards in a word-processor–and ahead of the due date, it will save you a heap of editing time and potential losses at the last minute. I’ve found that school computer reporting programs are usually hard-to-use and slow-to-work…They are also unreliable–I’ve lost whole class sets working between the export-import options (school network to home computer).
- Plan your assessment ahead of the reporting deadlines–and stagger it. I try to plan my assessment tasks in pencil using a semester planner (week-by-week). I do this so I can avoid having all of my classes’ assessment tasks due in the same week–which is a marking bloody nightmare. Not only do you end up in a flurry of stress, but when reports are due more tasks pressing on your few ‘spares’ is sure to wind you up in bed in the end: sick, tired and bitter!
- Buddy up with someone you trust. It’s great if you can have a buddy who is in your department to read the Word version of your report comments. If they are in your department, curriculum comments will be on par (mind you, parents tend to prefer if you just speak in layman’s terms so they can understand what you have to say about their kid–mostly they are interested in attitude, effort and level of achievement.)
Parents prefer you comment on attitude, effort and level of achievement.
