School reports- what were yours like?

"Her thinking is as untidy as her writing". The writing still is and there are some who would agree about the thinking.

I remember vividly the remark, " xxxx has the aptitude but lacks the application".

This didn't go down well at home (especially as my parents were struggling to pay the school fees).

My PE teacher wrote, "tries hard in hockey." I loved hockey, and thought I was good at it! Like many others, I had a lot of could do better. I probably could have, but after failing my 11+ and co nsidering myself a failure, I just did the minimum required.

My dad took it upon himself to throw away my school reports when I was just married. I would have loved to have kept them. I know I got no praise whatsoever from my teachers, despite being top in English and Art. I remember getting 100% in Geometry and the teacher said "we can't have that, I'll take a mark off for untidyness"!

*...needs to pay more attention in class.. (Chemistry).
Our teacher was very boy-orientated and all the girls had to sit at the back, out of the way.

Every single girl in that class had the same comment. Teacher had no idea of who we were, let alone give a considered comment.

Off piste slightly but I STILL remember a lecturer saying, in front of my Philology class, you're not very good, are you?. . I haven't forgotten that ignorant b....d.

Harri is very imaginative in her compositions but wish she was more active in RI, I clearly didn't pray enough

Does well on subjects she likes. This does not include maths, science , geography or sport.
My father used to correct the gramatical errors in my school reports & send them back to the school. I can imagine the comments in the staff room.
I was good at English. Cookery & Languages.

Jalima, a friend of mine said the only time she could answer all the specialist subject history questions on Mastermind was because of reading Jean Plaidy!

this thread has cheered me up as it seems those who taught our generation were determined to put us all down, always could do better, yes OK but then maybe we had some other better things to do like riding ponies, chatting up boys, painting pretty pictures, going shopping, sewing the latest fashions.

I put it down to the fact that these predominantly thirty something spinsters had lost out on men because of the war. I now see them as sad and lonely and probably lovely ladies and feel great sympathy for them. And the older ones it could even have been because of WW1. Some of them were probably looking after elderly parents, and the only way they could gain some power and respect and sense of self was to be martinets in their chosen profession.

At the end of the day some of them probably educated us very well as we would too scared to be anything but achieving. I know my French is as good as it is thanks to Miss Henderson who scared the living daylights out of us, and you just didn't make a mistake! And what horrid nick names we had for them: Louse, Spud, Holy Ghost. I am now cringing about how horrid this middle class, privileged little madam was with these poor women.

Forgot to say one of my reports said "Poor Rude and Inattentive" I became a teacher too and later a Headteacher!

I love the line "I suddenly became intelligent" I strongly believe that intelligence is not fixed it develops and grows throughout life. Research backs that up. We should never ever write anyone off and never write yourself off either. Talk of more grammar schools is darkening the education sector again and we risk telling thousands of kids that they are failures. Let's not go there again.

My primary school teacher told my mother I was 'just average' and suggested I always would be. Someone should have told the other teachers who put me in top sets and gave me prizes for coming first.

I still have mine and in third and fourth form they were dire. I got 5 'E's and 5 fails. I had just moved schools although that is no excuse. Apart from constantly could do better one teacher wrote I was loud, vulgar and rude. My parents, dad a teacher himself, had to go to the pub after parents evening! Not particularly proud of myself although in my defence in those days there were so many rules. My children were brought up in Holland and there the attitude is quite different.

The reports in my Scottish school were informative only to the extent that they gave our marks and position in class. No teachers' comments were included. However, I prize the comment on my DS1 by his primary school head teacher: 'X reminds me of a tree that bears great fruit but has yet to yield a rich harvest.'

There is always the catchall "Trying - very!"

Mine generally boring, but 1st year art report (I loathed art) read "her use of colour is sometimes good" - this from a teacher who saw the classmate I'd painted with brown hair needing purple streaks! My MIL, Anne, had a comment "Margaret talks too much" - she doesn't recall any Margarets in class. And DH had the priceless English report "Mark continues to plough his idiosynctatic path through life".

Tries hard, fails miserably, sets a low standard and consistently fails to achieve it.

I mostly had 'would do well if she would concentrate more'. Once 'the little she does is good'.
Like Icanhandthemback there was no effort made to find out why although a teacher did once shout 'what's wrong with you' at the top of her voice at me.

Anya that is hilarious ???

My mother gave me all the school stuff when I left home .... Which I immediately binned without reading!
I knew the contents were dreadful and didn't want to be reminded of my laziness ?

I got an B+ for Pitman shorthand.......but I wasn't even in that class.

I never knew what 'very fair' meant. Was it better or worse than'fair' . Same applies to satisfactory. Most of the comments werebland and meaningless like that. Maki g progress/could do better fall into the same category.
My form teachers comment on every report in the U5 (5th year, now Y11) was'punctuality is essential' - I still have a tendency to be late! But when I think of the detailed reports i was required to write as a teachers Im amazed!
One teacher consistently got my name wrong- that would be picked up and redone these days!
My brother once came 2nd in the year and still got 'could do better' which i suppose it technically true but very dishesrteningvto a child!

My reports, up to the age of 16, all say I was quiet, shy, hardworking, a pleasure to have in the class. My children simply don't believe that they could have been written about me.

"Would do well if only she stopped talking long enough". Probably very true

My reports were all reasonable until the age of 13 when I received the epithet 'has discovered boys'. Enough said!

Most of my reports talked about me being melancholy and lethargic. Pity nobody dealt with it, I was suffering from depression

My Junior school reports were excellent. I was always 2nd or 3rd top in class (never 1st though) . I passed my 11+ and really did not want to go to high school as none of my friends were going. At my (all girls) high school I managed okay for the first 2-3 years then it all started going horribly wrong. I was bullied by a group of girls and I fell behind. I scraped through my "o levels" and left at 16 going straight into the workplace.

My high school reports said that "I lacked concentration" true. "I was a dreamer" again true and that "I could do better" true again.