Green Report
I am on Green Report!! Well, actually, unfairly – I’m not – Anna is. She has a rebellious mother who won’t quite conform to the rules 
Being on Green Report means that she has to have a card marked at every lesson for attendance, appearance, and behaviour in the lesson. Let me explain.
Anna has a planner, in which she writes homework etc. This planner is meant to be shown to parents and signed each week. Now, Steve and I have always had a policy that we only sign it when we’ve seen the homework that has been done.
Last year she spent the year forging Steve’s initials – no problem, no green report, who knows what the homework was like, I am ashamed to say that we didn’t check up much. This year, we have felt the need to inspect things a bit more so asked her to stop doing that and we’re making an effort to look at her homework properly. Hence, as all the homework in a week was completed, I’ve been signing the planner for that week.
Now, if I’m not mistaken, today is THURSDAY. And so, we haven’t reached the end of the week yet, so when all of *last week’s* homework was completed, I signed that. This week still has some work outstanding, so I haven’t signed it off yet. However, her form tutor appears to think that we should sign the planner anyway, just to show that it’s being used. To me, it would be more meaningful for my signature to mean that the homework is completed, rather than simply knowing the homework exists – and I wrote a note to the tutor last week saying that was what we were doing – but no, that’s not good enough.
Perhaps we should take the action of one of Anna’s friends who has her planner signed for the year in advance. It would be as useful as what seems to be expected. We’re actually trying to use it meaningfully, and instead Anna is penalised because it doesn’t quite fit the tick box. The tutor doesn’t seem to care if the work is done or not, only whether the jolly planner is signed!
Needless to say I will be ranting at the form tutor tomorrow. All he’s done is create work for teachers in each class Anna goes to, and annoyed us. (One or two of Anna’s teachers gave her all three marks needed in the lesson at the beginning of the lesson, so they clearly agree with us about how pointless it is!) Apparently he put the vast majority of the form on green report for the same thing. I ask you, what is the point of that?!
And this explains my earlier outburst on twitter/fb about idiotic institutionalised tickboxes!
October 8th, 2009 at 20:59
I bet the other teachers love him…grounds for complaint surely in that if most of the form is on GR won’t that be detracting from teaching time?
October 8th, 2009 at 21:07
That would have me absolutely screaming in frustration and definitely complaining. Petty, stupid, pointless and a bit of a slur on her too, to use a behaviour discipline method to deal with a personal obsession.
I can think of two similar things that happened to me; one was the headmistress seeing my mum dropping me off at school and driving her car on to the hockey pitch, for which i got punished and then also when i got zero marks because i had copied out a 12 page piece of work (as a 1st year) into an exercise book and not used the top line, the personal obsession of that teacher. Both completely unfair.
You go rip out his throat. If it were a hoop worth jumping through it would be different but you are being responsible parents doing it the way you are and he is being a tosser.
October 8th, 2009 at 21:10
I did wonder what that was about. Grr to pointless box ticking.
October 8th, 2009 at 22:06
Doh! to the tutor. Rod for his own back, I think, and devalues the report system, which if it is anything like ours, should be used sparingly.
October 8th, 2009 at 22:27
That is bizarre. And stupid. If it were Wednesday next week he might have reason to complain (though that’s clearly an overreaction even to a legitimate complaint), but wanting you to sign it before the week is out is just ludicrous.
I think I might be inclined to go straight to the head of year.
October 9th, 2009 at 16:34
my mum signed my book a year in advance and i got detention and a new book!! so she taught me to forge her signature. she said it was my responsibility to do and quality control my work.
October 9th, 2009 at 18:09
Ha! Well I phoned the tutor this morning and explained what we were doing and I didn’t quite get an apology, but the green report is no more
October 9th, 2009 at 20:58
I thought (as you have confirmed) that I had to sign to say that I’d seen that my girls had homework – not that they’d done it. But once I know they have got the homework I ensure that they do it so, to be honest, it doesn’t bother me at all signing in off each week.
October 10th, 2009 at 12:09
I can still remember burning the letters that the school sent home when I didn’t do my homework so I can’t really comment.
October 10th, 2009 at 16:44
ROFL at Steve.