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The end of the semester is just around the corner! And you know what that means. Time to complete report cards for your students and fill in the dreaded comments section.
I tell you the first time I wrote report card comments, it took me hours! I wanted each comment to be unique and meaningful. Over the years I learned a few things to speed up the process. So, keep reading to find out how you, too, can ROCK your report card comments!
Create a Google Doc
For each quarter, I have a google doc created. This is where I write my comments to start. Then, I will copy and paste them into the actual report card. There are a couple reasons why I do this. One is that I reuse comments or parts of comments from year to year and, even, student to student. Say, what? It’s true. You don’t have to have a truly unique comment for each and every student, every year, or every quarter.
The second is that if the report cards “accidentally” get deleted, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can go back and copy and paste the comments in again, saving you hours! I say this from experience. It happened to me one year. I kid you not. And I was so thankful I had my google doc!
Have Basic Comments in Mind
Another time saver is to already have 3-4 basic sentences in mind for how to start and end the comment. When you do this, you can copy and paste the comment and change the name and the pronoun being used. Education World has a post with a variety of comments sorted by category in their post “125 Report Card Comments.”
For example a classic first quarter comment I use is: I have enjoyed getting to know [student name] this quarter! S/he is [describe positive thing]. Please work on [skill] at home. I look forward to seeing [student name’s] growth this year!
Here’s one for the second quarter: [Student name] has been working hard this quarter! S/he has [describe positive thing]. Please work on [skill] at home. I’m excited to see how the second half of the year turns out for [student name]!
I, also, make sure to have one or two comments for students with behavior challenges. Because, perhaps, I didn’t enjoy getting to know that student or the student was not working hard. For those students, I still work on finding a positive at the beginning. No matter how small. For example, [Student name] participates in conversations and activities with classmates. However, s/he needs reminders often to…I hope this will improve in the next quarter. Hopefully, these are students that you have already been in contact with their parents, so a comment like this should not come as a surprise to them.
Write a Few Unique Comments
Finally, there are a handful of comments I write each year that are truly unique to the student. Usually there a few students that stand out in a class that a comment just comes to mind. Perhaps there’s a cute anecdote to share with their parent about something that happened, or something that stands out about the student. For instance, a student that gives great hugs, a student that always has a smile when they come to school, a student who can make you laugh. Those are great things to include in a report card comment! What parent wouldn’t love to hear about how fantastic and amazing their child is?!
Make a Plan for Completion
Report card comments will take a chunk of time to complete because you do have to put some thought into them. Make sure you block out time in your planner for getting them done before they are due. No one should have to stay up until midnight completing report cards from home to get them done by the due date. It is not healthy. If you need some tips for how to not take your work home with you, read this post How to Leave Your Work at Work.
I tend to start report cards a couple weeks before they are due, working on a few at a time during planning. Then, I’ll finish them up and check them over during the teacher workday dedicated to getting report cards completed. It’s important to check them over before finalizing, especially when copy and pasting comments you use for more than one student. I have found more than once that I forgot to change a name or pronoun in a sentence and had to revise the comment. Yes, typos happen, but that could be embarrassing.🫢
Finishing Up
Writing report card comments can be a daunting task. I still don’t like writing them each quarter, but by honing the way I write them over the years has saved me hours of work. Hopefully these tips will do the same for you! Rock on, Superteachers!
