Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 119

Lynch, Smith, Howarth
Chapter 9: Reporting
The school report card is what most people think of when the topic of ‘reporting’ in schools is broached.
But as this chapter will reveal this is just one aspect of teacher reporting. More specifically the chapter deals
with three key topics: the principles of reporting, the types of school reports available to teachers and how
to report student progress. Before turning to the principles of reporting we briefly examined the premise of
school and classroom reporting.
School and Classroom Reporting
The classroom teacher considers their reporting regime when they answer LMQ8: How will I
report student progress and their plans will be; strategic (informing and guided by) to the learning outcomes of
the classroom curriculum, both formal and informal in nature, conducted formatively and summatively,
planned and spontaneous, depending on the teaching juncture.
Formal reporting, generally occurring at the end of a teaching cycle (i.e. a school term and known as summative
reporting) refers to stipulated and mandated reporting requirements --- by the education authority and
managed at school level --- and usually takes the form of a twice yearly written school report card and parent
teacher interview.
Informal or ‘formative reporting’ are classroom-based reporting strategies employed by the teacher to inform
the student about their learning progress so as to assist the student in understanding how well they are
performing, identifying areas of learning strength and weakness and to generally provide the student with
‘feedback’ so they are “guided” for the next learning juncture. Oral feedback, assignment grading and
comments and ‘student of the week’ awards are all examples of such informal reports.
In all reporting cases, teacher reports are in reference to the define learning outcomes (LMQ2), and aside
from (set) formal reporting schedules, the teacher uses the process of reporting at key points or junctures in
their teaching so as to maximise the learning potentials of their students (i.e. after completion of an
assignment or test or ‘spontaneously’ to encourage and motivate the student in their learning).
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