REPORT WRITING....just love this time of year!

We are nearing the end of term2 2014 and it's report writing time.  I've spent the past week looking over reports for teachers before they are handed over to our Principal for one last perusal and they get signed off.
I'm always amazed at how professional our staff is here.  Most reports reflect an absolutely thorough knowledge of the students in our school.  The directive was that all reports must pass through 3 sets of eyes before they are handed to the Principal, to minimize errors on printing.  Most staff have followed this lead and been very supportive of each other in ensuring that this directive has been followed.  It has been A LOT of work for all involved, but the professionalism is such on our team, that no-one wants to send home a report with any errors in it...be it grammatical, spelling, formatting or just plain typos.
So...now to problematise an issue around our report writing.  We seem to face the same issues each year with frantic writing, printing issues, proof reading faux pas and formatting problems.  Why does this have to happen when we think we have stringent guidelines and tight procedures in place to combat these issues?  Teachers work under pressure pretty much the whole time they are in the classroom.  There is no down time, and reports are an added pressure to an already packed schedule.  I did consider whether report writing has gone to a whole new level, but it hasn't...it's always been this way.  So what can we do to better minimalise the stresses - errors, repeats and reprints? 

This year, our school has switched to eTAP, a new school management system that we hope will minimalise the chance of errors in report writing.  In term 4 we will be introducing the new report writing model, and are hoping that the new format and digital application will make report writing much more efficient but just as effective as our current system.  As a staff, we will need to get together to create a bank of comments that can be used as drop downs for teachers to choose and insert to improve on efficiency and minimise mistakes.  The format should be firm and not move with every insert added.  All should lead to a less stressful, more productive cycle for reporting to parents.

The arguments raised in producing reports in a 'drop down' type manner are mainly: loss of differentiation, less personal comments, corner cutting...but I beg to differ.  Parents in general want to know where their kids are 'at' in their learning.  They want to know how they measure up in the system and National Standards in many ways panders to that need.  Parents also appreciate a brief outline of how their kids social skills are developing.  I think reports created from a collection of statements relating to curriculum progressions are acceptable.  Parents often don't want the technical jargon that some teachers add to reports, complicating the messages with curriculum specific language.  As long as the report comments are accurate and clear to the individual, and the report itself is personalised particularly through the general comment, I believe this is one way to ensure that reports are created with accuracy and efficiency.  Fingers crossed, our new applications deliver on the promises and expectations we have!