How to Prepare in Advance for Report Card Writing

Sometimes teachers are hard-pressed to find the motivation to complete the more menial tasks associated with their jobs. Writing report card comments is one such task. As much as you love what you do and you want your students to succeed, it can be incredibly challenging and sometimes downright difficult to describe the sum of their achievements in a semester in a few short statements.

When it comes to coming up with comment ideas for report cards, a little advanced preparation can go a long way. Here are some great tips to help you get ahead and stay on track this report card season.

Get an Early Start

The sooner you start working on your report card comments or making notes, the less work you’ll have to do later on. Start putting in the extra effort little by little from the beginning of the semester to save yourself a great deal of stress and aggravation later on. Compiling notes about your students’ achievements and grades over the course of the semester will give you a clearer idea of their overall progress when the time comes to write their mid-term or end-of-term report cards.

Set Up a System for Anecdotal Notes

Anecdotal notes are a great tool for helping you track your students’ progress and achievements over the course of the semester. But it’s important to keep them well organized and detailed so that you can refer back to them when the time comes to write report card comments. Create a feasible system for writing, categorizing, and organizing anecdotal notes in a way that works for you. Whether it’s a Word, Excel, Google Drive, or DropBox document, make sure you save it somewhere where it can easily be backed up and accessed through a secure Cloud network.

Record Data Using the Same Format You Use for Reports

For the sake of consistency and convenience, try to use the same formatting for your student progress tracking notes as you do for writing report cards. This will make the process a lot easier and more seamless at the end. You should be able to simply take key phrases from your notes and either drop them directly into the comment boxes or expand on them a little to form complete sentences.

Set a Time Limit/Deadline

Chances are that your school probably already has a strict deadline by which report cards must be submitted into the district’s system. To help you stay on track throughout the semester, set personal and achievable time limits and deadlines. Time limits should restrict the amount of time you spend on each report card (within reason), whereas deadlines should indicate the amount of time you have to complete a certain number of report cards.

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