Communications
Could do better O R Houseman reports on reports and aborts his retorts Report writing is still a significant part of the housemaster’s workload at the end of term. It is increasingly unclear, however, why and to whom these reports must be written. The housemaster’s report would traditionally follow individual subject reports written by classroom teachers. It would summarize and draw conclusions from those academic reports, describe the boy’s sporting, cultural and social contributions to school life, and contain some words of advice for future progress. The Headmaster would then read this report and add his own words. The traditional Headmaster’s report used to say nothing more than ‘Well done!’ or ‘Splendid!’ or, if he was in exceptionally expansive mood, ‘He would do well to heed the advice in these reports.’ However, the Headmaster has not read a report for years. Instead, he now meets each housemaster, discusses each pupil and dictates his own report, which says something slightly more substantial than the ‘splendid!’ or ‘he would do well to heed the advice in these reports’ of yesteryear. No housemaster resents this apparent usurpation of his position as the focal point for the parents’ knowledge of their son’s Aborting the retorts.
progress, because they no longer need a report to tell them which teams he has played in and how well he performed in the orchestra since they have watched every game and listened to every concert. Some parents have even watched practices and rehearsals and, in any case, the housemaster had no intention of writing about these activities anyway. The only real difference for the housemaster is the fact that a task which he may in the past have viewed as an opportunity to communicate directly with the Headmaster and demonstrate his particular knowledge of the boys in his house, and indeed his general educational wisdom, has lost that purpose. So it remains a letter to the parents, not about their son’s accomplishments, but instead a general assessment of the development of his character. But do they read it? Electronic communication has made it possible to send more information more frequently and more quickly to more people. It allows a school to make great claims for ecological care by sending nothing on paper, and saves thousands of pounds in postage. But the more information that is sent electronically, the less is read. When parents received a letter in the post containing a printed report on paper, they opened the letter and read it. They now receive an email telling them their child’s report can be found somewhere online. Some parents delete the email, or at least ignore it unread. Some may read the email, but decide it is too much effort to look at the school website to find the report. Some may try to look at the school website, but can’t remember their password. So the reports disappear unread. It may cause the housemaster some frustration to think that the 15 minutes he spent writing a report has been wasted time which he will never recover, but he may comfort himself with the thought that the exercise of putting his thoughts down in writing has helped his understanding of that particular pupil and will therefore enhance his management of his progress the following term. And the parent who does not read his child’s report has wasted only 15 minutes of the housemaster’s time: a parent who does read a report can take up much more than 15 minutes. Such is the enthusiasm of school management teams to use electronic communication and to increase communication with parents, that now no sooner have reports been written than the parents can read them. This term the subject reports were written two weeks before the end of term. The pupils’ academic tutors were told to send them to parents instantly. This doubled the housemaster’s work in the last two weeks of term. Before I had read a boy’s subject reports I received a phone call: “These reports are not good enough. What are you doing Continued overleaf about them?”
Spring 2016
*CCR Vol53 no1 Spring 2016.indd 15
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