must try harder

If there is one task I can't stand doing it is writing reports. In my job I do these for pupils at the end of each term - I would have thought I'd be an expert by now. Fortunately the range of things I have to report on in Learning Support is vast and makes the process much more straight forward. It is in my subject teaching that I struggle.

You see I also teach a couple of periods of drama. I love drama, and I love teaching drama. And the fact that I only teach one class makes it something I look forward to as a bit of a change. It also means that I don't have too many reports to write. Thirteen to be precise.

Why am I struggling to come up with thirteen individual comments? There are teachers out there who have hundreds. I know each of the children personally. I can describe them in great depth. I can see dramtic potential (or lack thereof) in each and could talk about it for hours. But putting it down in one short phrase without resorting to cliches is proving to be a difficult task.

Keen, hard working, attempts everything to the best of their ability.

An energetic and enthusiastic pupil with a great imagination.

Shows good understandingpleasant and cooperative has a good grasp of the basic skills required.

an excellent independent learner.

They really should teach us how to do this stuff during teacher training. My brain has gone blank and I've turned to this blog as my favoured method for procrastination. There are web sites out there to help come up with things to say - but the NI Education network (C2K) has blocked them. Typical!