Who the report is speaking to

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

My daughter’s report used to describe her as though she were absent from the conversation. This term, several comments began with you. We read one together: you explain your ideas clearly, but need to check that your examples support them. She replied to the page before I asked a question. She knew which recent piece of work the teacher meant.

The change did not make every comment equally useful. One still asked for more effort without saying where that effort should go. But addressing her directly made the report easier to treat as information she could use rather than a verdict adults exchanged over her head. We discussed one next step instead of beginning with my summary of how well she had behaved.

Parents still need to know how school is going, and I do not want a report written in a private language only teacher and pupil understand. This one could speak to her while remaining understandable to me. A report becomes more useful when the person expected to act on it can recognise herself as a reader, not only as its subject.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

I have tried writing report comments directly to pupils, and some have responded thoughtfully. However, you does not automatically make a sentence helpful. A comment can address a child warmly and still leave a parent unable to tell whether a difficulty is occasional, persistent or already being tackled in class.

The report has more than one reader. A pupil may recognise a reference to Tuesday’s task that means nothing to the adult reading at home. If I use that familiar shorthand without explanation, I have included one person by excluding another. Both need enough context to understand what has improved and what would make the next piece of work stronger.

I will use direct address where it clarifies the relationship, but I will also explain the point without relying on it. State the improvement, identify a specific next step and give enough context for a conversation at home. A change in pronoun can open that conversation. It cannot do the explanatory work of the sentences around it.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about school reports addressed directly to pupils. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.