Revamped school reports to free up teachers and give parents ‘plain English’

Victorian government schools are set to revamp student reports by cutting out jargon and useless information in an attempt to reduce the paperwork burden on teachers and principals.

The Department of Education hopes simpler and easier versions of a range of forms and templates will free up 175,000 hours annually for teachers and principals across the system, allowing them to spend more time with their students.

Semester reports and plans on behaviour support, individual education, attendance, and health and wellbeing are all set to be overhauled into simpler documents.

The new semester reports, already in use at some schools, will begin being rolled out across the system in term 2, with the changes to be completely in place within 18 months.

The new style of reports aims to be easier for parents to read and be more directly relevant to their child’s progress, while also being less time-consuming for teachers to complete.

One Melbourne primary school piloting the new reports said it had reduced the number of report-writing days – when the school is closed to students so teachers can write reports – in a clear benefit for parents and children.

Chelsea Heights Primary School, in the city’s south-east, has been using streamlined semester reports for several years in a move principal Steven Capp said had proven popular with parents.

“Teachers spend a lot of time writing those reports, and they’re probably the least efficient for student outcomes,” Capp said.

“So we’ve streamlined those, we’ve got some graphs on how the kids are going with reading, writing and maths, social capacities, with a short, sharp, ‘This is how your child behaves in the class’. Our parents have said that it’s cut out a lot of the jargon and re-hashing what the kids have already been doing in class.”

Capp said his school’s ability to reduce the number of report-writing days had also left parents happy.

As the numbers of neurodivergent diagnoses soar and challenging behaviour becomes more common, individual education plans are proliferating in schools. But they have become so complex for teachers to complete that the process can eat into time spent supporting the child in need of extra help.

Capp said the balance between documenting and providing support needed to be better.

“I really like to try to balance how much time has been spent writing the plan to actually doing the actions, and I tend to prefer the actions,” he said.

Australian Principals Federation president Andrew Cock said school staff spent enormous amounts of time writing reports, and this was generally in addition to their normal working week.

“It’s also about how we are able to communicate with parents so that they’ve got an understanding of their child’s progress and ensuring it’s done in a way that is sustainable for all school staff as well,” he said.

But Cock said there should be an open-door policy, so that parents could discuss their child’s progress with teachers in between reporting periods.

Parents Victoria chief executive Gail McHardy said parents still thought semester reports were important, but many found them difficult to interpret or overly generic.

“What families really want is clear, plain-English information about where their child is at, how they’re progressing, and one practical next step,” McHardy said.

“If changes make reports clearer for families while also reducing unnecessary workload for teachers, that’s a positive outcome for both schools and parents.”

Acting Education Minister Lizzie Blandthorn said the changes were designed to boost teachers’ effectiveness in their jobs.

“While admin is necessary, we know our teachers and principals are passionate about their student’s success at school – that’s why we’re saving them time so they can focus on doing what they love,” Blandthorn said.

The reforms are part of an effort to address what has been a longstanding demand from the system’s 52,000 educators for relief from heavy administrative burdens that detract from teaching time.

But there is no sign of a resolution to the main workplace dispute over teachers’ pay, as schools across the state warned parents on Monday that educators intend to walk off the job on Tuesday, March 24, in what would be the first statewide teachers’ strike in 13 years.

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