Reading your child's report card

Reports come out soon, so a translation, offered affectionately by someone who has written several hundred of them.

Start with the comments, not the position. A class position tells you about the other thirty children as much as it tells you about yours, and it moves for reasons that have nothing to do with your child, a strong intake, an easy paper, a teacher who marks generously in the third term.

'Can do better' means the teacher has run out of specific things to say and would like you to ask. So ask. 'Satisfactory' in a Nigerian report card usually means the child is quiet and gives no trouble, which is not the same as understanding the work.

The useful part of any report is the subject teacher's remark at the bottom. Those are written last and quickly, and are therefore honest.

If a report worries you, ask the teacher what they would do about it if the child were theirs. You get a much better answer to that question.