What Teachers Actually Mean

Teachers write in a second language and they have to: a report goes home to a parent who may be delighted or furious and has to be true either way. Forty-four phrases decoded, from working towards to a pleasure to teach, with what to ask at parents evening.

What is in it

• The years you could have been born, and what a house, a week of work and a pound actually cost in each of them.
• What has changed since, with the figures rather than the sighing.
• The honest bits about the age, written by somebody not pretending it is fine.
• Quizzes and things to argue about.
• Things you can now say and get away with.
• Around forty pages to fill in, which is the part that survives.

Formats and price

Part of What They Actually Mean, an Home Truths series.

Frequently asked

What does working towards mean on a school report?

It means below the expected standard for that age. The phrase points forwards because the assessment points down, and it is doing that on purpose: it is accurate, it is not unkind, and it is the single most misread line on a primary report.

Is the book unfair on teachers?

No. The premise is that the vocabulary exists because the job is genuinely difficult, not because anybody is hiding anything. A teacher writing thirty reports has to be truthful to thirty sets of parents at once, and this is the language that makes that possible.

Is it about the English school system?

Yes. The terms are the ones used in England, and a handful of them, greater depth and working towards in particular, come straight from the national assessment framework rather than from staffroom habit.

Is it a gift for a teacher or for a parent?

Both, and they laugh at different entries. Parents buy it to read the report. Teachers buy it because somebody has finally written down the thing they all do and none of them were taught.