School reports - how were yours?

Maths teachers were at least five times more likely to throw a blackboard duster across the room in a rage. 

I'm not sure how to upload things but even without that I think the same themes keep coming up.  I have all of mine but many of the phrases used just echo what Sam's saying in the video. 

I also went to a rough comprehensive school, up north.

I did very poorly at school & left at 15, mainly down to the fact I didn't like it very much, didn't mix well, experienced a rocky childhood. At 15 I started work & so my life begun. I'm 54 now & happily married. 

I don't think I even bothered to disguise it after a while. A thing which was even worse than being picked last was having to do the picking! I'd picky my friend and then get her advice on who to pick.

Ha, yes! I ran from the ball too. Or rather disguised evasion as an inefficient attempt to get *to* it. Being picked last for teams was very understandable, everyone knew I was hopeless and uninvested in competitive point-scoring. 

Amen to that sentiment. I hated PE, but mostly because the 'syllabus' seemed to consist of forty weeks of dreaded football (sometimes last minute change from something more interesting suggested but put to the popular vote) with a couple of slightly more enjoyable things - a week of tennis, an annual 'beep' test where you ran in timed intervals, etc. But almost always, it would be 'lads, shall we just play football?' 'Yes sir!' (said with enthusiasm by the NT vast majority) and two hours of misery commenced. Felt more like four

Sounds like comment on my reports about PE. I was also the last to be chosen for teams 

Yes, I'd probably just have lain there crying and wishing I was back in my room at home! 

That actually sounds excruciating and not at all therapeutic.  I think one of my sons is similar in that respect as, although therapists haven't divulged any confidential information, I got enough feedback to suggest that he just wasn't engaging at all.  The trouble is, it was said in a way that put all the responsibility on him instead of looking at ways around this.  He might have been better off communicating via text or email, for example, or working creatively with sand play or choosing representative pictures, stones, dolls or other objects.      

Do any of us handle pressure well?! Part of it was my mistake of not having the best time management and putting too much into the conference. I do wonder if an autism diagnosis might have helped, but probably not, given my known disability an lower energy levels.

Sounds like I'll do an MA at some point! The PhD sounds like a lot of pressure. I managed to get a second lot of funding for my Bsc as it's a STEM-based degree. I like the idea of a part-time degree, purely out of interest. I don't handle pressure very well! 

I remember my first report in Junior School, the headmaster wrote, "Watch the spelling!" I am not dyslexic, but had been taught to read at Infant School using ITA - initial teaching alphabet. This was an entirely phonetic alphabet with separate letters for all the different vowel sounds, so the 'a' in hat was a different letter from the 'a' in hate, it also had single letters for 'sh, 'ng', voiced 'th' and unvoiced 'th' etc. It isn't surprising that I had problems!

Well, mine back from the 70s were useful for my assessment. Lots of reference to not mixing with other kids, but how great my imagination was...and the spelling, of the spelling! They did finally recognise the dyslexia at 18, even if not my autism until 56. So glad, I kept those reports.

The punishments doled out in those days seem particularly cruel now, particularly when the 'behaviour' was due to social confusion or sensory overload.

I don't think I understand, even to this day, exactly what it was that I was being punished for. I remember crying a lot during my punishment and the teacher shouting at me that I was 'behaving like a baby'. The actual behaviour I was being punished for is less clear. I just remember the overwhelming noise from the other children in the playground and that they were like wild animals to me! I remember trying to run away on occasions, but that wasn't every day. I guess that every day that I was forced out into the playground resulted in some sort of meltdown and it certainly wasn't deliberate or controllable.

In the end the school asked my mum to go in every day at play times, to keep me calm and well away from any of the other children. The teachers couldn't calm me down and their 'punishments' weren't making any difference. Interestingly they never told my mum about the punishments, they just told her that I 'wasn't settling' 

At least with the detentions I understood why I was being punished. The rules were clear. If I was late for morning or afternoon registration I was given detention. I was generally fine with that, although my form tutor also happened to be my PE teacher and did seem to take pleasure in giving me detentions.

Looking back I don't think it was just time management. By arriving a few minutes late I could avoid the huge influx of hundreds of children and all the noise and pushing and shoving that came with that. When I was given detention I could also avoid the crowds and noise at the end of the school day too. I was probably the only pupil who actually liked being given detention!

Those early years sound particularly bad.  I don't remember being punished often at that age.  However one incident in reception class stands out and that was when I got hit on the hand with a ruler for not doing any work.  I'd just been off with chickenpox or something and this was, I think, my first ever maths lesson.  Really, it was very small sums like 1 + 2 =.   But I was sitting there very confused, wondering, "One what?" and "Which two?". I tried to get the kid next to me to explain but she didn't know either.  Then came the stern words and the punishment.  :(. 

Your approach in secondary school sounds safest but it's a real pity you had to keep your head down.  I feel like we weren't allowed to be ourselves.  

Deleted user said:

untarnished and to the untrained eye, more less, perfect.

So many untrained eyes about, unfortunately.  I masked quite a lot too and yes, it can push you further and further into anxiety.  I ended up feeling as though I just couldn't let the  "perfect" mask slip in so many situations and the effort involved certainly took its toll.  

As I recall, none of us took the orienteering particularly seriously. We would be put in groups of around 4 or 5 students, handed a map and compass, and instructed to return to the school minibus by a set time. As long as we arrived at our destination, it didn't really matter if we strayed from the route we were meant to take.

It is unfortunate that you found your school swimming lessons to be such a trial. I must admit that I would have found it rather off-putting too if students had been gawping through sheet glass.

That does sound rather good, especially orienteering! I didn't mind badminton as much as some sports, I think it's because the shuttlecock moves a bit slower than a ball and also doesn't have such an impact to hit.

Also your swimming sound so much better than ours! Swimming was a trial for us as our school had its own pool. So no wave machine or slides, and in fact precious little actual swimming. It was OK at first when we got to do widths as we could all fit in the pool, but then they had us do lengths so most of the class was spent shivering in a line along the side of the pool, half naked, no towels allowed. I can't actually recall if it was mixed lessons once we started to develop or if they at least spared us that, but the pool building was beside the footpath between upper and lower school and the side facing the path was sheet glass so anyone who had a half lesson got to gawp at us. So many of us girls had permanent periods as that let us off! I think that might have been one of the very few times I actually lied, or at least exaggerated. Fortunately for me the pool was closed after a year or two or that.

I did enjoy actual swimming and was not bad at it so it would have been nice if we actually got to do it properly! I totally agree with you that I could have enjoyed PE if they did activities I liked.

On the topic of PE, I realised that my lessons during the two final GCSE years weren't all bad. There were two PE lessons a week, and every few weeks the activity would change. For example, 6 weeks of tennis and cross-country running, and then 6 weeks of trampolining and netball.

I remember one of the activities was orienteering in the Clent Hills (spectacular views). I and the majority of my peers enjoyed that because it provided us with an opportunity to be away from school and have an element of freedom.

One activity that I discovered I was actually rather good at was badminton, which I'm still in a state of shock about because I was absolutely hopeless at tennis. More often than not, I'd end up being paired with the PE teacher.

There was also swimming (at a leisure centre), although very little swimming was actually done due to the pool being the kind that has a wave machine, rapids, slides, etc. It worked out rather well for me because that particular lesson was the last one of the day, and so it made sense for those of us who lived local to the leisure centre to make our own way home, as opposed to returning to school. My school was not local to where I lived, so when I had swimming it meant I arrived home about an hour earlier than I normally would. 

In hindsight, it would have been ideal if I had been able to pick and choose the physical activities I wanted to do and actually enjoyed.

I was punished a lot in my early years at nursery and infant school. I would have meltdowns when forced into the playground, due to the overwhelming noise of the other children screaming and shouting. As a result I was punished almost every day. The punishment was being made to sit in the corner, cross legged, facing the walls and I was shouted at if I as much as turned my head towards the class.

Also I found the environment in the school canteen completely unbearable, due to the overwhelming noise of plates clattering, chairs scraping, the cutlery, noise from the other children, the dinner ladies shouting at me because I was too upset to eat.

As a result of my 'behaviour' I was excluded from the school during lunch times and my mum was told she had to take me home every day for lunch. I found out years later that my mum had to go without food herself because she could not afford to feed me  At school I would have been entitled to free meals

Things improved in primary school, where my teacher would allow me to stay in the classroom during most playtimes and she would give me extra maths questions to do. I still had to go home for lunch every day.

In secondary school I mainly kept my head down and tried not to be noticed. I did seem to find myself in detention quite a lot for being late, due to problems with time management.