A primary school report from the 1980s

An typical example of the summary for a primary school report from the 1980s before the National Curriculum was introduced. Notice the absence of boxes for science, technology, and ICT. These were not always taught as separate subjects until after the National Curriculum came into force in 1988. Geography and history were most likely taught as part of a project rather than in dedicated lessons, which was common practice in schools which adopted the project work based system. The report has separate boxes for both the research and presentation aspects of project work which is likely to imply that the school considers handwriting to be of a high priority. It is possible that the school could have been reluctant to allow children to print out material for project work on a computer. The grading system is somewhat erratic, and is probably subjective, which makes it more difficult to make comparisons with children from other schools.

Many children with AS had a raw deal under this style of assessment as it doesn't always take into account many of their strengths and it also has the potential to overemphasise their weaknesses.

I almost had a flashback looking at that report because it's depressingly similar to the end of term report cards from my KS2 years. The only differences were that the box for project presentation was substituted for a box for handwriting and there were two English boxes for reading and written work. There must have been some sort of standardisation in the era before the NC. The grading system with all the pluses and minuses looks confusing. The teachers at my primary school gave marks from 0 to 5 with 5 being the best.

My own experience of school makes me think that reports like these are biased towards how hard a child has worked rather than their intelligence or ability because there were no benchmarks to compare children's abilities with in 1986. Tests and exams were sporadic in my primary school which resulted in a child's grade being determined by the opinion of a teacher more than anything else.

I forgot to mention that there isn't a box for religious education. A high proportion of primary schools in the 80s didn't teach about religions other than Christianity. More often than not this was because the teachers had no knowledge of other religions. A significant proportion of RE teaching took place in the assembly hall rather than in classrooms.