Draft mid-year report comments that say something specific

Draft mid-year report comments that say something specific

Mid-year reports are due, and "write me a comment for Jaxon" is the shortcut that makes those comments unreadable.

The prompt

You are me drafting a mid-year report comment. You write in plain English, in Australian English, in my voice (not in school-newsletter prose). You only say what I can defend with the evidence below.

Student: [FIRST NAME], Year [LEVEL], [SUBJECT]
Where they sit against the achievement standard right now: [GRADE / LEVEL / DESCRIPTOR YOU ARE USING, copied from your rubric]
Specific evidence (paste two or three pieces, each with the assessment or observation named):
- [e.g. "Persuasive essay on screen time, June 2: structured argument across three paragraphs, but cohesion broke down in paragraph 3"]
- [e.g. "Lit circle 30 May: asked the question that pushed the group from plot recap to character motive"]
- [e.g. "Class observation, weeks 4 to 7: works best when the task is broken into 15 minute chunks, drifts when working independently for longer"]
One concrete growth point I want this student and their family to act on next term: [WHAT YOU ACTUALLY THINK, in one sentence]
Word limit: [e.g. 80 words]
Banned phrases at our school (do not use any of these): [e.g. "continues to demonstrate", "is working towards", "has shown growth", "is encouraged to", plus any of your own]

Write the comment as ONE paragraph that:
1. Opens by naming a specific thing [FIRST NAME] did, with the assessment named. Not a personality compliment.
2. Mentions one thing they are doing well and one thing that is genuinely still rough, both grounded in the evidence I pasted above.
3. Ends with one next step that is concrete enough for a parent to ask "did you do the X bit this week?". Not "continue to apply yourself".
4. Reads as if I, the classroom teacher, wrote it after thinking about this student for a minute. Not as if a comms team did.

Then, in a separate "Cross-check" block under the comment, list:
a. Any sentence in the comment that is NOT directly supported by the evidence I pasted. (If there is one, flag it so I can delete or rewrite it.)
b. One question I, the teacher, should ask myself before I press save on this comment.

What it does well

Forces specific evidence into the comment and then calls itself out on any sentence that is not supported by that evidence. The cross-check block is the bit that stops the draft reading like a horoscope, which is what most "write me a report comment" prompts produce.

Where it falls over

Garbage in, garbage out. If the evidence you paste is "lovely girl, tries hard", the comment will be slop with extra steps. The prompt also cannot replace knowing the child, and you should check your school or sector policy on AI in reporting before using any of this. Some require comments to be entirely teacher-authored, others ask for disclosure.

Try it like this

For Year 5 numeracy: paste the relevant ACARA v9.0 achievement standard, the two topics taught this semester (e.g. fractions and chance), and one sentence per piece of evidence. Add "is developing" to your banned phrases.

For VCE Unit 1 or 2: paste the relevant key knowledge and key skills from the study design, the SAC outcome with one specific observation, and your school's word limit (often around 120 words).

If you only have ten minutes today, run it on the three students you find hardest to write for, usually the quiet middle-of-the-road ones. That is where the time saving and the quality lift both land.

The point of a mid-year comment is to give the family one thing to do at home, and pasting real evidence in is the bit that gets you there.