Write report comments that actually sound like you

Write report comments that actually sound like you

The line you never want to hear at parent-teacher interviews is "this comment could have been about any student in the class." It is also, unfortunately, exactly the line most AI-drafted report comments earn. Reports open in most Victorian schools this month, so here is the prompt that keeps yours off that list.

The prompt

You are helping me draft a Semester [1/2] report comment for one student. Match my voice exactly. Do not use phrases like "consistently demonstrates", "has shown growth throughout the semester", "a pleasure to teach" or "keep up the great work" unless they appear in the voice samples I give you below.

MY VOICE. Three comments I wrote last report round that I was happy with:
[PASTE 2 OR 3 REAL COMMENTS. Names removed. If you have none you like, paste anything that sounds like you: an email to a parent, a colleague's comment you admire, a paragraph from your own writing.]

THE STUDENT. [STUDENT FIRST NAME], Year [YEAR], [SUBJECT]:
- Grade or achievement descriptor: [e.g. B, at standard, working towards]
- Strongest piece of work this semester, and what made it strong: [PASTE]
- Most instructive struggle this semester: [PASTE]
- Two specific moments in class I want the parent to know about, dated if I can: [PASTE]
- The single thing this student should focus on next semester: [PASTE]
- Anything about home context I need to be gentle around: [PASTE or "none"]

SCHOOL STYLE:
- Addressed to: [student / parent / neutral]
- Word count: [e.g. 80 to 120 words]
- Must include: [e.g. one specific achievement, one growth area, one forward-looking sentence]
- Must avoid: [e.g. the word "great", the pronoun "we" for a solo subject, any exclamation marks]

Draft the comment. Then, on a separate line labelled REWRITE THIS, tell me the single sentence in your draft that most sounds like AI and least sounds like me, so I can rewrite it by hand before I paste this into the reports system.

What it does well

The voice samples do the heavy lifting: give it three real comments of yours and the draft will read like the fourth, not like a generic Year 9 English report from a Reddit thread. The "REWRITE THIS" line at the end is the point of difference. It forces the model to self-audit and hands you the one sentence a parent would smell.

Where it falls over

The output is only as specific as the evidence you feed it. Paste "hard worker, sometimes off task" and you will get "a hard-working student who is sometimes off task", dressed up in nicer clothing. The prompt also cannot invent achievements. If you cannot list two specific moments from the semester, that is a marking book problem, not a prompt problem, and you need to fix it there first.

Try it like this

For a primary class of 26: run the prompt once with your voice samples locked in, then loop through the class by only swapping the STUDENT block. The comments stay in your voice and vary on evidence, which is exactly the right way round.

For VCE: paste the relevant Unit 3 or 4 outcome descriptors into the SCHOOL STYLE block under "must include", so the comment lands in the language the study design actually uses.

If you only have five minutes tonight and no voice samples handy: paste one comment you wish you had written, from a colleague you respect, and tell the prompt to match that tone instead. It is worse than using your own voice, but it is a long way better than the default.

If your first draft still reads like AI even after all that, the fix is almost never a longer prompt. It is a better set of voice samples. Swap them out and run it again.