Writing a class set of descriptive Waldorf reports is the school year’s ultimate challenge for class and subject teachers. Already exhausted, they undertake this magnificent task in their supposedly ‘free’ time to get everything ready by the last day of the academic year, or else in the first weeks of the holidays.
As families depart to lounge by a sunny pool, Waldorf teachers pore over notes and assessments and go once more through the year’s work, from which they so urgently need to recover.
Experienced veterans have developed systems and routines to make the workload more manageable. But novices in a state of exhaustion may find producing a class set of detailed Waldorf reports a real challenge, though it means writing about children they have come to know and love. (Link to free guide.)
EXPERIENCING WALDORF REPORTS
Teachers who were Waldorf students themselves grew up in intimate contact with descriptive reports, and since these are usually kept by their parents, they get to re-read them as grown-ups.
I remember how moved I was as an adult by how much thought, effort and insight my teachers had put into their annual summaries of my progress. It made me see that they had cared about me, each one in their own way.
As a child, I thought this completely normal and nothing special. (If there is a downside to Waldorf Education, it is the sense of entitlement it engenders.) But after re-reading these reports, I felt ashamed of my earlier often thoughtless and ungrateful attitude towards my teachers.
In certain home situations, my parents quoted apt words from my report when in need of backup. Though annoying, it proved effective because the truth of these assessments was indisputable.
Naturally, these aspects increase the weight of responsibility teachers feel when writing reports. There is a backdrop of worry that one has not been able to do every child complete justice.
See also Individualised reports instead of grades
THE FORMAT OF WALDORF REPORTS
End-of-year Waldorf reports have a format decided on by each individual school, so this varies widely.
My childhood reports, in a special linen-bound book, had been written in fountain pen, and I remember studying each teacher’s personal script. Some were easy to read, others less so … And it must have been an organisational feat to pass hundreds of report books around to get everyone’s contribution in time.
By the time I became a teacher, all colleagues could finalise their reports simultaneously, for now they were typed on a PC and assembled in a printed cover the school provided.
THE WALDORF REPORT VERSE
The traditional Report Verse for each child is described here.
In British schools it has been replaced by Birthday Verses to ease the class teacher’s end-of-year load. (See these articles for details.)
THE REPORT‘S INTRODUCTION
Waldorf reports usually begin with a summary of the year, an overview of work done with the group. For my Class 1 it looked like this:
The year began with the wonderful experience of coming together as a class, getting to know one another and making friends.
A world of form opened up as we explored the straight line and the curve. We saw that those basic principles make up all forms around us, and found them again in letters and numbers.
Walking a wavy line was easy to do when singing, but for counting an angled line seemed more fitting. We then practised these very different qualities in a sequence of symmetry forms.
Soon the children were able to complete a given half of any form by themselves. They also enjoyed designing forms to be completed by a friend.
We accompanied Alf and Beth on their enchanted journey through earth, water, sunshine and wind, illustrated their adventures and discovered the forms and sounds of letters in doing so. In this way, the letters became our friends in a meaningful way.
We modelled letters, cut them from card and mounted them on the wall to form first words, learnt alphabet songs and a poem. When I wrote the name of every child on the blackboard as a first exercise in reading and copying, there was great excitement: “This is so fun!”
We learnt songs and poems about seasons and festivals, acting them out with great enjoyment. The plays of Saint Nicholas, The Little Tree and the Pageant provided a first taste of drama.
Painting with watercolours on wet paper helped to experience the qualities of colours. We observed how they mix to create other colours and learnt to handle brush, sponge and cloth.
Looking at the quality of numbers, we found that ‘oneness’ is the greatest number – the entity that produces all the other numbers in turn. Counting on our hands led to writing Roman numerals, and we saw how awkward and confusing they become in higher regions.
Geometrical figures arising from numbers 3 to 6 were explored with long ropes, stretched inside our circle. Counting was practised daily, forwards and backwards, clapping, stamping, hopping and skipping.
Sir Plus, Sir Minus, Sir Times and Sir Divide showed us what can be done with numbers, and we helped them solve problems with our bean counters. Outdoors, the Number Runner showed us how quickly units ‘move’ when compared to the slower tens and the very slow hundreds.
The number bonds up to 20 were chanted, and so were the multiples of 2, 3, 5, 10 and 11. Clapping them in sequence with a partner engaged thought, speech and movement in equal measure.
The life cycle of butterflies was the topic of an illustrated Nature Story. We modelled caterpillars on juicy leaves and placed them on our Nature Table. Paper butterflies were lovingly decorated and suspended above, their wings showing symmetric designs from our earlier form drawings.
In our last Main Lesson, the big letters were joined by little cousins that changed the familiar look of our names. We also studied the difference between ‘singing’ letters (the vowels) and ‘speaking’ letters.
Practising to line up letters neatly, we used them as building blocks for word families and first sentences, reading repeatedly what we had written. Our first pieces of copied writing were two poems that complemented our collages of bees and butterflies.
in Class 1, all our work is firstly concerned with the most basic elements, and these are approached in a philosophical rather than a trivial way.
Secondly, the way in which we work with these elements responds to deep needs in the child. To the cost of premature academic achievement, this therapeutic approach puts down a healthy foundation for future development.
Thirdly, everything we do encourages children to love the world, to understand it in a joyful way, and to feel welcome and secure in their school environment.
INDIVIDUAL WALDORF REPORTS
The general introduction is followed by an individual report. In Class 1, it mainly describes participation in lessons and integration in the peer group.
Rather than focusing on academic achievements, it seeks to portray what makes a child unique. For example:
CLASS 1
Arthur observes in a quiet and earnest manner. As he found his place in the group, he began to participate actively and became a much-loved member of the class, friendly with boys and girls alike.
Arthur scrutinizes his teachers intently. Not much escapes his keen eyes that can twinkle mischievously at a moment’s notice. His alert mind, excellent memory and interest in all our work make him absorb things with ease.
To mask his initial insecurity, Arthur pretended that school bores him, but his attitude in our lessons did not bear this out. He was particularly interested and reliably helpful in gardening.
Arthur’s personal style tends to be detailed and delicate, and he creates beautiful artwork in a careful and slow manner.
He likes order, respects rules and makes sure that they are upheld by alerting me to any naughtiness. His own mischievousness is limited to overdoing things and following instructions to the extreme, which amuses him greatly.
Arthur appears equally capable in the intellectual, artistic and athletic realm. His only struggle is an intense dislike of being watched. This caused him acute discomfort in our little performances, yet he always made an effort.
It is a pleasure to have Arthur in the class, and I look forward to continuing our journey together.
Bella lost no time settling in, became a popular member of the group and impressed us with her determination to attempt things she finds difficult.
Never shy to ask for help, she also showed courage in overcoming considerable trepidation when skipping with the big rope.
Always radiating goodwill and enjoyment, she takes every task very seriously. Getting organised takes Bella a while and makes her slow in practical work, but she has shown good understanding of all we learnt.
Her initially faint and hazy drawings and paintings gained structure and clarity in the course of the year.
Bella works with great care and has decided ideas of how she wants to do things, yet she is open to suggestions.
Saving things from the bin is important to Bella. She collects rejected scraps of paper and snippets of yarn, and delights in showing similar treasures from home to the class.
When she looked after an injured friend and volunteered to be a visiting pupil’s buddy, we saw Bella’s lovely caring side, which complements her ‘I am the princess, look at me’ attitude in a good way.
It is a pleasure to have Bella in the class, and I look forward to continuing our journey together.
By Class 2, the evolving picture gains more detail, beginning to outline struggles and strengths in literacy and numeracy, arts, crafts, music, drama and the social realm. For example:
CLASS 2
John has grown in strength and resilience this year; the headaches and tears of Class 1 are now a thing of the past. In the playground, combining stealth with patience, he displayed an aptitude for clever strategies that made him win games repeatedly.
His heartwarming impersonation of characters in our Morning Circle recitations shows how well John observes emotions and gestures. He has a decided talent for acting. He is also highly musical and loves to improvise a tune on the pipe while the class follow his fingers.
John’s literacy skills are advanced. He is confident in this area and likes to help others with their reading and spelling. He also follows our numberwork with ease, but his written numerals and letters are faint and inaccurate, produced in a manner that echoes his hasty speech.
Kneading and softening modelling beeswax is still beyond him, but the effort engages his fingers that tend to drop and scatter things. In Form Drawing and craftwork, it became apparent that his mind struggles to guide his hands. Consequently, a professional diagnosis of dyspraxia saw regular therapy put in place to help him with this.
Whenever John cannot do something well, he prefers not to try and invents creative excuses. Then much patient nudging is needed to get him to accept that regular practice is necessary to develop any skill – be it legible handwriting, skipping with the big rope or watercolour painting.
His earlier paintings usually ended as a murky sauce, to his angry frustration, but recent one-on-one art therapy sessions have boosted his skills and confidence remarkably.
John’s key achievements this year are an increased ability to deal with frustration, a willingness to keep making efforts, and a new motivation to slow down when speaking and writing.
He is helped by being a much-loved member of the class and having a close friend for support and companionship.
It is a pleasure to have John in the class and accompany him on his learning journey.
The following year, the individual report gives an even more detailed picture. For example:
CLASS 3
Class 3 has been a productive year for Lucy, who participated eagerly and always did her best.
She loves to sing rounds and is able to hold her part well. On the recorder, Lucy learns every tune with ease and likes to lead a group. But in recitation her voice is no longer the strongest in the chorus, nor is she as engaged as before.
Lucy contributed good ideas to our choreography of the Paradise Poem and enjoyed its performance. When speaking her Birthday Verse, her former radiance and strength are giving way to the self-consciousness which the so-called Rubicon brings.
Listening attentively to the presentation of Main Lesson content, Lucy showed much interest and eagerness to learn. She worked with particular care on the ‘Seven Days of Creation’ and produced very fine paintings and drawings.
Always eager to volunteer for recall, she remembers every story in great detail. Therefore she finds it hard to keep written summaries short. These can go off at a tangent and are colloquial in style, in one case ending with “That’s all from me, see you later!”
Lucy’s books are filled with artwork of colourful liveliness. Her handwriting has grown more controlled this year. She put much effort into this, yet her written pages still look rather messy.
Her good grasp of spelling often leads to top marks in the weekly test. Lucy reads fluently and with competence. She even volunteered to read a chapter of The Six Bullerby Children to the class.
She is good at mental arithmetic, knows times tables and number bonds well and takes part actively in all our numberwork. No hidden rule or pattern in the problems of a worksheet or our Figure it out practice book escapes her keen mind.
Lucy’s paintings continue to be lively in colour and artistic in form, resulting in splendid images. Her form drawings can be a bit lopsided, uncertain of their balance.
She approached her building project models with characteristic initiative and competence in practical tasks and was justly pleased with the results.
She also enjoyed the outdoor work, wielding spade, bricks and wheelbarrow with gusto. Her habit of wanting to do something so badly that she pushes others aside irritated her classmates, but as yet she just can’t help it.
Lucy relished the cooking we did, peeling and chopping expertly, eager to be first at everything. She loved our pumpkin soup, had several helpings and declared it “the best thing I’ve tasted in my whole life!”
It was lovely to see her delight in our outings. She observed with avid interest and made the most of every experience on offer. Our camp on a farm appealed to her love of animals, and the resulting bookwork shows this perfectly.
Socially, Lucy continues to be at the centre of the action. More recently she has at times had the uncomfortable experience of being the odd one out, lacking a best friend. She does prefer to charge around with the boys, and this naturally removes her from our close-knit groups of girls.
Current changes apparent in Lucy are consistent with the crisis of the ninth year – a normal developmental step. She has become quieter, often looks withdrawn, pale and tired, and no longer feels at one with the world.
Her dependable enthusiasm begins to be replaced by groaning and eye-rolling, evidence of a growing inner distance that was unimaginable before. Even so, she still sheds this attitude quickly in her eagerness to participate in our work, and she loves to help wherever she can.
Lucy has made excellent progress, and together we look forward to the experiences of Class 4.
ADDITIONAL EXTRAS
I found it helpful to add an overview of the year’s work as an index page, starting with Class 1:
To raise awareness, I also included a page recording attendance and lateness in the morning. This table showed the score of previous years for comparison:
THE VISUAL RECORD
Adding a photograph to illustrate the year’s outer changes requires careful recordkeeping with a camera. But the appealing extra dimension it gives to reports across the years is well worth it, as seen in this example from Class 2 to Class 7:
Continued with Parts 2 and 3 …
Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.
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