This part looks at Waldorf reports for older children who are in some way outside the norm, and so these samples of descriptive summaries reflect diverse aspects of individual learning.
The first example is for a child from a family of dyslexic learners:
CLASS 4
Lettie applied herself with dedication, beginning with our block on the Norse Myths. Quite suddenly, her usual phlegmatic daydreaming gave way to joyful engagement. She contributed to class discussions and engaged actively with lesson content.
All at once she woke up to the world around her, particularly enjoying Viking craftwork, recitation and form drawings. A lovingly created shield completed her Old Norse costume, which she wore with pride at our performance.
Local geography and history also excited Lettie´s interest. She did outstandingly beautiful bookwork and coped well with the first homework set in this context.
She put a lot of effort into her animal project. Though she did not manage to complete it on time, she was not content with doing the bare minimum and added some lovely optional extras.
Lettie’s artistic talent is her great strength. Her artwork is a joy to behold and allows her to shine in an important part of our daily work, compensating for the continuing struggle with literacy and numeracy.
Her paintings have shown a new awareness of form, a search for more subtle ways of interpreting the given topic, and she succeeded admirably in this. Her form drawings continue to be well-balanced, bold and harmonious. She has a good understanding of the principle of weaving lines for this year´s braided knotwork.
Lettie´s written pages show a good sense of spacing and layout. Her cursive handwriting gained neatness with the use of our new fountain pen. When copying text, she makes mistakes or leaves out words due to not following with her mind what she is writing. But to the benefit of her pages, she has learnt not to make messy corrections.
For weekly spelling practice, Lettie attempted voluntarily to increase the number of words she practised from 5 to 10. After about six months she was learning all the given words, even achieving full marks on occasion. This really boosted her confidence in her ability to do well, for it proved that diligent efforts bear fruit.
Lettie approaches written summaries without trepidation, though her writing remains basic and unskilled. She still lacks the sense of style that comes with the reading of books, but there is slow progress. The regular one-on-one learning support she receives is helping to build skills and confidence, and her dedicated efforts will surely see her through.
In reading she has already made good progress, and it is lovely to see her glow with pride at my praise. She was keen to practise her chosen poem for our Reading Event and read it fluently on the day.
Lettie was a reliable support to her group when singing in harmony. She was also able to follow her voice in our new recorder duets, beginning to read music from the sheet.
Her voice continues to ring with strength and clarity in any piece of recitation, and she blew us away when she spoke her dramatic lines in our Christmas Play for the first time. She enjoyed the experience of producing a big play, listened attentively to instructions and applied them instantly. As a lovely innkeeper, she tried hard to convince the audience of her cold and cruel character.
There was much progress in maths this year. Lettie participated eagerly in our numberwork, awaking to an understanding of its processes. Reciting times tables naturally plays to her excellent memory, whereas the Figure it out workbook presents the ongoing challenge of decoding symbols correctly. Lettie has shown a good understanding of fractions and applied herself diligently to the worksheets. In columns of mixed problems, she tends to overlook the minus sign and continues to add.
She readily asks for help with the reading of a problem, making sure that she has all the information she needs. Then she takes off, eager to prove her mettle. This new self-motivation has done wonders for her progress and will take her far in years to come.
Socially, Lettie began to be less shy of attention. She mingles easily with boys and girls and has become a bit more assertive recently, entertaining her peers with amusing stories, told with vigour.
Lettie made the most of the experiences Class 4 offered and was able to enjoy the success that crowned her efforts. At all times a supportive and attentive member of the class, she is a joy to work with, and I look forward to continuing our journey next year.
The following report is for a boy whose manner falls in the category ADHD:
CLASS 5
Simon, joining us from the local primary school, faced many things that were new to him. With a sunny disposition and mercurial mind, he met challenges willingly as he made first attempts with recorder, fountain pen and paintbrush in one-on-one tuition sessions.
Drawing with wax crayons was a new experience too, and he showed himself willing to abandon contour lines in favour of developing shapes.
Simon loves music and delights in our morning singing. To the annoyance of others, he may keep singing through all the following lessons. That he was initially unable to pitch a note did not deter him. And, simply by joining in the daily class chorus, he learnt to sing in tune.
Speechwork is also new territory, for which Simon is well equipped with his feeling for language and quick grasp of nuance. He learnt his passage from the Odyssey rapidly, recited it expressively each week, and performed it with strength and feeling at our Greek Evening, standing straight and still. It proved much more difficult to sit attentively while others recited their lines.
Greek circle dancing posed the problem of directing his attention to the feet, calmly counting steps and changing direction in time with the lively music that excited his sanguine disposition. It turned out to be a truly therapeutic activity, his love for music spurring him to rise to the challenge.
That homework has been part of Simon´s life from his early years resulted in a negative attitude. He just wants to get it out of the way and does not mind that what he produces in a hurry is of poor quality. This will need particular attention next year.
Simon loves to read books and listens to stories with rapt attention, remembers every detail and is a talented writer. His compositions have a special charm and humour. A bit too chatty at times, they show his great sense of style. I read his work to the class on several occasions to great acclaim.
Arithmetic is where Simon struggles most. Not for lack of understanding, but because extreme sanguinity makes it hard for him to follow a process through, both in the mind and on paper. On top of this, the way he was taught previously has turned him into a maths phobic who panics at the mere sight of numbers. His nimble mind just shuts down, and this prevents him from taking in explanations.
Fortunately, Simon was able to get regular extra lessons, arranged privately. This one-on-one support must continue if he is to keep up in arithmetic.
By contrast, craftwork focuses Simon wonderfully, and the pride he takes in his projects is good to see. Working with his hands enables him to engage completely, calming his mind and stilling his body. The repeated experience that he could produce lovely things was a positive milestone on his path.
Simon´s bookwork improved greatly during the year. At first, accustomed to worksheets, he could not see the point of creating a beautiful page. For him it was all about speed: “There, I’m done!”
His handwriting was almost illegible; a jumpy scrawl sprinkled with random capital letters and hardly joined up. He declared it to be “marks made by a dying spider dipped in ink”. Much time and diplomacy was invested in showing Simon the difference a more careful approach makes. By the end of the year this showed pleasing results, and he took growing pride in his efforts.
His last book of the year, on Ancient Greece, contains well-spaced pages with much neater writing and delightful illustrations. He, his teacher and his parents are equally pleased with this significant achievement.
Simon is a cheerful, chatty and entertaining member of the class, universally interested and hardly ever still. Fluctuating between good and bad days, he made steady progress and many friends. At times he costs his teachers as much energy as the rest of the class put together, but he is a delightful and promising pupil who is making his way.
Simon is clearly benefitting from the Waldorf curriculum, and I look forward to seeing his talents and skills unfold further next year.
The report that takes the least time to write is usually for a high achiever:
CLASS 6
Nadia has been thriving on this year´s challenges. A methodical approach, analysis and evaluation appeal to her, be it working with mathematical formulae and geometric constructions, or editing text and shading drawings.
In our Geometry block she participated with quiet interest. The subject´s objective logic is germane to her clear mind that has no difficulty grasping new concepts. She also readily helped classmates who were finding them difficult to understand. The excellent score of her Main Lesson Review proves that she gained a thorough understanding of the topics we studied.
Working on a special challenge, Nadia found a way to divide the circle by five. Though the resulting sides were not precisely equal, her good attempt showed how much she enjoys putting her mind to abstract problems.
Nadia´s project on a European country is outstanding in every way and proved that she is able to work independently as well as in a guided setting. She put much effort into revision for this Main Lesson Review, and her resulting score left the class far behind.
Her Main Lesson bookwork is consistently on the highest level. With original ideas for a pleasing layout, her pages increased further in artistic strength and colour, as did all her artwork. After creating a fine interpretation of a Roman mosaic in record time, she helped slower friends with their work.
Nadia’s creative writing has come a long way, as can be seen from the accounts and stories she wrote. She has become aware of a tendency to begin every sentence with “Then …” and knows how to avoid this. Reading good books will help her to develop her written style further.
Her arithmetic skills are sound. Always focused, she quickly comprehends new concepts and has consolidated her understanding of processes involving fractions, decimals and percentages. Her weekly maths sheet was nearly always completed and handed in on time. Their results are in the middle field, for she is prone to trivial errors in the execution of steps she knows well. This lowers scores which would potentially be top-of-the-range.
Nadia bravely took on a small part in our Roman play. Though she dislikes acting and has always been shy onstage, she seemed to enjoy the rehearsals and did well in the performance.
It has been a pleasure to witness Nadia’s progress. Maturing steadily, she continues to be a helpful, kind and reliable presence in the classroom. Her steadiness, commitment and unfailing goodwill in lessons are a great support to her class and its teachers.
I congratulate Nadia on her consistently outstanding work and look forward to continuing our journey together.
More time and careful consideration are needed to write about a troubled learner with non-school-related issues:
Jasper did not rise easily to the demands of Class 6. A therapist who observed the class described him as “provocative in his disengagement”. In the words of a colleague, “He just doesn’t care.”
In lessons, he often needed a personal invitation to do what was required. He would not accept responsibility for his learning or behaviour and relied heavily on the goodwill of his teachers.
Jasper could easily have shone in the Geometry Main Lesson, possessing all the skills needed to excel. But he was so often disengaged during our work that the low score of his Main Lesson Review came as no surprise. He emerged from his reveries only when there were constructions to be done, and at these he was proficient. The resulting bookwork is beautiful, for he spent much care on his drawings.
Another positive achievement was a real breakthrough in creative writing. Since Class 1 he suffered from writer’s block, often unable to write even one sentence he was happy with in 45 minutes. Now this difficulty melted away, and he suddenly found that he could express his inner voice.
As he wrote lovely descriptions, accounts and stories with seeming ease, it was hard to tell whether he was as relieved and pleased as I was. He never displays any pride in his achievements and does not seem to take in the admiration we all express for his artwork.
Jasper’s progress in arithmetic presents a puzzling picture. He achieved an excellent score in a test on fractions, and his participation in the Maths block showed a good grasp of decimals and percentages. Even so, the Main Lesson Review and the weekly worksheets saw him at a loss when asked to solve similar problems. The worksheets were at times hastily done, containing too many errors to be acceptable.
It is of paramount importance that Jasper learns the multiplication tables firmly by heart to ensure progress next year. He needs help with this at home, for he will certainly prefer to forget all about it.
Jasper produced a wonderful Roman mosaic with painstaking care. Like his earlier form drawings, it shows inner balance and striving for perfection. He found it much harder to come to terms with the new technique of diagonal shading and could not accept that there is a right way of doing it.
The record shows that Jasper continually struggles to complete homework on time. Though his attitude to homework improved somewhat, he is not on top of it and still needs encouragement, support and express delivery service from home.
A certain maturity began to show itself in rare glimpses during the second half of the year. When Jasper was more open, cooperative and engaged, we saw what a delightful and successful pupil he could be.
Unfortunately there were also far too many transgressions and incidents, and so Jasper was due for his first detention. His tendency to ignore rules and instructions was particularly challenging on class outings. He behaves like a little boy on occasion, but is now of an age where we need to rely on his good sense and trust him to do the right thing. This needs further work next year.
As Captain of the Guard in our Roman play, Jasper showed the quiet strength and uprightness that is growing in him, and it was a great joy to hear him speak his lines with such earnestness and proper feeling.
Despite many challenges and frustrations, it has been rewarding to witness Jasper’s progress. He has so much going for him, and I hope he will realise this and find a way to bring his talents to bear in Class 7.
Continued in Part 3 …
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Soy gran admiradora de este espacio. Por cosas de la vida, y del destino. Recibí a unos niños en cuarto grado (a finales) y ahora los llevaré el próximo año a 8°. Aún sigo esforzándome mucho en cada evaluación. Las leo y releo hasta estar convencida que logro plasmar lo que quiero comunicar. Estaré muy feliz de una tercer parte de este artículo y de más recursos sobre la evolución. He comprado ya el de los 30 días. Muchas gracias por este hermoso espacio.
Muchísimas gracias, Adriana! Me alegraste el día.