Ah, the school report. I remember being given an envelope addressed to my mum near the end of term which I knew contained the dreaded school report. Back in ‘those days’ things were pretty simple. You were given A B C D E  as a grade for your school work. This might be followed by a + or a  –  but all in all, very easy to understand! If you got an A you were doing well, and an E meant you were in the shit, both at home and at school!

I never got many As unfortunately, except in English (because I liked it). I got by mostly on Bs and Cs which of course meant that I always got comments on my report such as ‘could do better’ and that kind of thing. Mum was a little disappointed (Dad more so when and if I ever told him) but I just did not like that school.

Anyway, Miss Hap goes to the same school but luckily for her, she is not blighted by my lacklustre results as all of the teachers have left since I was there. I received her report by e-mail! I got a notification that it was up on the school website and that I could log in to see it.

I managed to do it this time thankfully as it saved me the humiliation of e-mailing the school back and forth when I could not even log on last term,and had problems being able to read it in the right programme!

Gone are the days of the good old grading system and now we are graded with a number and a letter. For example 6A, 5C, that sort of thing. plus another number from 1-4 for ‘attitude to learning!’ It is all a bit confusing for me; especially as I still refer to her as a 1st year  rather than being in year 7 (why the hell they had to change all that. I really don’t know, especially as we still have a sixth form, which I am assuming would be a year 15 or some such nonsense)!

Anyway, Miss Hap has had a pretty bumpy first year, with more than a few setbacks, some more serious than others, but all of them upsetting. This meant that we have also been to the school for meetings on a few occasions, and have got to know a couple of staff members quite well. (I have to say they have been brilliant).

I was delighted to see that Miss Hap had done particularly well in Art. Now she says she cannot draw and has got herself in a state about it, She also at first, did not score that high in the subject due to lack of confidence. You can imagine how proud I am when she had a glowing report with her teacher saying how far she has come and how much she is applying herself to it. I was so pleased with her last Art homework, she spent so much time on it (the picture is the end result) and it paid off!

She also came top in German with 82% as she absolutely loves it! Considering the fact that she has a lot of self-confidence issues, and has struggled socially at school, I am extremely proud of her. It is not so much being top, it is overcoming the fact that she felt she couldn’t do something, but stuck at it and proved that she could!