Proofreading Primary School Reports
Mark Campbell
Introduction
Proofreading is not rocket science. Anyone can proofread. The main requirement of a proofreader is to read the text slowly and carefully. Read it aloud—that will help you decide whether it makes sense or not. You must be totally impartial to what you are reading. Remember, you are actively looking for mistakes. You will be disappointed if you don’t find any! If it is your own report you are proofreading, it is likely that you are so familiar with it that you will overlook the mistakes, such as missing words or misspellings. That’s why it is always easier to read other people’s reports. But if you are reading your own, I would advise that you leave it at least a day before doing so. That way you will be slightly less familiar with it and more likely to uncover errors.
It is very important to keep in mind the ultimate goal of proofreading. In short, you are aiming for perfection! We all make mistakes when we write things—from the headteacher down—and your job is to root them out and correct them, by going back through whatever you (or someone else) has written and highlighting them. Consider any report you have written a First Draft. Nobody would send off a First Draft of anything, but until you have proofread it, that’s what it is.
The problem when you proofread your own text is that if you do not know what is wrong with it, you will be unable to correct it. Very often, reading it aloud slowly and clearly can highlight any problems with the meaning. But this is not a foolproof method. It may not, for instance, help you correct spellings or punctuation errors. It should help with grammar errors and silly mistakes like putting the wrong child’s name on a report, but that’s only part of the story.
This short guide is intended for all primary school teacher. I would strongly advise that you read it all the way through before you write the first word of your first report. It will save you a great deal of time and effort if you don’t need to correct many things when you proofread later. Report writing is hard work. Don’t make it any harder on yourself.
Your report reflects the school that you teach in. If it is rushed, hard to understand and full of mistakes, parents will (consciously or otherwise) see it as representing the ethos of the school. Shoddy reports make the school look shoddy. It’s as simple as that. And it’s not just parents who will see it that way. Any educational professional who gets his or her hands on a poorly written school report will not be happy, and that school will come under closer scrutiny.
One final tip: read this guide, write your report and then proofread it (preferably after at least 24 hours of writing it). Do not write any more reports—and under no circumstances cut and paste anything for other reports—until you are 100% certain there are no mistakes in your first one. The very last thing you want to do is go back and correct the same mistakes in thirty reports. It’s soul-destroying.
Mark Campbell
APOSTROPHES
Misuse of the apostrophe is a particular bugbear of mine, as it is with most proofreaders. It appears that a vast number of intelligent people go into some kind of blind panic when faced when having to insert one of these humble little punctuation marks. They just don’t know where to put it. So they put it anywhere, often into words that don’t need it. And it’s not just greengrocers who are guilty—from companies to department stories, from government departments to teaching staff, everyone does it.
So here are the rules. Don’t worry, there are only three.
Rule One: A word requires an apostrophe when it is a composite of two words joined together (a ‘contraction’). The apostrophe represents the missing letter, thus:
haven’t (have + not)
you’re (you + are)
I’m (I + am)
Most people are familiar with this use of the apostrophe and don’t get it wrong. There are the odd exceptions to the rule (such as “won’t” made from “will” and “not”, which jumbles the order of the letters) and some cases where more than one letter is missing (“o’clock” from “of the clock”), but this rule is second nature to most people, and errors rarely happen.
Rule Two: An apostrophe is needed when it indicates ownership, or possession. If it is one person, or object, which is doing the owning, you put an apostrophe followed by an ‘s’ after the person or object, thus:
Rory’s ball (the ball belonging to Rory)
The cat’s toy (the toy belonging to the cat)
If more than one person or object is doing the owning, you pluralize that person or object, as normal, but follow it with the apostrophe, thus:
The boys’ shoes (the shoes belonging to the boys)
The teachers’ books (the books belonging to the teachers)
This is all very straightforward, isn’t it? I hope so. Have a look at this sentence, and decide where the apostrophe (or apostrophes) should go:
The childrens ball fell into the neighbours garden.
The first half is simple. The ball belonged to the children (plural) so it should be “children’s”. The second half is not so easy. Is it one neighbour or more? We have no idea. Unless we are given clues elsewhere in the narrative, we’ll have to guess. Court cases have been dropped because of a missing apostrophe! Here is the sentence correctly punctuated, but I have had to guess how many neighbours were involved:
The children’s ball fell into the neighbours’ garden.
Here is another example. Does it even need an apostrophe?
Amy takes others feelings into account and is willing to help others.
Yes, most definitely. The “feelings” belong to the “others”, so you need an apostrophe as follows:
Amy takes others’ feelings into account and is willing to help others.
Note that the second “others” is a simple plural, which requires no apostrophe. This leads me neatly onto the final rule.
Rule Three: A plural never needs an apostrophe. These examples are all wrong:
Amy has trouble with dividing 5’s, 6’s and 7’s.
Rory has been helped by his TA’s.
Amy has learnt all about the 1900’s.
Rory is always enthusiastic about Math’s lessons.
Don’t be fooled by initials or numbers—they don’t need apostrophes. Here are the correct versions:
Amy has trouble with dividing 5s, 6s and 7s.
Rory has been helped by his TAs.
Amy has learnt all about the 1900s
Rory is always enthusiastic about Maths lessons.
CAPITALS
Strictly speaking, curriculum subjects should be capitalised, if only to make the sentence look more interesting. But if you are going to capitalise them, make sure you do it all the way through. Be consistent. And only do it for the names of the subjects. So this is right:
In Maths, Amy finds it difficult to solve maths problems.
But this is wrong:
In Geography, Amy has been learning about the Geography of Wales.
The one exception to this rule is when you are writing about languages, which are always considered as ‘proper’ names. So this is technically correct:
In English, Rory struggles with his English verb endings.
However, it is also clumsy. There is no need to include the second ‘English’. We know perfectly well which language Rory is struggling with. Make it:
In English, Rory struggles with his verb endings.
When you are writing about ICT, the following words should be capitalised: Word documents, PowerPoint presentations (note the way PowerPoint is written, with two words joined together, and two capital Ps), Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft Works etc. If you’re writing about Maths, capitalise Venn diagrams (‘Venn�
�� is a ‘proper’ name.) And make it “2D” or “3D” rather than “2d” or “3d”.
Topics should be capitalised: “Grouping and Changing Materials” is correct. “Grouping and changing materials” is not. (Don’t capitalise little words like ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘in’ or ‘of’, unless it is the first word.) Similarly book titles need to be capitalised: Fantastic Mr Fox, The Hungry Caterpillar etc. In fact, anything with a ‘proper’ name needs capitalising: Power Rangers, Batman, Spiderman etc.
Confusion sometimes arises when the same word is used in a ‘proper’ name, and again as a noun within the sentence. Only use capitals when it is used in the ‘proper’ name, like here:
After a difficult move from Leadworth Nursery School, Rory is now enjoying his time at our school.
Job titles—such as headteacher, teacher, teaching assistant, farmer, librarian or banker— should not be capitalised.
COLONS
A colon should be used sparingly, if at all. It is used to introduce a list, such as this:
Amy brought several objects to school: a keyring, a bicycle pump and a doll.
Limit its use to this. Never use it instead of a semi-colon. If the list is incorporated in the sentence using words, then you don’t need it. This is wrong:
Rory told us about: farming, castles and beaches.
Delete the colon. Simply say:
Rory told us about farming, castles and beaches.
COMMAS
Think of a comma as a pause, a little shorter than a full stop.
Its primary use is to break up a sentence into more manageable sections. Use it to make a long or complicated sentence easier to process by dividing it into smaller chunks. Some sentences, usually short ones, don’t need one. Others, usually longer ones, do. (But not necessarily!) Have a look at this:
Although his work is completed to a good standard on occasions Rory can become distracted.
Does Rory complete his work to a good standard on occasions? Or does Rory become distracted on occasions? It can’t be both, but, alas, we don’t know which it is. I don’t know for sure, but I will give Rory the benefit of the doubt and suggest it should read as follows:
Although his work is completed to a good standard, on occasions Rory can become distracted.
Here is another example. Try reading it aloud:
When Rory rushes his work is untidy and hard to read.
I expect you probably stumbled in the middle, assuming “Rory rushes his work” was correct, and then realizing a moment later that “his work” goes with the next bit of the sentence: “is untidy”. Putting a comma in solves this self-correcting ‘stutter’:
When Rory rushes, his work is untidy and hard to read.
If you are going to insert a minor clause into a sentence, then you always need two commas, one at the beginning and one at the end of the minor clause. Here’s an example where the meaning is perhaps clear, but the brain stumbles over the way it is presented:
He sometimes needs to look at a question have some time to process it and then come back to answer it.
“Have some time to process it” is a minor clause. Putting two commas in to separate this bit from the rest of the sentence makes it immediately readable and clear:
He sometimes needs to look at a question, have some time to process it, and then come back to answer it.
Commas can cause problems when they’ve been inserted for no reason, as here:
If he needs help, or support he confidently asks for it.
Delete the redundant comma and just make it:
If he needs help or support he confidently asks for it.
Finally, three examples of where a comma is most definitely needed:
Rory is a happy lively child.
He can write letter shapes most of which are correctly formed.
Amy becomes absorbed in her creations usually working on her own at this time.
The first example needs a comma because it is a (short) list. Lists need commas between things, except when they might need a semi-colon (see separate entry). Here’s the first example with a comma:
Rory is a happy, lively child.
The second and third examples requires a comma halfway through to split the sentences into two distinct chunks:
He can write letter shapes, most of which are correctly formed.
Amy becomes absorbed in her creations, usually working on her own at this time.
Opinions differ as to how many commas a sentence might need, if any. Too few may make the sentence unclear, while too many may make it unwieldy. Sometimes it is hard to know how many to use, and there is, unfortunately, no right answer in these cases. The best thing is to read the sentence aloud, carefully and deliberately, and see how it feels. If it helps, I would personally recommend using as few commas as possible, as long as the meaning is clear.
CUTTING AND PASTING
Writing Primary School reports is a laborious and time-consuming job, so cutting and pasting blocks of text is an inevitable part of the job. It makes no sense to write the same thing again and again when you can simply click your mouse a few times and copy swathes of text.
However, it is absolutely vital that you do two things:
Firstly, make sure that your original section is correct. Read it aloud, get a friend to check it and go through this checklist. If you cut and paste a portion of text that has errors in, you are merely compounding the work you have to do when you come to change each and every instance of those errors. Check it rigorously before you copy.
Secondly, when you have copied the text, make sure that you change the pupil’s name if necessary and, with it, the child’s gender (he/she).
E.G. / I.E.
These are not interchangeable. “E.g” is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ‘exempli gratia’ and means “for example”. So the following would be correct:
Amy has many hobbies, e.g. [for example] stamp-collecting and hockey.
“I.e.” is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “id est” and means “that is” or “that is to say”. So this would be correct:
Rory gets on well with his class teacher, i.e. [that is to say] Ms Phillips.
It is unlikely you will need to use “i.e.” in your reports. You may want to use “e.g.” in some situations, but consider just writing “for example”—it looks much neater.
GETTING THE NAME RIGHT
I think this speaks for itself, but make sure that when inserting a pupil’s name into a report cut and pasted from previously written sections, you check that you haven’t accidentally left in another child’s name. It happens, and it looks terrible.
IT’S / ITS
I have given this an entry all its own, although it should really come under the apostrophe section. Confusing it’s and its has become endemic in this day and age, and at first it does seem a little complicated. But it’s not.
An apostrophe is used for a contraction, to replace a missing letter, such as don’t or won’t, so when you want to shorten it is, you put it’s. Simple:
It’s a hot day today.
It’s a long way to Ormskirk.
An apostrophe is also used to show a possessive (“a cat’s dish” or “a boy’s toy”) but—and here’s the big exception—not when you replace the object with “it”. So replacing “cat” with “it” becomes “its dish”, and not “it’s dish”. The 100% foolproof way to check this is to change it’s to it is in your head and see if it still makes sense. Do so for the following two examples:
I have given this an entry all it’s own.
The car and it’s occupants came slowly into view.
Change it’s to it is and you will see the sentences don’t make sense:
I have given this an entry all it is own.
The car and it is occupants came slowly into view.
So the two it’s in the above examples should actually both be its. Whenever you find yourself writing it’s, change it to it is in your head to check it’s correct.
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br /> MISSING WORDS
Anyone can miss words out when they type a report. It’s easy, especially if you’re rushing. The only way to check that you haven’t done this is to read it aloud carefully and slowly when you have finished. Don’t skim read. This is especially important when you are going to cut and paste a section for other reports. Make sure it is correct to begin with before you start copying it and repeating the same mistake over and over. If it all possible, get a friend to read it. They are much more likely to spot any missing words, or mistakes of any kind. Spot the missing words in these two examples:
Rory was able give reasons as to why this might have happened.
He is with support beginning to forward his ideas about scientific investigations.
RIGHT WORD, WRONG CONTEXT
Your computer will usually pick up misspellings with its automatic spellchecker, but if the word is spelt correctly but used in the wrong context, then it won’t. Its default setting will be American English, so it will also suggest you Americanise your text. Don’t. And it may not work when writing in those annoying text boxes that you have to use when compiling reports. So the only way of avoiding using the wrong words (or misspelling words) is, sadly, to proofread it yourself, slowly and carefully. Reading aloud won’t help here, as it’s not the sense you’re checking for, it’s the actually way the words are spelt.
Proofreading UK Primary School Reports Page 1
