Trying again on July 11th

So here I go again after a number of time consuming attempts at the post yesterday, I plan to start earlier and get it completed without accidentally deleting everything (sheesh)!

So I encourage my students at the year end- the last day works well, to write me a report card for the teaching year complete with a grade and comments about what they thought worked well (two stars) and a wish- some thing they thought that could be improved.

The reports were so honest and insightful that they made me think reflectively from the students perspective as well as get a good laugh at my own expense. I have never thought to share the reports before but thought that it might be something that my readers and students' parents could appreciate and get an insight into the thoughts of their children.

I had a class of 24 students this year. Three students were away on the last day and a couple of them decided to write a report together so in total I received 20 reports cards.

My grades ranged from A to C- (ouch!)
The breakdown was
A (1)
B+ (4)
B (7)
C+ (5)
C- (3)
So my median grade was a B
Obviously lots of 'room for improvement'

The things the students starred or commented worked well this year were

• Attendance- - I think they meant I attended classes well?? Or that one could have been a bit of a 'dig' in the sense that the only thing I did we'll was take their attendance? Not 100% clear on the 'attendance' comment!
• Seating apparently I always included stunt preferences and everyone was 'satisfied'
• Listened to students and dealt with issues quickly- especially the silly antics in class and the cloakroom
• Science labs and experiments even when they failed!
• Making learning fun (one student wrote that I helped the 'unlearnable to learn'  - so funny)
• All sorts of funky projects!
• Many curricular areas were mentioned more than once in the reports including: math, language arts, French, socials and art projects

A thanks guys and gals- appreciate your opinions.

Now the more important section about the students opinions about what needed to change and things I needed to consider about future practice as a teacher

• Too many activities started before the current one was completed students said "Don't assign another project when we're not done the first one"
• Less talking about the work and more working on the work
• Don't over explain things let us try it out and if we don't get it we'll figure it out!
• More gym time 
• More parties needed (celebrations)
• More field trips
• Listen better to our suggestions and try the ones that might work (for example French worked better when H. Mc. said to try the morning instead of the afternoon)
• Be stricter- repeating things over and over isn't working- "if you are more strict(er) you wouldn't have to regulate your temper
• Send students out- use the office
• Be careful