What This Skill Does
Turns a teacher's class context and evidence into report card comments that are specific, readable by a family, and recognisably in that teacher's voice. Two working paths — archetypes for common learner profiles, or individualised comments built from a row-per-student table of notes.
The failure mode this skill exists to prevent is fluent, generic comments: 25 variations of "works hard and is a pleasure to have in class" that tell a family nothing.
When To Use This
A teacher mentions report cards, progress reports, term comments, or end-of-semester reporting — or pastes a class list with notes and asks for comments. Also use it when they ask you to review comments they have already drafted.
Ask For This First
Do not start drafting until you have:
- Grade level, subject, and reporting period
- What was actually covered — units, major assignments, the skills that mattered
- The audience — families, students, or both; some systems publish comments to students directly
- Hard constraints — character or word limit, required sections, a school template. Report card systems truncate silently, so this is not optional.
- Voice sample — two or three comments they have written before and liked
- The evidence — notes, grades, observations, or a folder of context
If the teacher has already set up a folder with course documents and past comments, read that before asking them to retype it.
The Workflow
Stage 1 — Establish voice and constraints
Read their sample comments and mirror back the pattern you actually see: how they open, the order they put things in, how they name a next step, how long a comment runs, whether they address the student or the family. Confirm that reading is right before you scale it to 25 comments.
Stage 2 — Pick a path
Path A — Archetypes. Draft comment templates for the learner profiles in this class (for example: strong grasp and ready to stretch; solid work but quiet in discussion; inconsistent completion; growing fast from a low start). The teacher picks the closest match per student and you personalise it with their specific evidence. Faster, and the tone stays consistent across the set.
Path B — Individualised. The teacher supplies a table — one row per student, with brief notes ("asks insightful questions", "detailed lab reports", "led the group revision"). Weave each student's notes into a full comment. Better output, and it needs the teacher to have kept notes.
Offer both. Path A is the right answer for a teacher starting at 9pm with no notes.
Stage 3 — Check every comment
Run each draft against the quality bar below and report what fails rather than quietly patching it. "Three comments have no next step" is more useful to a teacher than three silently rewritten comments.
Stage 4 — Offer variations
For the hard ones — a struggling student, a behaviour concern, a family relationship that is already tense — give two or three versions with different emphasis and let the teacher choose.
The Quality Bar
Every comment should have:
- Specific evidence from this student's work, not a trait label. "Writes detailed lab reports with clear hypotheses" over "works hard".
- At least one genuine strength the teacher would stand behind.
- One actionable next step the student or family can do something with.
- Family-readable language — no unexplained school jargon, no acronyms.
- A link to the course where it helps — what was being learned, not just how the student behaved.
- The teacher's voice, not a template's.
Guardrails
- Never invent evidence. If a student has no notes, say so and ask — do not generate a plausible-sounding observation. An invented specific in a report card is worse than a vague comment, because a family will believe it.
- Describe work, do not diagnose. Observable evidence only. Nothing about attention, motivation, home circumstances, or ability as a fixed trait.
- Keep deficit framing out. "Not yet consistent with" rather than "fails to"; name what the student can do before what is missing.
- Count the characters. If there is a limit, respect it exactly and tell the teacher when a comment is at the edge.
- Follow the teacher's privacy handling. If they anonymise students by initial or ID, keep that scheme end to end and never re-attach a name they did not give you.
Where This Came From
Adapted from the TeamTeacher guide Writing Report Card Comments with TeamTeacher — https://www.teamteacher.ai/docs/guides/report-card-comments