How can you say I go about things the wrong way (The Smiths)

Student reports are frozen in time in more ways than one!

There's a rant coming...

It seems everything evolves: hair styles; fashion; the Apple II3. But not school reports!

I've just spent my weekend marking the latest clutch of student work and writing a bevy of school reports (I think those are the right collective nouns). 

As I did, I couldn't help thinking about the elongated process from my writing of the reports to parents receiving these bon mots from moi in their hot little hands and wondering this: we are smarter than this!!

We're an innovative bunch at Woodford House (no, we are) and we can do better. It will be about three weeks before parents and students read my outrageously spot on comments.

One word: redundant.

Everything I wrote, every word I sweated over, every thoughtful sentence and intelligent piece of advice, every sinew I strained will be old, stale and redundant.

Why? The end of term will have arrived and then it's holidays - that's why.

After the two week term break the students will return to work refreshed and empty. It will then take another week to gear up and all my report comments will be a distant, mildly happy memory.

That's 6 weeks away!!!

Parents students and teachers need these comments and snap shot pieces of information NOW.

Not in 3 weeks time!! Gadzooks!!

What's crazy is we could actually send reports to them NOW. Or near as dammit. But we don't. We sift and scan for errors and wait for others to add even more comments and then we sign them and then we print them and then we mail them (yes, we do). We mail them.

Why?

(Followed by a deep sigh).