A parent pays you every term and, most of the time, the only thing they receive from you is the invoice. They judge you on a school report you didn't write and on whether their child seems happier about maths. When the re-enrolment form arrives, that's what they've got to go on.
Parent reporting fixes that, and it doesn't need a platform to start. It needs one page, five sections, every second Friday, from your email address. This guide is what goes on the page, what stays off it, and how to do it by hand this term.
- A parent who can't see progress assumes there isn't any. The report is the proof.
- Five sections: what they worked on, how much, what improved by topic, what's next, a line from you.
- Every second Friday. Weekly is noise, monthly is forgotten.
- Leave out attendance percentages, jargon, anything that reads like a school report, and anything a parent has to log in to see.
- The student who did nothing still gets a report. It's the shortest one and the one that gets a reply.
- Twenty fortnightly reports become one term summary, and that's the re-enrolment conversation.
Why a parent who can't see progress assumes there isn't any
Think about what a parent sees of your centre. A drop-off on Tuesday. A pick-up ninety minutes later. Maybe a worksheet in a bag that comes back marked, sometimes, with a tick and no explanation. An invoice at the start of term.
None of that shows progress. It shows attendance and cost. So when the parent asks themselves in Term 3 whether it's working, they have nothing to answer with except the school report, which measures something different, and their child's mood, which measures nothing.
Silence isn't neutral. A parent who hears nothing doesn't assume things are fine. They assume nothing much is happening, because that's what nothing looks like from the outside. That's the whole retention problem in one sentence, and the Term 4 retention playbook is built around it.
The report is the fix because it gives the parent something to point to. Something to repeat to the other parent, a grandparent, a friend at the school gate. Something to reread when the re-enrolment form arrives.
The five sections, in order
A parent reads a report on their phone in about forty seconds. Five sections, in this order, fit that.
| Section | What goes in it | What it does for the parent |
|---|---|---|
| What they worked on | The topics, named the way you'd name them. "Fractions of a quantity, equivalent fractions, adding with unlike denominators." | Tells them the ninety minutes had a shape. |
| How much | Sets completed out of sets assigned. Questions attempted. Roughly how long. | Tells them whether the six days between sessions are being used. |
| What improved | Accuracy by topic, before and after, in plain words. "Adding unlike denominators went from 1 in 4 to 2 in 3." | This is the proof. The only section they'll quote. |
| What's next | The next topic or set, and when. "Two word-problem sets. We'll do the first one together on Tuesday." | Gives the fortnight a reason. |
| A line from you | Two sentences in your words about this child. Signed with your name. | Reminds them a person is paying attention. |
The parent report template is this layout on one page, with a filled example for a Year 6 maths student and the wording for each section.
Order matters. Progress in the middle, where the eye lands. Your line at the end, where it's remembered.
What improved: the section that does the work
The third section is the one most centres get wrong, because it's the one that needs a number.
"Priya is doing well" is nothing. It's what every centre says and it can't be repeated to anyone. "Priya's accuracy on adding fractions with unlike denominators went from about one in four to two in three, which is the skill we spent three Tuesdays on" is proof. It names the topic, it has a before and an after, and it links the improvement to something that happened in your room.
That last part is the bit owners miss. The parent isn't only learning that their child improved. They're learning that the improvement came from you, on a named day, on a named skill. That's what they re-enrol for.
To write it you need three things: the topic, a before, an after. By hand, that means recording what the student got on a set at the start of a topic and again at the end. If you don't have that, the report will tell you, because you'll sit down on Friday with nothing specific to say. That's worth knowing. It means work is going out and coming back and nobody is writing down what it showed.
If you genuinely have nothing measurable this fortnight, say what you observed instead. "She's stopped guessing and started showing working" is an observation a parent can picture. Just don't dress it up as a result.
Every second Friday, not weekly, not monthly
The cadence is a decision, and most centres that start reporting get it wrong in one of two directions.
| Cadence | What happens | Why it fails or works |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Four reports a month. The second one gets opened, the fourth doesn't. Nothing has changed in a week, so the report says so. | Noise. A parent learns the email can be skipped, and then skips the one that mattered. |
| Monthly | Two or three reports a term. Each one covers so much that the specific gets lost. | Forgotten. By the next one the parent can't remember the last one, so there's no pattern. |
| Every second Friday | Roughly five a term, twenty a year. Long enough for a topic to move, short enough to remember the last one. | A pattern the parent can see across a term. Rare enough that each one gets opened. |
Friday because the fortnight's work is done and the parent reads it over the weekend. Every second one because a topic takes about that long to move from "not yet" to "mostly."
By Term 4 a parent on a fortnightly rhythm has seen roughly twenty short reports. That's a different re-enrolment conversation from the one where they've seen four invoices.
What to leave out
The report gets shorter and better with every one of these removed.
| Leave out | Why |
|---|---|
| Attendance percentages | The parent drove them there. They know. It reads as billing. |
| Jargon | "Metacognitive strategies" and "scaffolded learning" tell a parent you're talking to someone else. Name the topic. |
| Anything that reads like a school report | Marks, bands, rubric columns, a paragraph per subject. The parent already gets one of those and it didn't answer their question. |
| Dashboards and charts | A parent doesn't want to interpret a graph on a phone. Say the number in a sentence. |
| A login | If the report needs a password, it isn't a report. It's a task. Nothing to log in to, nothing to install. |
| Comparisons with other students | Never. Even when they'd flatter this child. |
| The invoice | Separate email, separate day. The report is proof; the invoice is a bill. Don't let one read as the other. |
The test for every line: could the parent repeat this to someone at the school gate? If not, cut it.
The report for the student who did nothing
There's a temptation to skip the fortnight when nothing happened. Don't. That silence is exactly the signal a wobbling parent reads as "nothing much is going on."
The report for the student who did nothing is short. What was assigned. That it wasn't done. What's due next and when. One line from you, without blame: "No sets came back this fortnight. Is something in the way? The next one is due Wednesday and I'd rather know than guess."
It asks a question, which is why it's the one most likely to get a reply. You'll hear about a sport season, a sibling, a change of school, and sometimes the real thing: "we're not sure it's working." You want that conversation now, in writing, not in Term 4 as a form that doesn't come back.
The template has the wording for this one on its last page.
The term summary for re-enrolment
Twenty fortnightly reports have a use beyond the fortnight. At the end of Term 3 they become one page: the topics covered this term, the improvement by topic from week one to week ten, and what Term 1 will start with.
That page goes on top of the re-enrolment form. Proof first, ask second. A parent who has just read that their child's accuracy doubled on a named skill reads the form in a different mood from a parent who has opened a bill.
By hand, the term summary is an hour per class with the fortnightly reports in front of you. The re-enrolment email templates have the covering note, including the version for the parent who's been quiet all term.
From your address, with your logo
The report comes from you. Your email address, your logo at the top, your name at the bottom, or your tutor's. Parents reply to you and the reply lands in your inbox.
This matters more than it sounds. A parent who receives a report from a publisher's platform is being introduced to a brand. A parent who receives a report from your centre is being reminded who they chose. The relationship is the asset, and the report should carry your name on every line of it. The for parents page is written for a parent to read on their own, and it describes what they should be receiving from whichever centre they're with.
How to do it by hand this term
None of this needs software. Here's the version that runs on a template and a Friday afternoon.
| Step | When | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Print or copy the template, one per student | Week 1 | Ten minutes |
| Record, per set, what each student scored by topic | As work comes back | A minute per sheet, if you write it down at the time |
| Fill in the five sections for each student | Every second Friday | Five minutes per student once you've done a few |
| Send from your email, with your logo in the header | Every second Friday, after class | A minute each |
| Keep a copy per student | Same day | A folder |
| Build the term summary from the copies | End of Term 3 | An hour per class |
For a class of twelve that's about an hour every second Friday. For forty students it's a real job, and it's the point where most centres either delegate it to a senior tutor or stop. If you stop, the parents notice the silence more than they noticed the reports.
The recording step is the one that decides whether the third section has a number in it. Write the score by topic down when you mark, not later.
What changes on the platform
By hand, the report is built from what you remember and what you wrote down. On the platform it's built from the work the student actually did.
Every question a student answers is marked against your key and tagged to the topic and the page it came from. So the accuracy by topic, before and after, exists without anyone recording it. Sets completed out of sets assigned, questions attempted, time on task: the same. The two-sentence summary names the skill and the class where it was taught. What's next is whatever you assigned on Tuesday.
Over the last fortnight Priya completed 5 of 6 assigned sets from our Year 6 fractions program. Her accuracy on adding fractions with unlike denominators moved from 25% to 67%, which is the skill we worked on in class on the 14th. Word problems are the next focus.
- Fractions of a quantity42%83%
- Equivalent fractions58%91%
- Adding unlike denominators25%67%
- Word problems50%58%
Every second Friday it goes to each parent with your logo, from your address, with your tutor's name at the bottom. You can review each one before it sends and edit the summary in your own words, or let a class go automatically. Most owners read the first fortnight's closely and then trust them. The student who did nothing gets the gentle version, naming what's due. The term summary at the end of Term 3 is one click over the twenty that came before it.
Parents never see our name, we never hold their details for any other purpose, and they don't get a login, because there's nothing to log in to. The report is the product. The parent reports page has the rest.
The plan stays the same as the by-hand version. The Friday afternoon comes out of it.
This week
Download the parent report template and fill it in for three students, by hand, from what you know today. If the third section has a number in it for all three, you're ready to send on Friday. If it doesn't, start recording scores by topic as this week's work comes back, and send the first report a fortnight from now.
Put "every second Friday" in the diary for the rest of the term. Send from your own address. Sign it.