YOUNGSTERS at an East Oxford school have become some of the first in the county to write their own end-of-term reports.

Teachers at Larkrise Primary School scrapped traditional school reports and instead let children write about their thoughts of the past school year.

It comes two years after ministers axed National Curriculum levels, asking teachers to develop their own methods of measuring performance within the classroom.

Teacher Ed Finch said it was the first time the Boundary Brook Road school asked children to get involved with writing their annual progress reports.

He said: “The children took ownership of their learning. From now on, schools are expected to find and adapt their own assessment strategy. Our new style reports are a real strong step in that direction.”

Children were asked to write about their school experience, including what they enjoyed, what they felt they had learned and what they found challenging.

Teachers then responded to the children’s comments, rather than relying on a bank of generic statements as they had done previously when using a web-based application.

Reports also included pictures drawn by the pupils and photographs for the first time.

Mr Finch said staff were inspired to push for the new pupil-led reports after a visit last autumn to Hertfordshire’s Wrexham School, where similar reports are used.

He said the old-style reports only filled parents in about “knowledge acquired and skills developed”, but new reports are more “meaningful”.

The 43-year-old added: “It showed the parent and the child that we value them and we are interested in them as people.”

Mr Finch said he thought the East Oxford school might be the first in the county to take this approach and hoped others would follow suit.

Pupil Esther Ezekiel, 10, said: “I really like these reports because we got to reflect on our own learning and other people get to see what we think.”

Her mother Leisle Ezekiel said the old school reports were not very “memorable”.

She added: “The biggest thing was that it was really personal. I could hear my child talking about her learning. It brought a tear to my eye.”

As part of government reform to the National Curriculum in 2013, it was announced levels used to report a child’s attainment and progress would be scrapped from September last year.

Children between five and 14 were previously assessed using levels ranging from one to eight.