Ontario Report Card Comments: The High School Teacher's Guide
- A report card comment is personal to the student, and each one really should be unique.
- Each comment is about 4 to 5 sentences, broken into three parts: what the student can do in the course, the work that proves it and an actionable next step.
- Be honest in your comment, but always highlight a strength first. Even for the students who struggle.
- AI can help, but only tools you can trust with student data: board-approved, or built for it like Gradefully.
Writing solid, Growing Success-aligned report card comments
As teachers we are, or should be, in constant communication with parents and students. There should be no surprises in a report card comment. But the report card is an official document that is filed in the student's record, so we take care to leave a solid, well-structured comment.
We have to follow the policies in Growing Success when we write report card comments. You should go read that document. But here is the summary:
- Each report card comment should highlight the student's strengths related to what they learned in class.
- It should identify next steps or areas of growth.
- It should be written in language students and parents can understand.
- It should be personal to the student.
Where this page comes from. Policy statements are from Growing Success (2010); the other links are in Sources. Where we describe common practice rather than policy, we say so. Teaching Grades 1 to 8? The elementary version of this page is the elementary teacher's guide.
What goes on the Ontario high school report card
For every course, the provincial report card records:
- the percentage mark
- the course median
- the credit earned
- a letter for each of the six learning skills and work habits
- the comment box
In a semestered school each course reports twice, at midterm and at the end of the semester, so you write two comments per student per course. Non-semestered schools report three times a year, starting in the fall.
The five-sentence comment
Start your comments after the first assessment
Here is a tip my teacher mentor gave me that I will pass on. Writing good comments takes a lot of time. The best way to save time is to write them as you go.
After each assessment, take a moment in your gradebook to write a sentence on the student's strengths and areas of growth. Then, when it comes to writing the comments, you just compile those short notes into one cohesive comment.
This practice is exactly what the Gradefully way is all about. You can try the Gradefully gradebook free for 60 days, no credit card required.
Writing the comment
My working shape for a course comment is four to five sentences set up in three parts. There is no limit set by Growing Success, but every board's software will set a character limit. In my board that is 700 characters max. This is more than enough.
What the student can do against the course expectations, anchored in a named piece of work: the lab, the essay, the build, the unit test.
A second expectation, or a learning skill that is genuinely moving the achievement, good or bad, with its own evidence. This is where an honest gap gets named.
One action, concrete enough to start right away. Very often it is a work habit: a routine, a checklist, a submission plan, a way of asking for help.
We have a comment bank of 150 meaningful next steps for when sentence 5 will not come.
Three worked examples
An honest comment
- Identified all four unknowns in the mystery-substances lab
- Careful in the lab; procedures and data tables are complete
- Links results to the concept out loud; written conclusions are a single line
Owen understands the physical and chemical properties of the elements and compounds we studied: in the mystery-substances lab he identified all four unknowns and named the property test that gave each one away. He also runs an investigation carefully, following the procedure and recording complete data tables. Where he is still growing is in connecting his observations to the science concept behind them: out loud he makes that link well, but his written conclusions are often a single line. Next step: use the sentence frames from the analysis checklist to explain why the data supports the conclusion, not only what the data showed.
Why it works. The comment is anchored in two course expectations, paraphrased into parent language: knowing the properties of elements and compounds, and running an investigation that connects observations to the concept.
A strong student still gets a real next step
- Critical reader; essay defended an interpretation with well-chosen quotations
- Led her seminar group and drew quieter voices in
- Drafts run long; repeated ideas
Zoe reads critically and writes with control: her essay on Frankenstein traced how the novel's frame narrative shifts our sympathy, and defended that reading with well-chosen quotations. In the seminar unit she led her group's discussion and drew quieter voices in before settling on an interpretation. Her drafts still arrive long, with strong ideas repeated rather than developed. Next step: make her drafts more concise. This will help emphasize her main points and make her writing clearer.
Why it works. Two threads of real achievement, each with evidence. The next step is not a manufactured weakness; it is the honest thing between this student and her next level, with the reason named.
The hard one: below 50, with a plan
- Reads and explains code; modifies programs from a worked example
- Three of five programming projects not submitted
- Catch-up plan agreed: lunch sessions, one project at a time
Liam can read a program and explain what it will do, and with a worked example beside him he modifies code successfully, as he showed in the arrays practice tasks. He has not yet shown that he can plan and write a program on his own, and three of the five projects were not submitted, which puts his credit at risk. We have set up a recovery plan: two lunchtime work sessions a week, one project at a time, starting with the number-guessing game. At home, please ask to see his submission tracker on Fridays.
Why it works. Below 50, Growing Success asks the comment to name the remedial measures planned and the parental support required, and it asks you to contact the family as soon as possible, before the report card arrives home. This comment does the first two, the phone call covers the third, and it still opens with what Liam can do, because a plan built on nothing but failure is not a plan.
Learning skills: rate all six, mention what matters
Unlike the elementary card, there is no separate learning skills comment in high school. You rate the six skills, Responsibility, Organization, Independent Work, Collaboration, Initiative and Self-Regulation, with a letter for your own course in every reporting period, and the one comment box serves both the achievement and the skills. My rule, which matches how the card is built: a learning skill earns a sentence in the comment only when it is genuinely moving the achievement, in either direction. Otherwise the letters speak for themselves.
The letters stay out of the mark. To the extent possible, Growing Success says, learning skills should not be considered in determining a percentage mark, unless a skill is built into a curriculum expectation. Late and missed assignments are noted here, on the learning-skills side of the card, rather than buried in the mark, and boards set their own late-work policies for Grades 7 to 12, so know yours before deducting anything.
The four letters, honestly
When a letter needs explaining, one plain sentence in the comment is enough: "Four assignments arrived after the due date this term, which is what his Responsibility rating reflects." If you want ready-made lines for any skill at any level, the free Learning Skills Comment Builder assembles one from the behaviours you actually saw, and the next steps bank covers the other half of the box.
Here are some tips from a veteran teacher
Start writing your comments in week one! The habit that saves comment week: one line per student in your gradebook after each lab, test or project, while it is fresh. "Clean circuit build, could not explain current flow." "Great debugging instinct, never comments her code." At midterm you re-read your own lines and the comments assemble themselves, evidence included.
I was tired of doing this on sticky notes and in spreadsheet margins, so I built it into Gradefully: every student has a teacher feedback box right beside their marks. Then, come report card time, Gradefully's comment generator takes those notes and gives you a solid personal comment for each student. You can try it free for 60 days, no credit card required.
You don't have to use Gradefully. Use anything, but use something, because you will not remember week three by week eighteen.
Three ways a course comment goes dead
1. A comment that argues with its own numbers
If the mark is 58 and the comment is sunshine, the family learns nothing and trusts you less. Say the true thing, kindly and plainly.
✗ [58%, S in Responsibility] Ravi is a joy in class and always participates.
✓ Ravi contributes to every discussion. Four assignments arrived after the due date this term, which is what his Responsibility rating reflects.
2. Jargon, codes and acronyms
Everything obvious in a department meeting is opaque at a kitchen table. Assume the reader has never seen a rubric, and that English may not be their strongest language.
✗ Working at L2 on the AC; needs to consolidate the overall expectations before the final evaluation.
✓ Priya's circuits work is close to the standard. She is strong on the builds and still building the written explanations.
3. The comment that could belong to anyone
Cover the name and read it again. If it fits half the class, it is not finished. Borrow a sentence shape from anywhere; the evidence has to be yours.
✗ A pleasure to teach. Should keep up the good work in future courses.
✓ In the group robotics build, Devon wrote the sensor code nobody else wanted to touch and documented it so his team could maintain it.
One more, not really about writing. A report card should never be the first time a family hears bad news. Below 50, contacting the family early is what the policy expects; above it, it is still what a professional does. Phone first, and the comment confirms a conversation instead of starting one.
AI and writing comments
TLDR: as teachers we have to protect student data. Free online AI tools are not built for minors' data and can use what you paste to train their models. Only use trusted tools built for it (like Gradefully đŸ˜‰) or tools your board has approved.
Ninety comment boxes, twice a semester. Of course teachers are pasting class lists into chatbots, and honestly, the drafts come back good: warm, specific, three moves in order. Here is the prompt I used before I built Gradefully, tuned for course comments. The question that matters is not whether the draft is good. It is what you had to paste to get it.
A report card comment is a minor's personal record: a name, attached to achievement and behaviour. Free consumer AI tools can use what you type to train their models, their terms can change under you, and you cannot know where a student's name travels next. So the rule is short: never put student names and their school performance into a tool your board has not approved or whose privacy policy you have not read. If the tool is free and the policy is vague, the answer is no. You are most likely violating your board's policy.
This problem is the reason Gradefully's comment drafting works the way it does. Student names are replaced with codes before anything reaches the AI. The drafting runs on OpenAI servers in the United States, and we say so plainly: requests are held for up to 30 days on OpenAI's servers for abuse monitoring, then deleted, and they are not used to train AI models. The gradebook itself stays on Canadian servers. The full picture, including what the name-coding cannot catch, is on our privacy page. And whatever tool you use, the last step never changes: you read and edit every comment before it goes home. That part should not be automated.
Questions high school teachers actually ask
How many report cards do Ontario high school students get?
In semestered schools, each course is reported twice: a midterm report and a final report, so a teacher writes two comments per student per course. Non-semestered schools report three times a year, with the first report in the fall. The reporting windows are roughly October to November, January to February, March to April and June.
Do high school report cards have comments for every course?
Yes, the Grades 9 to 12 provincial report card has a comments box for every course, headed Strengths/Next Steps for Improvement, in every reporting period. Growing Success does not restrict comments to certain reporting periods; if your school only expects comments at midterm, that is a board or school practice, not provincial policy.
Do learning skills affect a student's mark in high school?
Generally, no. Growing Success says that, to the extent possible, learning skills and work habits should not be part of how a percentage mark is determined, unless a skill is built into a curriculum expectation. Each course reports the six learning skills separately with the letters E, G, S and N, in every reporting period, and late or missed assignments are noted there rather than hidden in the mark.
Can a student get the same letter for every learning skill?
Yes, and it happens all the time. A student who uses class time well usually also hands work in and manages themselves, so a row of matching letters is normal, not lazy rating. The letters earn their keep when they split: an E in Independent Work beside an S in Responsibility says the student works hard in the room but the work does not arrive, and that split tells the family exactly what to fix. Rate each skill on its own evidence and let matching letters match.
How do I tell Responsibility, Independent Work and Self-Regulation apart?
They overlap, and every teacher wrestles with them. A working split: Independent Work is what happens during work time, whether the student starts and keeps going without you standing there. Responsibility is the broader habit of owning their learning: work handed in, materials ready, commitments kept. Self-Regulation is the inner loop of setting goals, noticing what is hard, asking for help and staying with a problem after a failed attempt; behaviour management is only a corner of it. When in doubt, ask which moment your evidence comes from and file the letter there.
What is the course median on an Ontario report card?
The course median is the percentage mark at which half the students in the course scored higher and half scored lower. It appears beside each mark on the Grades 9 to 12 provincial report card and gives families context for the number without ranking any individual student.
What must the comment say when a student is below 50 per cent?
A mark below 50 means the credit is not being earned, so Growing Success asks for more than a normal comment: describe the specific remedial measures planned or strategies developed for that student, and the kind of parental support that will be required. Teachers should also contact the family as soon as possible rather than letting the report card deliver the news.
Can I use ChatGPT to write report card comments?
Be very careful. A report card comment contains a minor's personal information: a name attached to achievement and behaviour. Free consumer AI tools can use what you type to train their models, so student names and performance should never be pasted into one. Use a tool your board has approved or one with a clear privacy policy that keeps student data out of training, and read and edit every comment yourself before it goes home.
Where the claims on this page come from
Page numbers are the printed page.
- Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools, First Edition, Covering Grades 1 to 12
- Guide d'appui à la préparation des bulletins scolaires
- Provincial Report Card, Grades 9–12, semestered schools (form 83-0469E)
- Elementary and secondary report card templates
The AEFO guide is joint AEFO, employer-association and Ministry guidance, not policy. Links checked July 2026. If a source here does not say what we say it says, tell us at /contact/ and we will fix it.
Ninety boxes, already half written
Gradefully keeps your marks, your class lists and your running observations in one place, and drafts each course comment in the five-sentence shape. You still read and edit every one before it goes home.