Ontario Report Card Comments: The Complete Teacher's Guide

The requirement

What an Ontario report card comment actually has to do

Ontario's assessment policy for Grades 1 to 12 lives in one document: Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools (2010). Nothing in it asks for a comment that sounds impressive. It asks for a comment that is useful to the family reading it.

Stripped down, the policy asks anecdotal comments to do four things:

  • Say what the student has learned. Not what the unit covered — what this student can now do.
  • Name a significant strength. Something specific enough that a parent could picture it happening.
  • Identify a next step for improvement. One thing to work on next, not a list of everything that went wrong.
  • Be readable at a kitchen table. Growing Success asks teachers to use language parents will understand, and to avoid comments that simply repeat the wording of the curriculum expectations or the achievement chart.

The policy also asks that the feedback be personalized — the phrase it uses is "personalized, clear, precise, and meaningful feedback" — and it asks teachers to help parents understand how they can support their child at home. On the elementary provincial report card the box is literally labelled Strengths/Next Steps for Improvement, which tells you the shape of the answer before you write a word.

The part that surprises most teachers

Growing Success says school boards should not put policies in place that prevent teachers from writing personalized comments, and it expects principals to encourage teachers to generate their own. Comment banks are allowed. Being forced to use one is not the intent of the policy. If your school culture treats a bank as the only acceptable source, the policy is on your side.

Source note. Policy statements on this page come from Growing Success (2010), the Ontario Ministry of Education document that governs assessment, evaluation, and reporting for Grades 1 to 12, and from the Ministry's companion guide to writing comments, Reporting Student Learning. Every one is listed with a page number in Sources at the foot of this page. Where we describe common practice rather than policy, we say so. Your board may add requirements of its own on top.

Two reports, not one

Why learning skills are reported separately from grades

An Ontario report card carries two different judgements about the same student, and it keeps them apart on purpose.

The first is achievement of the curriculum expectations — a letter grade or a percentage mark that says how well the student has met the standard in a subject or course. The second is development of the learning skills and work habits — six categories, each reported with a letter, that say how the student goes about the work.

Growing Success is direct about this: to the extent possible, learning skills and work habits should not be part of how a grade or percentage mark is determined, unless a skill is built into a curriculum expectation. Reporting them separately, it says, gives students and parents information specific to each type of achievement, and identifies the student's strengths and the areas where improvement is needed.

The practical version: a mark of 78 that quietly includes a late penalty, a participation allowance, and a neatness impression tells a family almost nothing. A 78 plus an N in Responsibility tells them exactly what to talk about at dinner.

The four letters

E Excellent Consistent and independent, without prompting.
G Good Usually there, with the odd reminder or off day.
S Satisfactory Depends on the task, the day, or the support around it.
N Needs Improvement Not yet reliable enough to carry the learning on its own.

An honest caveat. Growing Success gives the four letters and their names. It does not publish a rubric that fixes the line between an E and a G. The one-line descriptions above are the common staffroom reading, not policy text — boards and schools build their own shared understanding, and yours may word it differently. If your division has a common chart, use that one.

Where the letters actually go

Elementary

On the progress report card and the provincial report card, the learning skills section sits ahead of the subject achievement section — families see it first. There is one anecdotal comment box covering all six skills, and for Grades 1 to 8 the homeroom teacher usually completes it. Other teachers may add to that space.

Secondary

On the Grades 9–12 provincial report card, every course carries its own set of six letters, recorded after the percentage mark, the course median, and the credit earned. Each teacher reports for their own course, every reporting period, and may also speak to learning skills inside the course comment.

One consequence teachers sometimes miss: late and missed assignments are noted on the report card as part of the evaluation of learning skills and work habits. Responsibility is the skill whose sample behaviours name submitting work on the agreed timelines, so that is normally where lateness shows up. Boards set their own policies for handling late and missed work in Grades 7 to 12, so check yours.

The framing that changes everything

Learning skills are skills you teach, not traits you judge

The single most useful shift in writing these comments is to stop reading the six categories as a character assessment. They are called learning skills and work habits, and Growing Success expects teachers to work with students to help them develop the skills in its table. Students benefit, it says, when teachers discuss and model those skills, and when teachers explain how the skills will be assessed and evaluated.

That is the language of instruction, not the language of personality. A student who cannot plan a four-week project has not failed a character test; they have not yet been taught a planning routine that works for them, or they have not practised it enough for it to hold under pressure.

LD@School, an Ontario resource produced by the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario with Ministry of Education funding, makes the link explicit: it ties the learning skills and work habits on the report card to the executive functions a student needs in order to do them — planning, working memory, impulse control, task initiation. Growing Success itself never uses that term. The stance behind both is the same, and it is worth saying out loud to a student who has decided they are simply disorganized: these are developed, and development is teachable.

Three things follow for your comments:

  • Describe behaviour, not disposition. "Hands work in on the agreed date" can be observed and improved. "Is lazy" can be neither.
  • An N is a teaching plan, not a verdict. If you write one, the next step should read like the beginning of a strategy you will help the student use.
  • Effort is not a skill. "Tries hard" is an inference about a student's inner life. What you can see is whether they stayed with a problem after the first attempt failed — that is Self-Regulation, and you can name the moment.
One at a time

The six learning skills and work habits

In the official order used on Ontario report cards. The behaviours below are grounded in the sample behaviours in Growing Success, with classroom examples added of what they look like from the front of a room.

01

Responsibility

Doing what you said you would do, by the time the class agreed on, and owning your own behaviour when it goes sideways.

What it looks like in class

  • Follows through on the jobs they took on — group role, equipment, clean-up.
  • Hands in class work, homework, and assignments by the agreed dates.
  • Says a task will be late before it is late, not after.
  • Owns their part when something goes wrong instead of passing the blame along.
  • Keeps commitments made to classmates, not only to the teacher.
  • Comes to class ready for the task that was announced.
Sample comment line

Priya follows through on the jobs she takes on in lab groups: equipment is returned and the station is reset without a reminder.

02

Organization

Having a plan, knowing what comes first, and being able to find the materials and information the work needs.

What it looks like in class

  • Makes a plan for a multi-step task and works through it in order.
  • Sorts what is urgent from what can wait.
  • Breaks a distant due date into smaller checkpoints.
  • Keeps a binder, notebook, or digital folder they can actually find things in.
  • Tracks deadlines somewhere real rather than relying on memory.
  • Finds and chooses the information, tools, and resources the task calls for.
Sample comment line

Marcus breaks long assignments into steps and sets his own interim deadlines, which is why his reports arrive finished rather than started.

03

Independent Work

Getting on with the work when nobody is standing beside the desk — and noticing when the plan needs changing.

What it looks like in class

  • Starts once instructions are given, without a second prompt.
  • Uses class time for the task at hand.
  • Checks their own progress partway through and adjusts when it is not working.
  • Follows multi-step instructions with little supervision.
  • Re-reads the instructions or success criteria before asking a question they can answer.
  • Keeps working while the teacher is with another group.
Sample comment line

When independent practice begins, Amina starts right away and uses the full period, checking her work against the success criteria as she goes.

04

Collaboration

Carrying a fair share, listening properly to people who see it differently, and helping a group get somewhere.

What it looks like in class

  • Takes on whatever role the group needs, not only the favourite one.
  • Does an equitable share of the work.
  • Responds respectfully to ideas, opinions, values, and traditions unlike their own.
  • Works through disagreement toward something the whole group can accept.
  • Shares resources, notes, and know-how instead of hoarding them.
  • Treats classmates well in person and in shared online spaces.
Sample comment line

Devon takes on whatever role the group needs and makes sure quieter members are heard before the group commits to a plan.

05

Initiative

Going after the learning rather than waiting for it to be handed over — and being willing to be wrong on the way.

What it looks like in class

  • Asks questions that go past what the task strictly required.
  • Tries an approach that might not work, and learns from it when it does not.
  • Volunteers for new roles, tasks, and challenges.
  • Starts unfamiliar work with a positive attitude instead of waiting to be convinced.
  • Brings in outside reading, examples, or connections nobody asked for.
  • Speaks up appropriately for themselves and for classmates.
Sample comment line

Noor regularly tries approaches we have not modelled yet and is willing to be wrong in front of the class, which pushes everyone's thinking.

06

Self-Regulation

Knowing how you are doing, asking for help at the right moment, and staying with hard things past the first failed attempt.

What it looks like in class

  • Sets a goal and actually checks progress against it.
  • Asks for help early, and asks a specific question.
  • Can name what they are good at and what is still hard, with evidence.
  • Chooses strategies that suit the task and their own needs.
  • Stays with a problem after the first attempt fails.
  • Reflects honestly on their own strengths, needs, and interests.
Sample comment line

Elias asks precise questions early — "is this the right controlled variable?" — rather than waiting until the report is due.

Need a draft rather than a description? The free Learning Skills Comment Builder lets you pick a skill, a level, and the behaviours you actually saw, and hands back a comment you can edit. No signup.

Open the builder
How to build one

Strength, evidence, next step

Almost every good Ontario comment has the same three parts in the same order, and the shape is not a staffroom invention. Reporting Student Learning, the Ministry's companion guide to Growing Success, asks comments to name the significant strengths a student has shown and the key next steps for improvement, and to point where possible at specific evidence of learning gathered from conversations, observations, and student products. Once you can see the shape, the blank box stops being frightening — you are filling three slots, not composing a paragraph.

1 Strength

Name one thing this student does well. Be specific enough that another teacher could pick the student out of the class from the sentence alone.

2 Evidence

Point at the moment, task, or pattern where you saw it. This is the part that proves the comment was written about a real child.

3 Next step

One action, small enough to start on Monday, worded so the student and the family both know what to do.

The third slot is where most comments quietly fail. "Needs to be more organized" is a diagnosis, not a next step. "Write each due date in the agenda at the end of class, and check it before packing up" is something a twelve-year-old can do tomorrow. If you want a longer bank of next steps that pass this test, we keep one on the report card next steps page.

Three worked examples

Grade 4 Learning skills box Mostly E

A strong student who still has somewhere to go

  • Plans multi-step work on her own; sets her own checkpoints
  • Kept the group's materials sorted during the bridge build
  • Hands in first drafts as if they were final drafts
The comment

Amira plans her own way through multi-step work. During the bridge-building project she set her own checkpoints and had her group's materials sorted before the build began, which kept everyone moving. Next step: build in one round of checking before she hands work in, so that her first draft is not also her final draft.

Why it works. The strength is a skill, not a compliment. The evidence names a real task. The next step is one small habit, and it is the honest next thing for a strong student rather than a manufactured weakness.

Grade 10 science Course comment Mark in the 60s S in Responsibility

A subject comment that agrees with its own letters

  • Careful in the lab; procedures and data tables are complete
  • Explains results well out loud, thin in writing
  • Two labs handed in late this term
The comment

Owen is at his strongest in the lab: his procedures are careful, his data tables are complete, and he can explain what his results mean clearly when we talk them through. That same clarity does not always reach his written analysis, where 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. Two late labs this term are reflected in his Responsibility rating.

Why it works. The last sentence is doing quiet, important work: it explains the learning skills letter instead of leaving the family to guess why an otherwise positive comment sits beside an S. The lateness is named in the learning skills report, where Growing Success expects it to be noted, rather than left for the family to work out.

Grade 7 Self-Regulation N

The hard one: honest without being harsh

  • Stops after the first failed attempt; closes the laptop
  • Will not ask for help; says "I don't get it" and disengages
  • Used a step checklist successfully during the data unit
The comment

When Jayden has a strategy in front of him he stays with difficult work: during the data unit he used a step checklist and finished every task, including the ones he found hard. At the moment, when a first attempt does not work he tends to stop rather than ask. Next step: use the two-question routine we practised — re-read the worked example, then ask one specific question — before setting the work aside. I would like to set this up with Jayden and his family at our next check-in.

Why it works. It opens with a real strength rather than a softener, states the difficulty plainly and without a character judgement, and gives a routine the student has already succeeded with once. It also offers a conversation, which is what an N should always come with.

One policy point worth knowing. When a student receives an R in Grades 1 to 8, or a mark below 50 per cent in Grades 9 to 12, Growing Success asks for more than a comment: describe the remedial measures or strategies planned to address the student's learning needs and the kind of parental support that will be required — and contact the parents as soon as possible rather than letting the report card break the news.

This three-part shape is also what Gradefully drafts in when it writes from your gradebook data — a strength, the evidence behind it, and a next step, in your own voice. You still read and edit every comment before it goes anywhere.

The practical bit

Character limits: nobody can tell you the number

Search for "Ontario report card comment character limit" and you will find confident answers. Treat them carefully. Growing Success sets no character or word limit. The only thing it says about how a comment appears is that the finished report cards are printed on letter-size paper and that comments about student achievement should be in nine-point type, for legibility. Any limit you hit therefore comes from your board's report card software rather than from provincial policy, which is why there is no single province-wide number to quote.

What you can do is work with the limit you actually have.

  • Find your real number first. Type into your own template, or ask the colleague who does report card support. Five minutes now saves an hour of rewriting later.
  • Check what the counter counts. Whether spaces are included, and whether an accented character counts the same as an unaccented one, is worth knowing before you write a set of French comments.
  • Check the printed page, not the entry box. The report card is printed on letter-size paper in nine-point type, so what fits when it prints is what governs. Check one full comment before you write thirty.
  • If you are tight, protect the next step. The part the family will act on should never be the part that gets truncated.
  • Cut the words doing no work. "Continues to", "is able to", "at this time", "in class". Use the student's name once, then a pronoun.
  • Do not let a tight box push you into codes. "L3", "AC", "meets exp." save characters and cost the family the whole message.
Worth avoiding

Six mistakes that make a comment useless

All six are easy to make at the end of a long term. All six are quick to fix once you can see them.

1. Grading the child instead of the skill

Warmth is welcome; character verdicts are not. If the sentence describes who the student is rather than what they did, it cannot be improved on, and it cannot be argued with either.

✗ Sofia is a bright, lovely girl and a pleasure to teach.

✓ Sofia asks questions that push the discussion past the task, and she follows up on the answers.

2. Restating the expectation

Growing Success specifically asks teachers to avoid comments that just repeat the wording of the curriculum expectations or the achievement chart. A family cannot picture "considerable effectiveness".

✗ Demonstrates an understanding of the properties of matter with considerable effectiveness.

✓ Liam can predict what happens when a solid is heated and explain why, using particle theory.

3. Next steps nobody can act on

A next step is an instruction, not a wish. Test it by asking whether the student could start it on Monday morning without asking you what you meant.

✗ Needs to be more organized and should try harder.

✓ Next step: write each due date in the agenda at the end of class, and check it before packing up.

4. A comment that argues with its own letter

An N beside three sentences of praise, or an E beside a paragraph of worry, reads as a mistake — and the family will assume the letter is the typo. If the letter is low, the comment has to say why, kindly and plainly.

✗ [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.

5. Jargon, codes, and acronyms

Everything obvious in a staff meeting is opaque at a kitchen table. Assume the reader has never seen a rubric, and that English may not be the language they are most comfortable reading.

✗ Working at L2 on the AC; needs to consolidate the overall expectations.

✓ Priya's work is close to the Grade 6 standard. She is strong on the calculations and still building the written explanations.

6. The comment that could belong to anyone

Try the name-swap test: cover the name and read it again. If it could describe eight other students in the class, it is not finished. A bank sentence is a starting shape — the evidence has to be yours.

✗ Works well with others and completes assignments on time.

✓ In the water-quality project Devon took the note-taking role nobody wanted and had the group's data ready a day early.

One more, which is not really about writing. A report card should never be the first time a family hears bad news. If a comment is going to surprise someone, make the phone call first — the comment then confirms a conversation instead of starting one.

FAQ

Questions teachers actually ask

What are the six Ontario learning skills and work habits?

Ontario provincial report cards report on six learning skills and work habits, in this order: Responsibility, Organization, Independent Work, Collaboration, Initiative, and Self-Regulation. The same six are used from Grade 1 through Grade 12 on English-language report cards, and Growing Success (2010) lists sample behaviours for each one.

What do E, G, S, and N mean on an Ontario report card?

E means Excellent, G means Good, S means Satisfactory, and N means Needs Improvement. Teachers use these four letters to report each of the six learning skills and work habits. Growing Success names the letters but does not publish a rubric that fixes the line between them, so boards and schools build a shared understanding of their own.

Do learning skills affect a student's grade?

Generally, no. Growing Success says that, to the extent possible, learning skills and work habits should not be part of how a letter grade or percentage mark is determined, unless a skill is built into a curriculum expectation. Keeping them separate means families get two clear pieces of information instead of one blended one.

Where do learning skills appear on the report card?

On the elementary progress report card and the elementary provincial report card, the learning skills section sits ahead of the subject achievement section, with one anecdotal comment box covering all six. On the Grades 9 to 12 provincial report card, every course carries its own set of six letters, recorded after the percentage mark, the course median, and the credit earned.

How long can a report card comment be?

There is no provincial number. Growing Success does not set a character or word limit, so any limit you hit comes from your board rather than from provincial policy. Check your own template before you start writing. The report card itself is printed on letter-size paper in nine-point type, so trust a printed preview rather than the entry box.

Do I have to write my own comments, or can I use a comment bank?

A bank is a fine starting point, but the comment that goes home should be about the student in front of you. Growing Success says school boards should not put policies in place that stop teachers from writing personalized comments, and it expects principals to encourage teachers to write their own. Borrow the sentence shape if it helps; the strength, the evidence, and the next step should be yours.

Sources

Where the claims on this page come from

The documents behind the claims on this page. Page numbers are the printed page.

  1. Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools, First Edition, Covering Grades 1 to 12

    Ontario Ministry of Education · 2010 · PDF, 168 pages · pp. 10, 11, 13, 18, 44, 45, 49, 55, 56, 64, 65, p98, 102–103 and 126

  2. Reporting Student Learning: Guidelines for Effective Teacher-Parent-Student Communication

    Ontario Ministry of Education · 2010 · PDF, 22 pages · pp. 6, 5, 7, 15

  3. Elementary and secondary report card templates

    Government of Ontario · accessed 2026 · web page linking the current PDF forms

  4. Executive Functions and Learning Disabilities / ADHD (Executive Functions learning module)

    LD@School, Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario · accessed 2026 · web page

  5. Learning Skills & Work Habits: A Guide for Elementary and Secondary Students and their Parents/Guardians

    York Region District School Board · 2017 · PDF, 3 pages · pp. p2–3

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.

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