ATL Social Skills Report Comments, Ages 14-16

Social skills, the collaboration cluster, cover how a student works in a group: sharing roles and workload fairly, building on others' ideas, giving fair peer feedback, resolving disagreements, including others, and both leading and following.

Below are 13 sample sentences for Ages 14-16: two strengths and one next step for each of the 4 comment levels (Expert / Practitioner / Learner / Novice), plus a tip for families. They are a small selection from the 173 social sentences in the full pack. Copy one, then add a detail only you know about the student.

Jump to: Expert · Practitioner · Learner · Novice · Writing tips

Student name Pronouns

Fills in the name and pronouns on this page. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Expert E

Strengths

Even with a heavy workload, [Name] keeps commitments to group members and negotiates fair changes when deadlines clash.
[Name] can explain to others why a group is or is not working well and suggests practical changes that help everyone contribute.

Next step

A useful extension for [Name] would be to evaluate how well different team structures worked in recent group projects and share the findings.

Practitioner P

Strengths

[Name] handles differences of opinion calmly in group projects and helps the team reach a decision everyone can work with.
In [his/her/their] reflections, [Name] usually gives a fair account of [his/her/their] own contribution to group work and names one thing to improve.

Next step

As [his/her/their] personal project takes shape, [Name] could invite feedback from two peers and note how each suggestion changed the work.

Learner L

Strengths

When group members disagree on a project, [Name] is learning to suggest a compromise rather than stepping back from the discussion.
With a model or example, [Name] can explain how the group reached a decision and what [his/her/their] own role was.

Next step

For longer group tasks, [Name] could use a simple contribution record to note each member's agreed role and completed work.

Novice N

Strengths

During service activities, [Name] is beginning to work alongside others when the role is explained clearly beforehand.
When the group plan is broken into clear steps, [Name] can carry out [his/her/their] agreed task and report back on it.

Next step

A next step is for [Name] to take on one small responsibility in a service activity or group project and report back on how it went.

Support at home

You could share a time when you worked in a team, including a disagreement, and ask [Name] how [he/she/they] would have handled it.

How to write social comments for Ages 14-16

In longer projects and service activities, describe responsibility for the student's own share: meeting the group's internal deadlines, keeping a record of contributions and telling the group early when something has slipped.
Comment on leadership that helps the group rather than takes it over: sharing out tasks, inviting quieter members in, keeping discussion on track. Older students can be set a goal of leading one stage of a group task.
Describe how the student contributes when groups change partway through a unit. Adapting to a new team and still delivering their part shows collaboration that will matter in the final two years of school.

Watch out: Avoid describing the group's result as the student's collaboration. A polished final product can hide uneven work, so comment on the student's own actions: what they contributed, how they listened and how they handled disagreement.

Show the stage through what the student does rather than writing the stage name. Expert language is independent, flexible and used in unfamiliar tasks, often modelled for others; Practitioner fits usually and with few reminders in familiar work; Learner fits with guidance, a model or a checklist; Novice describes what is emerging with close support, which is normal for many students new to secondary school.

What Social covers

ATL clusters covered for social:

collaboration skills: working well with others (sharing roles and responsibility, listening to and building on ideas, giving fair feedback, resolving disagreements, encouraging and including others, leading and following)

More ATL skills ages 11-16 comments

How these sentences were made, and what has been checked: About these comments.