School reports - My Czech Roots

School reports are a very interesting source for genealogy in terms of the education. Not only can we learn the daily attendance record of our ancestors, how many excused and unexcused days they missed, but also grades they received in individual subjects. Reports are usually in the form of books, one book covers the school year and list all students. Schulkodex from 1805 specified marking on trivial schools as:

The school attendence could be classified as Very diligent (velmi pilná/sehr fleißig), Diligent (pilná/fleißig) or Rare (řídká/dünn).
Behavior could be Very good (velmi dobré/sehr gut), Good (dobré/gut), Middle (prostřední/mittel) or Inadequate (nepřiměřené/unangemessen).
Subjects could be evaluated as Very good (velmi dobrý/sehr gut), Good (dobrý/gut), Middle (prostřední/mittel or Weak (slabý/schwach)

Since late-1800s grades in Czech school have been marked from 1 (the best) to 5 (the worst):

Grades	1	2	3	4	5
Czech word equivalent	velmi dobrý	dobrý	dostatečný	sotva dostatečný	nedostatečný
German word equivalent	vorzüglich	lobenswert	befriedigent	genügend	ungenügend
English word equivalent according to character of the evaluation:
Behavior	very moral	moral	not properly moral	undeserving	unlawful
Diligence	very diligent	diligent	not diligent enough	inconstant	negligible
Studying	very good	good	sufficient	barely sufficient	insufficient
Penmanship	very neat	neat	not neat enough	messy	negligent

During World War II when the Czech system was unified with German, we had 6 grades.

Samples
Faq
Online

School report 1857 (District archive in Hodonín, German language)

1857 report from the trivial school in village of Čejkovice in Southern Moravia. The left half of the sheet records the house number, name of the father (or guardian), names of the children, and their birthdates. The right half of the sheet shows their grades in various subjects. The 29th student listed on this example is Tomas Masarik (Masaryk) who was the president of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

School report 1892 (District archive in České Budějovice, German language)

School report with the classification of Ludwig Müller, 3rd year student of the teacher's academy in České Budějovice (Czech Budweis). Interesting is the notice informing about his moral offence caused by frequent visits to the pub. Czech Budweiser must have already been an excellent beer at that time. Probably this is one of the reasons why Ludwig had to repeat the grade.

English translation of this record

School report 1922 (District archive in Vsetín, Czech language)

School report showing the grades and attendance record for Ladislav Baranek, a 3rd grader in the elementary school in Valašské Meziříčí.

English translation of this record

WHY were they collected?	Evidence of students, along with their grades and record of attendence
WHEN were they collected?	18^th century to present
WHO collected the records?	School teachers or administrators
WHAT information can be found?	Name and surname of student, name of parent or guadian, birth date, house number
In which ARCHIVES are they held?	District archives, city archives
In which archive FILES can they be found?	Archives of school offices
LANGUAGE of records	Czech, German
AVAILABILITY	Good
What must be KNOWN before getting started?	Name, town or village, and the parish district the place belongs to
Czech expression	Třídní katalog, Výkaz o docházce a prospěchu