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Free Homeschool Report Card Template
Four printable report cards — one for every stage, from preschool through senior year. Print them, fill them in by hand, keep them in your records. No sign-up, no email, no watermark.
One page per child
Blank — write in your own subjects
Print at home
Free to share
Choose your child’s stage
Four report cards, because a kindergartener is not a junior
A five-year-old is reported on progress. A sixteen-year-old is reported on credits that a college admissions officer will read. Same family, completely different document — so we built four rather than stretching one.
Primary Report Card
Preschool – 2nd Grade
- Fall, Winter and Spring — not four quarters
- Ten blank rows for your own learning areas
- Separate Growth & Habits section
- Progress marks, no percentages
Elementary Report Card
3rd – 5th Grade
- Four quarters plus a final mark
- Twelve blank subject rows
- Separate Work Habits section
- Effort graded apart from academics
Middle School Report Card
6th – 8th Grade
- Letter grades with percentages
- Thirteen blank course rows
- High school credit column for 8th-grade Algebra I
- Year average box
High School Report Card
9th – 12th Grade
- Fourteen blank course rows
- Letter grades, credits and GPA
- Cumulative credits and cumulative GPA
- Honors, AP and dual-credit guidance
- Feeds straight onto the transcript
These are genuinely free. No email address, no newsletter sign-up, no watermark across the middle, and nothing expires. Print them, photocopy them, hand them to another family at co-op. If you would rather not fill them in by hand every term, that is what our app is for — but the paper is yours either way.
Step by step
How to fill in a homeschool report card
A report card is a summary, not a diary. It should take twenty minutes at the end of a term, and it should be readable by someone who has never met your child.
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Fill in the heading first
Student name, grade level, school year, and the name of your homeschool. That last one matters more than people expect: if a school, a college or a state office ever asks for records, they want the name of the school that issued them. Pick a name and use it consistently on every document from now on.
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Record attendance before you record grades
Write the number of days your state requires, the number your child actually attended, and the difference. Most states that regulate homeschooling set a required number of days or hours, and attendance is the single figure most often asked for. It is also the hardest to reconstruct after the fact, so write it down while you still remember.
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List only the subjects you actually taught
Every sheet is deliberately blank — no curriculum is assumed and nothing is printed for you to cross out. Write in exactly what you covered, in your own words. A report card listing eight subjects you genuinely taught is more credible than one listing twelve where four were guesses.
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Grade each term you keep, and leave the rest blank
If you report twice a year, fill two columns and leave the others empty. Nobody expects four quarters from every family. An honest blank is better than a number invented to fill a box.
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Write a comment that a stranger could use
“Great year!” tells a reader nothing. “Moved from short vowels to fluent reading of chapter books; still reversing b and d in writing” tells them exactly where the child is. Two or three specific sentences beat a paragraph of encouragement.
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Sign it, date it, and file it somewhere you will find it
An unsigned report card is a draft. Sign it as the teacher of record, date it, and put it with your other records for that year — not in a pile you intend to sort later.
What belongs on every homeschool report card
Whatever format you use, these are the elements a reader will look for. All of them are already on the templates above.
| Student name | Full legal name, as it appears on other records |
| Homeschool name | The issuing school — be consistent across years |
| Grade level | The grade for that school year |
| School year | Written the same way every time, e.g. 2025–2026 |
| Attendance | Days required, days attended, days absent |
| Subjects | What you taught, named plainly |
| Marks per term | One column per reporting period you keep |
| Final mark | The grade that carries forward |
| Grading key | What your marks mean, printed on the page |
| Comments | Specific, brief, honest |
| Signature & date | Parent or teacher of record |
A printed grading key is the element most home-made report cards leave out — and the one that makes an outside reader trust the rest of the page.
Grading
Which grading scale should you use?
There are two sensible answers, and which one you want depends almost entirely on your child’s age. Both are printed on the templates so you never have to explain your marks separately.
Progress marks — Preschool through 5th
Young children are not usefully described by a percentage. A six-year-old who reads 78% correctly has told you nothing you can act on. Progress marks describe where a child is against what you were teaching, which is what the next teacher — usually you — actually needs.
| E | Excellent |
| G | Good |
| S | Satisfactory |
| P | Progressing |
| N | Needs Improvement |
| U | Unsatisfactory |
Used on the Primary and Elementary templates.
Letter grades — 6th through 12th
From middle school onward, grades start to travel. They feed a transcript, a GPA and eventually an application, so they need to mean the same thing your child’s peers’ grades mean. This is the standard scale, and it is the one we use in the app.
| A+ 97–100 | A 93–96 | A− 90–92 |
| B+ 87–89 | B 83–86 | B− 80–82 |
| C+ 77–79 | C 73–76 | C− 70–72 |
| D+ 67–69 | D 63–66 | D− 60–62 |
| F 0–59 |
Used on the Middle School and High School templates.
Whichever you choose, print the key on the report card. A mark of “S” means nothing to a reader who does not know your scale, and a “92” means nothing if they do not know whether that is an A or an A− in your house. Every template above carries its key on the page.
By stage
What changes as your child gets older
The four templates are not the same page in different sizes. Here is what actually differs, and why.
| Stage | Reporting periods | Marks | What is different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Preschool–2nd |
Fall, Winter, Spring | Progress marks | Ten blank rows for readiness skills in your own words, and a separate Growth & Habits section, because at this age how a child works is most of the story. |
| Elementary 3rd–5th |
Four quarters | Progress marks | Twelve blank subject rows, and Work Habits move to their own table so effort is graded openly rather than hidden inside a subject mark. |
| Middle School 6th–8th |
Four quarters | Letters & percentages | Thirteen blank course rows, and a column for high school credit — because Algebra I or a first-year language taken in 8th grade often counts toward graduation. |
| High School 9th–12th |
Four quarters | Letters, credits, GPA | Adds credits earned, cumulative credits and cumulative GPA, and is designed so each final grade transfers directly onto a transcript. |
The middle school credit column is the one people wish they had. One high school credit generally represents about 120 hours of coursework in a single subject; a one-semester course usually earns 0.5 credit. Only high-school-level courses completed in 8th grade and awarded high school credit belong on a transcript — and a transcript assembled four years later cannot recover what nobody wrote down at the time.
Do you need one?
Do homeschoolers have to issue report cards?
In most states, no — not as a specific document. What states regulate is usually attendance, days or hours of instruction, subject coverage, and in some places periodic assessment or a portfolio review. A report card is simply the tidiest way to hold most of that in one place.
Requirements vary widely and they change, so check what your own state asks for rather than what a national article says. We keep a plain-language summary for every state on our homeschool requirements by state pages.
There are three moments when families who never needed one suddenly do: enrolling a child in a school or co-op mid-year, a state or district asking for evidence of progress, and applying to college or the military. In all three, a signed report card issued at the time is worth far more than a summary written from memory afterwards.
Keep them even if nobody asks
Records are cheap to keep and expensive to reconstruct. A folder with one report card per child per year is a complete academic history that takes twenty minutes a term to maintain — and it is the raw material for a transcript later.
From report card to transcript
A high school transcript is not a separate exercise. It is the four high school report cards, added up.
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Final grades carry over
Each course’s final grade on the report card becomes its grade on the transcript.
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Credits accumulate
Credits earned each year add into the cumulative total. Students typically earn about six credits per year.
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GPA follows
Once grades and credits are recorded correctly, the GPA is arithmetic rather than judgement.
This is why the High School template records credits alongside grades — so that in senior year the transcript is a summary of records you already have, not a research project.
How to create a homeschool report card · Homeschool report cards explained
Questions
Common questions about homeschool report cards
Are these report card templates really free?
Yes. There is no email gate, no account required and no watermark. Download the PDF, print it and use it. We make our money from families who decide they would rather not fill them in by hand every term, but the printable sheets are free whether or not you ever become a customer.
Can I edit the PDF on my computer?
These are designed to be printed and filled in by hand, which is why the rows are sized for handwriting. If you would rather type, create a free account and the same report card fills in from your saved students, subjects and attendance — then prints or downloads as a finished PDF.
Which template should I use for kindergarten?
The Primary template, which covers preschool through 2nd grade. It reports on readiness skills rather than academic percentages and uses three reporting periods, which suits how most families actually assess at that age.
What if I only report twice a year?
Fill in the columns you use and leave the rest blank. Two honest terms are better than four columns where two were invented. The templates do not require you to use every column.
Do I need to give letter grades?
Not in the younger grades. Progress marks — Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Progressing, Needs Improvement, Unsatisfactory — describe a young child more usefully than a percentage. From middle school on, letter grades become worth using because they feed a transcript and a GPA.
How many subjects should I list?
Only the ones you taught. Every template is blank, so nothing is suggested to you and nothing needs crossing out. A shorter, accurate list is more credible than a long one padded to look thorough.
Does an 8th grader’s Algebra I count for high school credit?
It can. Where a course is taught at high school level and awarded high school credit, it may appear on the transcript. The Middle School template has a column for exactly this, because it is far easier to record at the time than to establish four years later.
Will colleges accept a parent-issued report card?
Colleges generally expect a transcript rather than report cards, and homeschool transcripts issued by a parent are widely accepted. Report cards are the records the transcript is built from — keep them, and the transcript becomes straightforward.
Or skip the handwriting
One sheet by hand is fine. Three children, four terms a year, re-writing every subject and looking up last year’s attendance is not. Homeschool Reports saves your students, subjects and attendance once, then fills the report card in for you — every term, for every child.
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