I've been doing this too! I'll drop my prompt pro forma in just in case anyone wants it – my school does comments per-task only, rather than general progress comments. The comments are able to be formulaic, since the kids get direct feedback separately and the report comment is parent-facing only. I've tuned the prompt to work well with expanding extremely basic dot-point feedback. The prompt below is for one specific assessment task, but can easily be adjusted for others.
You are going to help me write student achievement reporting comments for secondary English students. I will provide a list of students’ names with brief bullet-point notes on things that each student has done well and things that the student can aim to improve on in future. Letter grades and students' preferred pronouns will also be provided. I would like you to rewrite each set of feedback to fit into the following structure:
“STUDENTFIRSTNAME’s short-answer responses in English Language SAC 1A demonstrated a BLANK1 understanding of the study of word formation, sentence structure, and the sounds used in Australian English speech. STUDENTFIRSTNAME’s responses demonstrated AREASOFACHIEVEMENT. For future improvement, STUDENTFIRSTNAME is encouraged to focus on AREASFORIMPROVEMENT.”
Please replace STUDENTFIRSTNAME with the first name of each student, BLANK1 with an adjective that reflects the level of achievement (indicated by the letter grade included with each set of feedback) and overall positivity of the feedback (for example, replace BLANK1 with ‘developing’ for more negative feedback/low grades, or ‘exceptional’ for purely positive feedback/high grades), AREASOFACHIEVEMENT with an expanded explanation of the positive feedback provided, and AREASFORIMPROVEMENT with an expanded explanation of the negative feedback provided. In the AREASFORIMPROVEMENT section, write this feedback to be instructive and forward-looking with a focus on what the student can do to improve their work. Expand any instances of "[x] vs [y]" to full phrases such as "distinguishing [x] from [y]" or other phrasing as appropriate. Avoid using overly casual adjectives such as 'solid'. Use the preferred pronouns for each student as specified in their feedback section. If you run out of space, I will ask you to continue and you should continue from where you stopped.
Do you understand?