What verb tense should student reports be written in?

[deathtollcarnage]

I think that reports are supposed to be written in past tense since it is dealing with an ending term progress even if some of the outcomes are continued during the next term. "Example: In term two, Patrick is showing significant progress in understanding the basic phonemic principles. He begins to relate sounds and letters.He usually identifies sounds especially the initial sounds of spoken words.He learns that each letter of the alphabet has a sound and when combined with other sounds form a word that carries meaning."

I think the correct way of explaining past progress should look more like this instead.
'In term two, Patrick was showing significant progress in understanding the basic phonemic principles. He began to relate sounds and letters. He can now identify letter sounds especially the initial sounds of spoken words. He learned that each letter of the alphabet has a sound and when combined with other sounds form a word that carries meaning.'

Then if the teacher or the school wants the parents to know certain skills will be continued to be taught it would be another paragraph at the end describing what the things the teach will continue or build upon next term. Is this right? Which verb tense should I explain to the staff the the teachers should be using to create their student progress reports for their parents?