In the Swedish comprehensive school there is since 1994 a special prescribed link between home and school, the so called "personal development dialog". In this meeting the pupil and her/his parents and teacher, at least twice a year, meet to be informed, discuss and plan for the pupils' learning and social development. In this article we establish the fact, that such talks can be related to different contexts, and thus interpreted in many ways.
The article highlights how the pupils experience these talks. The results are based on 245 questionnaires and about 40 short interviews with pupils in year 6. Contrary to the official intentions of the talk for development the pupils' experience that the assessments are at the core of teh talks. The future oreiented and planning dimension of the talk seldom is included in the pupils' answers. For the understanding of our results it is very important , we argue, to conceptualize school as an assessment practice.