Parent -teacher evenings. What's best to do?

[Shodan]

Wrt your appointment times.

You know what it's like-you're given your time slot and you duly pitch up and hover in the general vicinity. You then notice that your start time has arrived but the parent before you is still sitting there, merrily chatting away. You start to get twitchy and a little hot. Your slot is now past and you have another one due in 5 minutes.

Do you:
A) Hang on grimly until parent-before-you has finished being told how wonderfully well their child is doing, even though it makes you late for the next appointment and every subsequent one, which with the knock-on effect may make you at least twenty minutes late for your last appointment, by which time that teacher has given up waiting and gone for a coffee

or
B) Throw in the towel and trot off to hover in the vicinity of the next appointment, thereby leaving you unfulfilled and wondering what the previous teacher would have said about your own child had she/he been given the chance to do so?

Bearing in mind that if you adopt approach B) you may well end up doing that for every appointment and leave the building having seen no-one?

So which is best?

[TalkinPeace2]

A
Stand where the teacher can see you, clearly looking at your watch
the teacher should be able to wind up the conversation in the time allotted
or book another time for a long chat

[tabulahrasa]

B and go back to the original teacher when I see an opportunity, making someone else miss their appointment and giving them the same dilemma, or even better right at the end just as the teacher thinks they can escape

mwahahahahahahaha

[Shodan]

Aaagh.

Two replies and opposing answers.

How am I meant to choose?

And is a tsk allowed, in scenario A?

[tabulahrasa]

I'm sure you can, but bear in mind that it might be me, having gone back because someone made me miss it the first time and I picked option A, in which tssking will just make me talk even longer...

[AMumInScotland]

I try to get slots separated from each other, so I don't have to go straight from one to the next. That calms the process down a little.

And I rate the relevance of the subject - if DS is doing fine at it and I have no questions, I'm much more inclined to skip it if necessary, to make sure I get to speak to the ones I want to tell/ask something.

[TalkinPeace2]

A Caveat to my answer

at a primary school its easier to hover and watch
as the secondary school, with 11 teachers to see and 50 in the room, the meetings HAVE to run like clockwork

[Slambang]

A. Because the parent happily chatting about their child through your slot time probably only sat down with the teacher 30 seconds before you got there and their appointment was actually scheduled to start 45 minutes earlier but they've been waiting and sweating outside for the last 42 minutes.

[tabulahrasa]

I mean, B I 'me never going to make it as an evil genius am I? If I can't even keep two letters straight...

[TalkinPeace2]

o/t tab - are you ex the boards as well?

[tabulahrasa]

maybes

[TalkinPeace2]

Its an unusual spelling - you used to post on FHG and Q&A before the pinks ruined everything methinks :-)

[tabulahrasa]

That'll be the polite way of pointing out that it's spelled wrong then? rofl

but aye, I did, unless you're dodgy in which case, I'm an imposter...

[TalkinPeace2]

I'm the same person on every board (here, ebid, tazbar, ebay, MSE, UKBF) : the 2 is cos MN mangled the first ID! So yes, I probably am an impostor!

[roisin]

At our school the scheduled slots are all just a myth anyway, and it's a bit of a free-for-all.

We usually start off to see the teachers in the order on our appointment slip, but if we see one on our hit list with no queue, then we deviate and jump straight in to see them. If there's a long queue, even if we have a booked slot, we usually come back later and try again.

The exception is for very busy teachers, for whom you always have to grit your teeth and queue:
a) Popular teachers who everyone wants to see, who teach several classes so have hundreds of kids to see. (Music and History).
b) Teachers who can't seem to shut up and spend a long time talking to all parents. (Science.)

That's the accepted routine at our school anyway.

[Shodan]

I'm still not much wiser, tbh.

I suppose I'll just have to go with A and keep B as my back up (as usual). And if I do forget myself and tsk then I'll do it very, very quietly.

[DejaWho]

I've been known in the past from the other side of the desk - when I had a lot of kids with siblings in the class of the teacher who was known for running late - to just grab them out of his overrunning queue, get their space kept there and get my consultations done and them back in the queue before he'd got to them!

I'm brutal running to times and scheduling follow up meetings for anything drawn out though (mainly because my arse is freezing after three hours sat in a flipping cold hall when the heating turned off at 3 and I want to get home too).

Worked in one school where the head stood outside and rang the doorbell at 10 minute intervals to move everyone round - it was hilarious to watch.

[xmyboys]

Five min slots are ridiculous!

[mummytime]

I have been in schools where a bell is rung every 10 minutes, it worked well.