To be dreading face to face parents evening Thursday

It was variants of something like Pink123 - i.e. a word followed by a simple number. Bit of a shame she's been banned, her fantasies were quite entertaining. She also used to pop up with claims of working in management in some draconian sweatshop where the managers spend all day policing the minions and having solemn meetings to decide whether any individual had permission to go on holiday. Needless to say, loo breaks were rationed and timed. I think minions had to give notice before leaving to deal with emergencies, too.

No flaming here, as a parent virtual parents evenings were so much easier for us!! It is the way forward in my view!

The 5 minute online ones are a complete waste of time. There's no chance to discuss anything. Some of the teachers had scripted exactly five minutes of them speaking - we did not get to say a word. I agree with PP, it smacks of box ticking.

They’re exhausting for a parent, I dread to think what they’re like for a teacher. I much prefer online. YANBU at all. Thank you for giving up your time to help our little darlings. Oh and on the timing thing, I cut in now because I don’t give a shit about what the other parents think of me! Especially the entitled ones! So annoying when they over-run.

We've not had a parent's evening since covid began, they've shifted to online, completely inconvenient. Zoom, teams meetings are sketchy here because of the area internet.

Can't wait to get back to face to face.

Did you contact the teachers outside PE to discuss further?

I have to say neither of my boy's schools cut parents off after 5 minutes in online meetings, but I can see how teachers are now dealing with angry parents who have been treated like this during lockdown.

This!

Online parent evening worked really well for my DD as there were no concerns.
Online didn’t work at all for my DS. The teachers would say how they thought he was doing, most were positive. I would then point out the things that weren’t going well, teacher would fumble for a few seconds then recommend talking to the SENCO - then we would be cut off and receive no follow up. Face to face would have been far more productive as then we could actually discuss methods to help if we had even an extra 5 mins.

A thought about PEs - the time cost falls entirely on the teacher who loses downtime after a day's work. The I last taught in the UK, there were PEs for each year level.

In Victoria the PE time has to be given back to the teacher as TOIL on the day, so 1. We got the morning off and PE ran 1.30-7.30, with breaks. Food and beverages were provided by the school, unlike in the UK, where the NUT put on the spread.

2.The impact on teaching be cause of the TOIL is apparent, so PEs happened twice year, all year levels in, first come, best dressed. It worked.

The moral here is that in the UK teacher time means nothing, so pile the individual PEs willy nilly. In Victoria, the "pain" is felt by students who don't get taught, so PEs are limited.

I know which one I'd rather have.

We have them in my country, we have one near the beginning of the year where all the parents go at once to meet with the teacher, with the children, to get to know the teacher and talk about what the children will be doing and answer any questions (and as my DD's teacher is the PE teacher he makes us play games - played secret tag and follow the leader last time!)

Then the individual ones around February time. We get a list of times spread over several days and have to mark off all the times we can possibly do, then the teacher makes a timetable for the parents. Its spread over 3 or 4 days so not too many meetings in one day and some are in the afternoon (better for stay at home parents) and some in the early evening (better for working parents) and we get at least 10 minutes each. Never felt rushed. Much better system than the UK parents' evening I reckon, less rush, less stress, no late evenings for the teachers.

Was helpful when it came to switching DD from Finnish as a second language to native Finnish a couple of years ago, as I had no idea it was possible but the teacher brought it up during the parents evening. Would never have thought to ask her about it otherwise. But otherwise we have plenty of opportunities to contact the teacher anyway, through the school home portal thingy, and DD's teacher gave out his phone number at the beginning of the year so we can contact him via that too (he has a work phone but he doesn't like it and it has to stay in the classroom so he gives his personal number. His choice but I doubt any of the parents take the piss and call unless absolutely necessary)

That’s because they’re a pointless, outdated punishment, usually for low-level behavioural issues like homework.

If you can’t justify every detention then don’t give them out.

Where did the OP didn't say she couldn't justify them? Some parents would be quite happy to argue over perfectly obviously justifiable detentions.

YANBU OP, most people have an element of their job that they find difficult and its okay to talk about it, but for some reason on MN teachers must be saints who never complain, unlike any other profession.

I’m a teacher. If you can’t justify it, don’t give them out.

I used to teach around 200 children when I was a secondary school teacher. Apart from my form group, I barely knew the Yr7, 8 and 9s. 5mins was ample to say what I had to say. Longer would have been difficult as 15mins each would take 50hrs of parents evening. It would also take me, as a parent, about 4hrs to see all my daughter’s teachers for 15mins each. I did know my GCSE and A level students very well and found meeting their parents very worthwhile. But I don’t think people realise quite how many children some teachers see and how little classroom time they actually spend with them. 1hr a week with a class of 30 doesn’t give you much time to get to know each child very well. Mine used to rotate groups in KS3 which meant I only saw them for 8 lessons and parents evening was often at the beginning of the block of 8 lessons.

As a teacher and a parent like many on here I can see the issue from both sides but really, for many kids, especially at secondary, the majority are doing fine and don't need any more time, if that. If they do, emails or a separate meeting may well have already been organised, or should be. If we didn't have to spend 50x5 mins saying "they're fine" to the 90% who are, we could spend more time on those with actual problems. Fundamentally though, the overall issue is too few teachers and too many kids / classes per teacher. I teach in a private school so 2x written reports, 6x grades and a PE per child each year isn't as onerous because overall I teach far fewer kids. As with a lot of issues in education, funding to address teacher recruitment and retention is at the heart of this.

The one good thing to come out of lockdown is remote Parents’ Evenings. Even better when I can get home first. Much more efficient and less stressful Our appointments are automatic now and it cuts out after 5 minutes!

We did this at my last school, ticking the online booking system for parents/pupils we needed to see while others were"welcome". This way the parents saw it, as did the HOYs.

It made very little difference to the "wanted" ones, who invariably didn't sign up. They always had to be followed up, but then they mostly needed more than the 5 minutes anyway.

The online evenings have been a godsend as a teacher - I get to see more parents than face-to-face as the cut-off means you don’t have the parent who drones on and on with a queue building up.

Personally, I think we as teachers should decide which parents NEED to come in, as it’s always the ones you really need to speak to that don’t bother.

Not the point.

To raise objections about detentions in the parents' evening is a time waster, not for this occasion which is about pupil progress. Such matters should be done via phone call/email/separate meeting.

I'm baffled by the 5 mins isn't long enough at secondary. What else are you talking about? I'm usually done in 3.