To be dreading face to face parents evening Thursday

It is completely fine to dread part of your job where you’d normally spend 3.30-7 planning/marking but now have to do meetings, and then the planning/marking afterwards! That is not unreasonable.

Seeing that these could be done virtually so much easier over lockdown seems that some heads are making a deliberately backwards step as well. My DC’s school asked the parents what they preferred and nearly all opted for online to continue-it’s brilliant, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t prefer it.

I'm so glad of online parents evening. They're on time! When it was face to face some parents went over their 5 minutes and pushed everyone else back. I'm glad for online and those kind of parents can be cut off after their 5 minutes. We don't all have the whole evening to spare!

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

I generally have little sympathy with poster who say they are going to get flamed and then post something very vanilla like this. It's not scandalous to not want to do 3 intensive hours after the end of the your day. But surely this is part of the problem? You need a bit more backbone. How are you going to be helpful to parents if you are worried about this?

I’m not surprised you dread it OP, but I am so relieved to have face to face parents evening back. I hated talking over a screen and having one eye on the ticking clock, knowing you were about to be cut off. Half the time I didn’t even get to say goodbye!

I also agree that 5 minutes does make a bit of a mockery of the whole thing. It’s not long enough to find out how well your child is doing in a subject and certainly not enough to discuss improvements etc. At my last parents evening they had virtually nothing to say to me. That wouldn’t be acceptable in any other meeting.

Also, are that many parents really so demanding? At my parents evening it all seemed very amicable.

I have some sympathy in that I'm sure they are exhasting and some parents are horrible.

However, these parents are trusting you to teach their children what they need to know. They're trusting their children's development to you - for myself, there's nothing on earth more important than that. I don't think a five minute online slot is adequate for discussion.

my son's are grown up thank my lucky star's🌟 I don't deal with schools and teachers anymore best day of life when my youngest left school it was over they both walked out at 14 dread to think what schools are like now

Friend adult? Grown adult!

I've just had my first return to face to face meeting as a parent. I could see the teachers' 'dinner' of crackers and some packets of cheese on his desk clearly untouched at nearly 7pm.

Lols at the outrage that a friend adult hasn’t had dinner by 7pm 😬

Maybe they were doing what many people do every single day? Having a quick snack and planning on having dinner later?

I love the online parents evenings. 5 minutes is plenty for a quick check in to make sure they're generally on track/behaving. If I wanted to talk about any major concerns I'd email or arrange a private chat.

@Tolson is on a wind up. It’s funny.

I was gutted they came back into real life. I voted for online ones, particularly because the times are kept and there is no chaos!

I had it from 4-8 on Valentine’s Day this year and my birthday last year. They always pick good times!

I quite enjoy parent’s evening and then just crash after.

There used to be a poster on the TES forum who posted nonsense like this. It was exactly the same style and content, designed to aggravate and get a reaction!

This completely.

i appreciate it’s stressful OP but also you cannot begrudge a parent wanting more than a meagre five minutes with their child’s teacher.

it’s a ridiculously short amount of time. DD’s are online and like you say the session ends at five minutes. The teacher spent the first minute talking about her baby, the next two telling us about DD’s recent friendship spat, another minute that DD is very kind and then tried to cram her entire academic performance into the remaining 30-40 seconds. It was ridiculous and we requested another meeting because we have expressed a number of concerns about her post covid progress.

Five minutes is NOT enough nor is a single day to discuss the progress of 30+ students.

What did you do with your younger children when attending in person parents evenings-surely they still needed to be kept quiet then?

Or did you get a babysitter? Perhaps you should do that for virtual ones too.

As a parent I like the online meetings. I can get home from work and sit down with a drink for an hour rather than rushing out, driving 20min, finding rooms and sitting in queues. Five minutes doesn't sound much but is plenty for an update on a child doing OK at school. I imagine for a child with problems (with the subject or socially) a longer appointment face to face could then be arranged to go into more depth.

@Tolson
I totally disagree. Teachers are there to serve the client (ie the parents and DC). It’s up to the teacher to meet their needs. DH is a headteacher at a free school. He offers flexible parents evenings, where parents can request a meeting with any teacher at any time. Whether that be before school or late evening. Home visits are also encouraged to allow flexibility for parents.
Without parents teachers would not have jobs. It’s up to teachers to be flexible and meet parents’ needs and demands.
Not sure I’d be bragging about having a DH who is such a bellend! Thankfully, Headteachers like him are few and far between. Bet the turnover of staff is huge!🤣

Totally sympathise. Ours are all online now except for 6th Form and that’s bad enough but at least they are cut off after 5mins. Parents seem to have got as needy and demanding as their offspring over lockdown -total nightmare

I work in a college now so I only manage a small number of students (20ish maximum) and for our parents evenings parents can choose either a teams meeting, a phone call or an email update. They are allocated in 15 minute blocks because we know that relatively few parents will book. One of the best school set ups I saw was when I was a PCGE student, where in mid December they had a whole school parents day, and saw everyone on that one day, I think an inset day must have been used for it. It really worked for them because it was the sort of school where a high proportion of parents would take their kids out of school for a “Christmas shopping day” and attendance was terrible for the entire month, but giving all the students a day off mid month encouraged parents to use that instead. It was a long time ago but I think the way it worked was KS3 in the morning and KS4 in the afternoon and ran 8 till 6 so a longer day but not quite as long as a full day of teaching followed by a full parents evening.

Sorry I hit enter too soon I meant to add...

A lot of us (like I just did) compare teaching to our own job then scratch our head wondering why they are moaning. It's easy to forget the constraints of teaching.

Glad I don’t work at your DH’s school, no wonder teachers are in short supply. Teachers are there to meet the needs of the children, not the parents.

Thanks for both of the replies. You're right.

I work in the public sector and from time to time have had to work out of office hours. However my role is paid better than teachers and I have the ability to take the time back during my normal hours.

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers. They live in such a grey area as a profession. On one hand they are treated like idiots (ie COVID aside there is no trust placed in their judgement for children's grades or the best way to teach them) and yet when it's convenient they are treated like a profession that's failing (despite governments doing their best to deprofessionalise them).