To expect an appointment with all my child's teachers?

I mean, YANBU to expect to get feedback from all teachers - but aside from it being online, it was exactly the same when I was in secondary, and that was nearly 30 years ago.

My advice would be to speak to those teachers you might have concerns about their subject, or just maths, science and English.

Teacher here - this is common at most schools. At my previous school I taught 3 y7 groups (~90 kids) and had a y7 form. This was about 120 kids and an evening with 36 appointments on the evening there was no way I’d be able to see every child. My current school split the year group across two evenings but even this only creates 72 appointments across the two days (and that’s without allowing myself even a 5 minute break).

I’m im not speaking for all teachers here but I’m always more than happy to reply to emails queries/arrange phonecalls with parents who couldn’t get appointments but want an update on progress so I’d suggest emailing the teachers you aren’t able to see and asking if they can drop you a line summarising how your dc has settled, what their attitude is like and if they have any concerns.

Sadly, teachers cannot see all parents in one evening - eg. if they teach 8 subject groups 2-3x a week, with 30 students in each class, this is 240 students. At 5 mins each that is 20 hours of parent/teacher time.

I tend to prioritise the subjects that look to be an issue, and most important subjects (prob Maths/English/tutor/‘science’ if combined in year 7) based on school reports grades & comments, and/or email the subject teachers directly if I have concerns.

I am a teacher and they absolutely can. I’ve never met any parent outwith set parents night appointments. Not sure why you are so confidently wrong on this topic. We have a working time agreement and we do not need to go over the allocated time for appointments.

While I agree with you. My son was one of those kids and is currently at uni. By the end of his time at school I found that the teachers had less and less to say to us and we would struggle to fill the time in appointments (and my husband is a teacher so had teacher questions to ask). There’s only so many times you can hear “yes he’s doing well, he’s hitting his targets, he’s predicted x grade, no there’s not really anything further you need to do” I can definitely see why appointments for others could be prioritised.

Year 7 is the worst as everyone is keen. It does get better, but you do need to set an alarm and log on as soon as it opens.

Do your high school have one massive parents evening or is it different days for different years?

If its the first, I can totally understand why they are booked up. Mine have different years/days and never struggled to get an appointment with all teachers.

At our school we do struggle to have enough slots for every parent to see every subject’s teacher, particularly at KS3 as many teachers will teach more than one class (possibly 90+ students in a year group). BUT what we do is allow parents to book a limited number first off (I think it’s 6…?) so everyone can get some appointments and then they reopen the bookings again and it’s a ‘free-for-all’ on whatever’s left. I think this is a reasonable compromise and if you’ve only been able to get 4, especially when you’re booking very promptly, I really don’t think that’s reasonable. They need to review their system and I think you are not unreasonable to expect to see more than 4 teachers and you would not be unreasonable to suggest that they need to review their system.

What? All parents need to speak with their child's teachers. Parent's do not need 'speaking to' What a negative post.

You do realise teachers are humans right? I once missed a parents evening because I was having a miscarriage. I'm so sorry I didn't turn up for those parents but I was a little preoccupied with losing my child.

Our parents evenings are 4pm until 7.30pm online.

I get two 5 minutes breaks.

If I have to see more than one class then any parents that can't get an appointment get a phone call at a later date.

Parents are not expected to see EVERY teacher. Perhaps choose 5 or 6.

Yanbu. Our parents evening is face to face but you book slots on line, I have never had an issue and always get appts with every teacher. Sometimes, an appt goes over the five minutes ( with children before you etc), putting you behind for your next slot. But the teachers are flexible and if they happen to not have a student in front of them as you are walking past, you can just sit down and have your appt outside of your allotted time. Much easier to do them face to face.

5 mins? We got 2! One teacher turned up over a minute late meaning we got about 45 seconds!

I haven’t voted because while YANBU to wish it was different, but sadly this is the reality of senior school parents evening and always has been. It was the same when I was in school, 40+ years ago . In the days before online appointments, we used to scoot around the school and spot the teacher with no one sitting in front of them. Now, that’s not possible, as all appointments are on Zoom. At least they don’t run over time.
one thing that increases demand, is separated parents who want separate appointments (yes, it happens all the time), which I think is wrong.

I think the teachers shod be responsible for who gets a slot. They know who's parents need speaking to

Teachers can do that here. You open up an appointment app and hope your name isn’t already next to a teacher!! Even worse there are HOY slots prebooked and Head Teacher slots.

The relief is real!!

We use to have that system during covid and wasn’t the best I only tend to stick to the core subjects and any that I feel is needed and try and get them as soon as I can. been many occasions not been able too and if I feel I needed to have an appointment would schedule a call with the teacher alternatively and not been a problem and same vice Versa if I couldn’t get an appointment and a teacher needed to speak to me she would give us a call so don’t worry too much you’ll get the grasp.

There just isn't enough time. There isn't enough time because they're aren't enough teachers at all.
I have one extra group on my timetable to what I had 15 years ago and I'm now a head of department. Pretty much every department in every school needs at least one more teacher for things to be manageable. And yet, we're struggling to find enough staff for these new levels.
The state of schools is shocking. I've been teaching since 2002. This is the worst it's been in my career.
There aren't enough teachers.

I'm confused to hear teachers saying appointments are pretty pointless (whilst saying they attended their own children's). Points to the fact they aren't totally pointless. (Not to mention the fact that if there truly is nothing useful to say then there must be a lot of children working at a very high level).
"Efficiency" presumably is only being measured from one angle. I guess unless you've got a data set where you've observed the difference in achievement/morale between children when they have been seen versus them not being seen, nobody can really comment on the impact these appointments have. Children are becoming more and more disengaged and things like this won't be entirely unrelated I'm sure. I've just finished some behaviour training and you always hear time and time again that personal relationships are key... and then you see things like this slipping by the wayside. I appreciate the logistics can't be at simple as they used to be but there's at least one example in here of a school who has found a way around that. Presumably because as a school, they prioritise that kind of thing. Obviously that solution won't be without its problems and you can't please everyone (clearly the limited spaces solution isn't pleasing everyone either). It would appear workarounds are possible if the school is willing to be more creative (if they value the pastoral side of things).

At our secondary school you get get 6 appointments only and obviously there are more teachers than that so you pick the ones most important to you/your child. So I always go maths, English and a science, then now he's in year 10 his gcse choices. I love the 5 min Zoom appointments- much prefer that to traipsing around a packed hall!

My child is in year 10 and I’ve never got to speak to all the teachers. It’s fasted finger first ones the slots are released! And be great full of 5 min appointments, we had 30 second one online in year 7-8 and a whole mega 1 minute in year 9!! Then you’ll get a least one teacher who doesn’t show do to “poor wifi”.. that’s the post Covid world I’m afraid

Also better for parents with disabilities as not all schools are accessible.

Can I just add another layer of difficulty, I used to be a supply teacher, sometimes for quite a long time, maybe two terms, but usually I was not included in the parents evening.

The students may not know that I was supply and I was always willing to do parents' evenings without being paid (supply is fairly good pay).

A teacher can't refuse a meeting with a parent, unless there's an issue, in which case they have another teacher in the meeting.

The children are there (at secondary) and should hear the praise.

What am I reading?! I wasn't allowed to attend parents' evening at my school.

@museumum

> Genuine question - my eldest in last year of primary - is there any point going to parents evening in secondary? I’ve always felt I had to go to show I supported the school / teachers. But if our child has no issues should we stay away and leave appointments for others? That feels “wrong” to me but then I am a bit of a goodie two-shoes when it comes to school….

If they are doing well in all their assessments and there are no problems then don’t bother. You won’t get any extra brownie points from the teachers.

It’s when the teachers are super keen to talk to you that there’s a problem - probably means the student is underperforming or badly behaved!!

[edit. Sorry I couldn’t work out how to quote someone’s post in reply]

If you have particular concerns in a subject then send the teacher an email. Otherwise, no news is good news. My parents only ever went to one parent evening the entire time I was high school. I got good grades and positive comments in my reports, so it was a waste of everyone’s time.

If there’s a serious problem, you’ll have heard about it before now.

Many options teachers (and even some core) teach more than one class in a year group. They’re not going to be able to have 60+ appointments in an evening.