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

Teachers didn't teach fewer pupils in the eighties, at least not in my area.

Then as now lots of parents didn't turn up. And if most teachers were in the hall, maybe those who did turn up had more awareness of the need to keep it short.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an appointment whatever level your children are performing at. Our school now doesn't do any reports until really late in the year - so for exam year students this would be in April & exams are early May. Mine all perform well but I still need & deserve for them to have feedback. Some kids perform well & drop off for all sorts of reasons, without the 2 x 5 mins appointments I would have no idea if this was happening to my kids. Also sometimes that 5 mins is used for asking about info related to where they progress onwards, 2nd of our parents nights is just before subject choices are made.
If parents evenings aren't long enough then the onus is on schools to be proactive about how they feedback to all parents.

It would be worth contacting the school to find out how many appointments each teacher has (2 hours would be 24 five minute appointments) and how many parents might be wanting to see them (one class of 30 would be reasonable, two or three classes less so). If there were concerns about your child they would probably be in touch but I understand the desire to have some dialogue with their teachers.

In the olden days, before zoom and online booking, my DS took great delight in making appointments for us as inconvenient as possible - consecutive appointments at opposite sides of the school, retracing our steps several times.

Depending on how many students a teacher has it's not always possible. As others have said the teachers pay and conditions limits how many hours teachers can be directed to be working this includes parents evening so it limits the length of parents evening especially in a high school where teachers may do 7 parents evening events per year if they have a sixth form

unless you have a problematic child, you’re just going to get the same Rinse & Repeat conversation that all of the other parents have with no real substance, five minutes isn’t really long enough to have a decent conversation and if you have any particular concerns when it comes to your child’s learning you can request to speak to those teachers separate to parents evening anyway, and probably have a more substantial conversation. And then when it comes to exam times, they usually host special parents evenings in the subjects that they do exams in. We had about three lots of parents evenings in relation to the exams within a three months period leading up to the end of year 11.

At my dds' school we have 5 minute zoom slots on School Cloud with a maximum of 6 teachers ie 30 minutes altogether.

I'm surprised to hear other schools using School Cloud have more than 6 teachers, as I thought that was a fixed number. Appears not!

I remember my first parent's evening as a teacher. One pair of parents spent 25 minutes with me - appointments were for 5 minutes.
So everyone else was delayed.

The worst part was they were complaining about what I was teaching which wasn't my choice as I kept telling them. They were teachers themselves so knew how wrong it was.

Zoom calls that cut off means that can't happen.

I think more parents would get to see the teachers they needed to if parents chose more carefully who they booked. Someone logs on as soon as booking is open and books a slot for every teacher. This will probably include subjects where their child is doing very well and where there are few areas to discuss. It would make more sense if people actually prioritised the subjects which their child found hard or where there were concerns.

What has changed is you some parents wanting to spend half an hour talking one teacher and holding everyone up. Some parents becoming aggressive towards teachers. Whilst I’d love to meet my kids’ teachers in person I get the new zoom thing means you get your 5 minutes and you get cut off!! I’ve usually gone straight on to make appointments and usually get one with each teacher but the time they’re released has worked for me up to now. If they were released during my work day I’d struggle - I’m also a teacher and can’t just leave my class to go online for these appointments. They do tend to be 7pm though when released so work for me but I guess people do work evenings.

DS secondary parents eve is per year group.
Slots opened online at 6pm one evening and an email was sent 24 hours prior to inform of booking opening.
Logged on at exact time and managed to get all slots required.
I went for Maths, English, Science, Engineering, Geography and Design Tech.
Didn't bother with Tutor as she only sees them 10 min per day.
Didnt book PE as not taken as an option and is used as 'down time' for those not taking it as an exam.
No concerns should be a Suprise. We are advised to email any tutors we don't get a slot for if we require an update or wish to raise any concerns

Me too. Sadly I cannot see everyone's parent. After a full day's teaching, I have 36 slots from 4pm - 7pm - and I actually have 58 Y11 students. Also, as a pp said, the parents I really want to see probably won't make an appointment.

I'll be seeing the parents of the keen Grade 7-9s who love History and really want me to meet their parents and probably talk about A level. Not the ones who are doing no work and look like being a Grade 2/3.

@annahay I saw that and after my post I said "ignore my post" I wasn't on a laptop so couldn't edit..

It would take 27.5 hours for me to see every parent for 5 min. We just don't have the directed time for that.

Our secondary manages it - 1000 students in the school. They do a tutor parents evening in term 1 where you have 10 minutes with the dc tutor to check they’ve settled back in okay/raise any issues. The dc are home schooled for a day (before half term) with work set on Google classroom to free up teachers to do this. Parents evenings with subject teachers are over 2 evenings and one afternoon with students for that year doing a group activity to free up teachers.

I’ve never not spoken to a teacher and ours are actually really helpful (and honest).

dd1’s year is high achieving (was at primary and seems to still be in her secondary state school). The head teacher commented that they’d had to change parents evening for our year to accommodate all the parents wanting to speak to teachers and be actively involved in dc school life. She felt there was a direct correlation between the high achieving year group and parental support.

The way our school works parents evenings is much better than the appointment system in my opinion.
We book an hour time slot, eg: 3:30-4:30/4:40-5:40/5:50-6:50.
We then have a table allocated to us and the teachers walk around and find you. They will sit with you for 5 min or so and then move on to someone else. This way no set appointments need to be made and the teachers get to see everyone.
We've only ever had one or two teachers not make it round to us.

Fewer teachers teaching more children.

We just picked tutor, core subjects and then once in year 10 included the special subjects.

So we never did music, dance, drama and a few others as we knew he would be dropping them all. Did art once on the auto system and even the teacher said good student behaves etc but I know he doesn’t like art so as long as he completes his work I expect nothing more or less from him. Year 10 dropped art.

I think talking to every single subject teacher at secondary level is more a box ticking exercise. Half the subjects will be dropped, anything important such as falling behind you should already be aware as you should if they are exceptionally fabulous.

They all know their set groupings as top, top 2nd, middle, lower and bottom which tells you quite a bit as well.

If you have a question surely you just pop an email across and get an answer in a few days. No point waiting till just parents evening.

We are allowed to book up to 8, can usually book an appointment but then they don't all turn up on the night !

What subject do you teach to do this????

I’m always fully booked, 3 hours non stop which is why I like online as it ensures appointments stick to 5 minutes. Yr 7 and Yr 11 PE are fave to face at my school and Yr 11 ran over by nearly half hour!

MFL, but it was the same for all subjects, in that while parents' evenings were online, my school had a policy that all teachers were only to book 30 appointments, regardless of how many classes we had, and could block out gaps wherever we wanted them. When it was online, the parents' evening was over a longer period of time, so there was plenty of space for decent gaps. Appointments were 3 or 4 mins.

What subject do you teach to do this????

I’m always fully booked, 3 hours non stop which is why I like online as it ensures appointments stick to 5 minutes. Yr 7 and Yr 11 PE are fave to face at my school and Yr 11 ran over by nearly half hour!

We are online too. Considering how many teachers are at home rather than school, I suspect that the teachers like it too.

I prefer it online as a teacher and a parent for the same reason - I can do things like put the dinner on or get a cup of tea in between appointments rather than standing/sitting around in school waiting for the next one. As a parent it means it doesn't matter if I can only get appointments that are far apart.

Oh believe me, no smuggery - my children all have SEN. But they were making the progress expected and behaving well.

If there are parents who need speaking to they don’t wait for parents evening.

We are only offered slots with SENCO and the head of year. I would if there are any issues these aren’t left to raise at parents evening. We get reports and I emails the teachers directly if needed. I don’t need a slot to be told my child is doing well. I only want to know about issues I need to address.

Which teachers are at home rather than at school? That's quite a sweeping generalisation for what might just be your experience