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

And you wonder why teachers are leaving the profession...

Teachers should see each parent of each child they teach. If they can't fit it in 1 night then they need to add evenings or slots.

It's shit organisation by the school and discrimination against anyone who's not bloody online at 9am. (My experience)

Used to drive me spare and they need to sort the systems out, back to old school parents evenings in person where the teacher sits in a class and the parents wait in turns.

If you want to see all the teachers at our school, you need to log in at the time that booking opens. 3 hours = 36 slots and many teachers teach more than one class. I don’t know if teachers are allowed to save a slot for a toilet break too.

At secondary really the key one to check in with is the form tutor who will have more of an overall idea with how things are going.

I've mostly been able to see all of my son's teachers although in S1 (Scottish system) 1 just 'wasn't available' and we got to see one language teacher, even though he did 2 languages. He's in S5 now and I got appts with all of them last time. It's a small school though and there seems to be enough time - some people do try to jump in front, which can be annoying! Mske a mental note to jump (at booking) in ASAP next time and prioritise those you've not seen this time perhaps?

Same at our school. TBH the zoom calls feel so rushed that by the time you’re done with the pleasantries you have a couple of minutes before you get cut off. I think a separate call with the key teachers would be more useful!

Teacher here. It’s just not always feasible - if a teacher has multiple classes in a year group there just isn’t time. Drop them an email asking for a brief update. Often more informative anyway.

There just isn’t the time for teachers to see everyone in secondary. You have to get in quick and prioritise the core subjects. We get to chose 8 slots and I booked them as soon as it opened.

Teacher, just email the teachers you want to see and ask for them to phone you when it’s convenient for both of you

Rose tinted specs here. It probably seemed like they saw them all, and as others have said, in the later years this was probably true but regardless of the year, it would never have been possible for a teacher to see every year 7 child's parents. Also you haven't accounted for attendance rates etc

I'm not saying you're being unreasonable, especially if this is your first experience of secondary school and you haven't necessarily considered the practicalities of what you're asking.

For some subjects there might only be one or two subject teachers for the whole year group like the tech subjects, music, art etc (because they have fewer lessons per week than core subjects). My secondary school has 260 kids in a year group which could mean that each of those teachers have 3 or 4 year 7 classes to manage each. Or demand for perhaps 80+ parents evening slots.

YWBU if, you you appreciate that, you still expected each of those teachers to be available long enough to give all of those parents an opportunity to chat that evening - it's a simple case of maths, even 5 minute appointments would mean they would need to be there for upwards of 6 hours to see everyone.

Population growth and ratio to pupils is bare minimum.

Not that they don’t deserve, more not an effective use of time. I don’t say anything new to parents of children who are excelling that they haven’t seen in progress reviews etc. It’s “well done, keep it up”. Great for parent to hear compliments but not an effective use of time.

Parents evening is 3 hours, and they run 2 per year group. That means that each teacher has 72 slots. There are 300 children in a year group and they run 3 streams, so 100 per stream. Realistically, not enough slots for everyone to have one.

We get an email to say booking is open on School Cloud. I literally tap the hyperlink, log in, click 'auto-allocate' and within 1 minute I've booked all the appointments for my child.

When I was at secondary school in the eighties, for parents' evenings, teachers sat at desks in the hall and parents queued to see whichever they wanted to. Mine were able to see all my teachers. Why is there not enough time now? What has changed?

So children who work hard and have parents interested in and supporting their work don't deserve an appointment? This is very unfair. Also, as stated before, parents night attendance is not obligatory so you may well be handing out the few appointments to people who won't come.

As a veteran of this system. next time log on immediately appointments open and choose the automatic allocation option. Doing this, I got the appointments I wanted.

(Open at 7, allocated and accepted by 7.03. Not at convenient times though so I will have to book time off work as parents "evening" starts at 4pm)

Our school has 30 slots per teacher - 330 kids in the year!

Year 11, we have never met subject teachers in person as all parents evenings have been via this system

Our parents' evenings have 5 minute appointments. The whole thing lasts for 3 hours. That's 12 appointments per hour, 36 appointments in total.
I teach 180 pupils in each KS3 year group. It's literally impossible for me to speak to all parents in 3 hours.

I had one year where I taught 5 out of the 6 year 7 history groups. I had 155 kids to see and 30 appointment slots. Most year 7 parents did not see their child’s history teacher that year. That’s an extreme example but there won’t be enough slots for everyone to see every teacher at key stage 3. You should see most in key stage 4 and usually all or close to all in key stage 5. Classes get smaller and the number of subjects reduces meaning staff tend to have fewer classes in upper years but spend longer with each class per week/fortnight.

We have 8 parents evenings across the academic year - every year group and a tutor evening. They are 3 hours in length so 5 minutes an appointment, yet my largest class is 34. That will mean if all parents want to see me, 4 won’t. It’s just the logistics of schools and working on the bare minimum of staff. I’m a parent to a high school child and I don’t book appointments. I know from my child’s progress she is excelling in all subjects. I wish that is how parents evening should be, I make appointments with parents whose child need help. Have conversations with your child and check their books and progress reports. You’ll get far more out of that that a 5 minute generic rushed chat.

When I was at secondary school 20 years ago it was capped at 5 teachers per student. Whilst not everyone, that seemed fairer than some getting 12 and some getting no-one.

Sometimes it’s impossible. I used to teach whole year groups a subject, so that would be 150 children. There weren’t enough appointment slots for that many.

My advice is see English, maths and then any subjects they have expressed difficulties with.

It's unfortunate, but often the way it goes, especially if that teacher teaches a lot of that year group because of the way the timetable falls.

E-mail the main subjects you are missing, and ask for an e-mail summary of how they are doing.

I'm a teacher, I have 2 year 11 groups which is about 50 students. There aren't 50 appointment slots in the time allotted to parents evening. For Ks3, teachers may have 3 or 4 groups in the same year group so over 100 students. Follow up with individual teachers for a phone call or message updating progress.

If a teacher has just one class of year sevens then 30 x 5 minute appointments would take 2.5 hours. Is the Parent Consultation event 2.5 hours long? 2 hours would be more normal.

Quite often a specific teacher might have 2 classes within the yeargroup, especially if e.g. they teach two subjects and have one group for Physics and another group for Maths. Then they would need 5 hours to see everyone.

Tbh waiting for 2 hours is a rookie mistake. I set an alarm for the time they say slots will be released ang get my bookings done in the first 2 minutes.