to think that this Parents Evening needs an alternative?

Just seen an article from Ireland where government workers plan to strike . One of the things that teachers are going for is no parent teacher meetings outside of school hours . So an afternoon of classes will be missed and parents expected to attend. No idea how they expect this to work for the majority of working parents .

Complain to the school about the short notice.

Make any appointments you can for after you finish work and call in from your car. Your DD won't be with you but it's better than nothing.

Send emails to the teachers you haven't spoken to if you have specific queries.

(3 DC and 13 years of schooling each and never took them to any parents evenings)

Ours are 4 - 6:30 and you have to be quick off the mark to get all the teachers as there aren’t enough slots. Also if a teacher is off sick then hard luck as the school cannot ask the teacher to do it another time (which I understand but also really annoying). I hated the online stuff we did in Covid but I do like the online booking of slots. Online might have been convenient but I found you don’t get nearly as much information. Other parents tell me pre-Covid the pupils themselves had to take a paper form round their teachers and sign up for slots - which inevitably meant the most dedicated students were the only ones being seen.

I thought that was just for parent-teacher meetings that are scheduled to occur during the continuing dispute? Teachers aren’t working outside of school hours while the dispute is ongoing.
Although they’re trying to get rid of Croke Park hours so I’m not sure 🤔

@Herearedaffodils OK maybe that is what it meant . I thought it was unworkable but really when you think about , they are giving up their evenings and are unpaid for it too.

I put yabu.
really mainly school on lack of notice but also insisting on child being there.
But also i do think yabu to go along with your dd even with the asd she doesnt get to say thats the rules so you cant talk without her.
Mine is also asd and luckily (in some ways) our school dont care about that so i just do the PE and convey to her.

Also as you know its likely pretty pointless if getting 8-9.

Tbh im generally more interested inlooking at the test papers rather than what a teacher of 30 kids says

Parents evening happens every year and by gcse age you have had many years of this! It happens around the same time every year so why haven’t you already put this in your diary from last year to warn you it’s happening?

I always said written reports would make so much more sense than a sporadic 5 minutes with each teacher spread out over an evening.

I still have some of mine, they outline effort, progress, things to work on and what I was like in class (very quiet unless I was next to my best friend in which case we often had to be separated!)

As a teacher for over 40 years, I can totally understand your issue. You want to be there, even if your child is doing well. Sometimes it’s a chicken and egg moment, is your child doing well because you show up and show interest, or are they doing well because you were able to make changes based on these meetings? Most likely, a bit of both.

I also have four children who were not at my own school. When we had those parent 3 hours in our case, we would have all the slots booked, then DH and I would divide and conquer. Leave the teens in one spot, grab one each and rush to the first slot, run back, change over kids and teachers. We would take notes so we could talk about them together later.

As a teacher though, I can tell you that there is no way the teachers decided on doing this with late notice. They also have families, need to arrange childcare themselves for the evening or get someone to take their own children to after school activities on little notice too.

Make a complaint, but the buck stops with the Principal on this one, so send it there or to someone above them.

Ours are 3-5 this year (primary school) and the school is closing at 1.15 to prepare for it so we have to also collect the children early. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They should have given you more notice. Ours are in the calendar from the beginning of the year. I would definitely complain about that.

Also, although we don't offer it explicitly because it would be a nightmare if everyone said yes, we actually will email an update if you ask. It's easier if you ask just after the parents' evening when there's time to do it. It's worth asking.

Exactly this. Particularly in secondaries, there can be really quite a big disconnect between class teachers and the senior management team. Class teachers won't have any say over when the communication went out (and not should they, being as it's not their job role). Agree with other pps there is no way staff weren't aware until a week before so complain to the school about the dreadful communication and see where you get from there.

If those names are real I might know the school and the parents evenings are always shit and running behind for gcse and 6th form years. Normally a bigger window though.

We get reports too but they have been universally rubbish all the way through - a grade for effort and attainment then a brief blurb about the topic the class has worked on/will work on. No way to feedback any specific concerns to the teacher or ask about the attainment score

Schools still work on the basis that Mum is at home doing nothing other than waiting for school to tell them what needs to be done.

I think you need to do a better job of explaining the rules of online meetings to your daughter. The rule of “attend together@ for an online meeting are that you must both be logged on. That would be the rule. The rule isn’t that you must be sitting at the same computer.

What is she going to do when she get a job and is told she must attend online meetings with her team. Will she demand that the team all log in together from the office? Cause that’s not how it works. The rule is simply to log on from wherever you all are, and be online together.

In my country parents "evenings" are in the afternoons and it must be workable, as they keep doing it. Though in my personal experience every teacher my children have had have said if a parent really can't make it in the afternoon (which is spread over two weeks to give lots of different options) they will try to arrange something else (I've never needed to ask so don't know what the something else would be, perhaps a phone call in the evening).

It sounds like in your DD's case it isn't absolutely essential to attend (though obviously you would want to) but there will be other parents in the same position with children who are maybe struggling in school or on the borderline between grades so parents evening would be really important so the short notice is really bad. I would give the school feedback explaining this, won't change anything this year but maybe in the future they'll give more notice.

And loads you don’t.

What do you mean? You would be both going . Just logged in from different phones. If she’s getting 8/9s she must understand how to log on to a meeting?
If you said not going was breaking a school rule?

Or just go alone. You said you could login from the car so do that.

Well said. It's always the teachers that get blamed, when they have absolutely no say in when these things are scheduled and how much notice is given.

My HT was absolutely shocking for giving last minute notice of events, and guess who got the angry messages from parents?

And yes, expecting an email instead, when a single subject teacher teaches multiple classes, is unrealistic.

This is one of those, it is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission situations. Log in from your car and tell them you will update your dd after work. Individual teachers are far more accommodating than the schools they work in.

Depends what system you use. The one we have, you certainly can’t.

I presume you are talking primary where a teacher only has 30 children?

Log in from work at 5pm? No way would I miss a year 11 parents evening.