to think that this Parents Evening needs an alternative?

Does the online software they are using allow logins from home and your work/car? Because surely if she is autistic they will make allowances for this. Our school uses SchoolCloud - you get in early and use automatic to book as many consecutive 5 minute slots as possible. For ten subjects that would be 50 minutes in the car.

Yes, I'm the same. With school cloud you need to get in early and don't allow them to pick the time slots, use the option to pick you own, otherwise they are scattered all over the place.

Ours is usually in the 2 weeks following half term, could be any day in that 2 weeks. Would you expect someone to book 2 weeks off work in advance so that they can make sure they’ll be off on the right day?!

Very poor form that there’s no notice for working parents.
I’d phone the school office /email the head teacher to feed this back. See if they can get the teachers to phone you at a different time ?

That's absolutely shit (I work in a school).

It would be SLT who made the decision on dates/late notice. Most of them couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag and it means kids/ parents bear the brunt.

I would email the head of year and give very robust feedback about the short notice. It won't be their fault, but they will feel the same as you and it will give them ammunition to raise it with their line manager (who will be SLT).

Upper school too but only the class teacher. The students meet with their subject teachers themselves during school time to discuss how they are doing that year and presumably will be in contact with parents if there are serious issues.

Because the school should have told parents about the date far far earlier than this.
Parents who work FT in inflexible roles also have an interest in their child’s education.

That rather misses the whole point of parents evening; for parents to meet with the subject teachers themselves rather than rely on their child’s report of how they are doing. Children do not always give an accurate report - either because they do not know themselves or because they are lying.

Is a child on track to get a B at GCSE having serious issues? What if a bit of extra support at home could change that to an A*?

Parents know here how their child is doing throughout the year because all unit test/exam results are on the school app so we can immediately see if they are struggling when it happens, plus the Christmas report card. And in upper school students are expected to take more responsibility for their own education, which is why they discuss themselves with their teachers. Any serious issues like being on track to fail would call for a meeting anyway, no need to wait until parents evening.

We have all test/exam/assessed essay results on an app, plus two short reports a year and one full report. We still have a full parents evening with every subject teacher, which is well attended so I assume people find it useful. Any actual issues are communicated outside of parents evening; they are more for parents to be able to ask any questions around how we can support our children etc.

The short notice is bad but I am shocked to hear you state this is for secondary and GCSE years as that's a really early finish time, ours used to go on until 8pm. The teachers and pupils would come in later the next morning.

why are you quoting the OP?? It’s right above your post. Everyone knows what you’re replying to. Can you imagine if every single person commenting quoted the OP itself?

Unpopular opinion... but have you any issues?
Are the issues the same with every subject?
Is there a chosen career path?

DDs now 24 and 25 had no issues all the way through school, 7+ for every subject, behaviour decent, so we chose a few subjects if the timing was convenient - didnt go at all to 2 evenings as timings were impossible with work- one was wanting a STEM career, so sciences and Maths. Other, arts and English.

Kids liked being told they were model students for a couple of years, but by Y9 they were fed up and didn't want to go, just to be told, "doing well, wish I had a class full like them, needs to put their hand up more, thank you and goodbye..."

You are allowed to not go if it is difficult. (And in your position, would email the head to ask that they give more notice).

Yes, we have those and I agree, completely rubbish, pupil performance data is an abstraction, PE are crucial to understand the human in the classroom and subtle observations by the teacher that a parent can support them on.

I have done parents evening in a car park and on the train before, they don’t really care! You also don’t have to meet with every single teacher, just select core subjects.

Should a parent worry if their child get a 7? What about a 3? Results mean nothing without context. I have DC for whom a 7 would have been a cause for concern, and another for whom a 3 would have been a cause for celebration.

Teachers are very careful about what goes in report cards because they are in writing and get seen by their line managers. They are often more truthful in parents evenings and then you can ask meaningful questions about support.

I wonder if some pp don’t see the value of parents evenings because their dc has done well in school so cannot understand why they may be important to others.

Sounds really good, lots of information for parents to know how their children are doing. If they had a parents evening with subject teachers here I'd go because it would be useful and informative but I don't find it necessary as there's so much communication from the school already and if I was worried I know I could message the relevant teacher on the school app.

Presumably parents know their own children so they can judge from test results if their child is doing as they should or not. For instance on one occasion DD did badly, for her, on a science test, I saw the grade and knew she could do better and talked to her about studying and her grades improved. On another occasion she got a really bad grade on a physics test, again I saw it on the app and was concerned but DD got to the bottom of it and found it was teacher error which her teacher corrected. Finding out about those at parents evening would have been a bit too late really.

So says someone whose child has done ok, whose child is engaged and communicates well, and who is themselves capable of understanding and interpreting the test results and supporting their child…

Because it's totally reasonable to expect staff to work until 7 or 8pm?

That is strange. My kids it is always fun from 4.30 until 8.30. When I last did it I had all my appointments in the 6.45 to 7.45 period. All remote as well. Your school seems very odd having such a narrow timescale during working hours.

And if my child didn't do well I'd be able to see those results and contact the teacher and wouldn't need to wait until parents evening to find this out. If a parent isn't capable of understanding test results (no interpretation needed, the results are clear number grades, or x out of y) then are they going to be capable of supporting their child after parents evening either?

yes. It only happens a few nights a year. It is part of the job. As part of my job I sometimes have to do evening events.