Do I have a legal right to see teachers at parents' evening?

I love parents' evenings at secondary school and think they are a great opportunity to praise teachers (see radicalsubstitution above) and share issues from my/my child's side even briefly.

I always try to see as many teachers as possible, including the more "peripheral" subjects such as PE, art etc even when my child might not do for GCSE or A level, and see this as supporting their work with my children and valuing their subject.

Also I sometimes pass by when I haven't got an appointment and if the teacher is free ask if I can say hello I'm Wavelet's mum.

I wish my parents' eves were in "office hours"! I am secondary and they never finish before 8pm. Bearing in mind I get in school for 8am, usually have a revision class or coursework catch-up in lunchtime and then after school, that's a twelve-hour day. I work in a school with a 6th form, so there are 7 parents' eves a year. Then add on Year 7 open evening, 6th form open eve, year 10 induction eve, productions, theatre trips, Speech Night...I wish it was only "one night a year"! I am not moaning as it's the reality of the job - all I ask is that the reality is understood and not the myth!

OP: I am in very regular contact by phone/email with a lot of parents of pupils I teach. I suggest you take some initiative and phone the teachers concerned, rather than getting all huffy about your legal rights.

Struggling =/= not bright! At all.

Student A is in bottom set year 9 & doing fantastically. I don't need to see his mum, but she wants to see me, & it's lovely that I can chat to both of them about his progress, especially as A is really lacking in confidence.

Student B is in top set year 10 & currently getting Bs in his Controlled Assessment. His target is A & having taught him in years 7 & 9, I reckon he's perfectly capable of an A*, were he not such a lazy little git.

So I've emailed his dad & arranged an appointment (B has 'lost' his form - he knows perfectly well it won't be anything he wants his parents to hear!).

Student C in year 11 is absolutely fine, parents have been coming to Parents' Evenings for years, they know perfectly well I'll be in touch if there's a problem. They also know I teach two year 11 groups. So they've wisely opted not to queue up to see me for half an hour for me to spend 2 1/2 minutes croaking at them 'Yes, it's all good. NEXT!'

spababe - is this your DS's first year in secondary school by any chance?

Why do you have to see them all? Do you not have written reports? Is your son having problems?

Spababe, you're stropping like the school has refused you any contact with the teachers at all. Do you seriously need a face to face meeting to ask a teacher how they are stretching the brightest? Actually, I'll tell you, the answer is no. That can be dealt with perfectly well over the phone or via email.

What hours are parents evening then?

I never got away from parent's evening before 9pm - often later. Even at the infants I now work at teacher's don't get to go home til 7:30 - and they see less children and do it over 2 evenings.

Spababe, I used to get frustrated with schools too until I became a teacher myself. My god. I haven't yet had a week where I've worked less than 60 hours. I'm in school from 7 am until 6.30 pm every day then take work home. There are 14 parents evenings per year, two open evenings, presentation evening, year 6 intake evening, year 7 settling evening, concerts, plays, fund raisers and charity events....so think it through. If you can't get an appointment on PE then call the school and leave messages for the individual teachers you want to speak to. When they get a spare minute, they'll call you back and you can have your two way conversation.

I wish it was only one evening a year.

I am married to a secondary school teacher, he has parents evenings for each year group on separate days at least twice a year. Senior staff meetings every Tuesday when he doesn't get home until at least 7pm normally later, open evenings for the new intake for year 7 and year 12. Teaching Saturday mornings for the gifted and talented programme, school trips during the school holidays, presentation evenings for GCSE certificates and a separate one for A level certificates, chaperoning the proms and being in school to give out the exam results so the pupils can pick them up during the holidays, and don't get me started on the interviews for new pupils and the many evening spent writing references for uni and school reports and lots of other things that he might get called on to do. (he still writes references for jobs years after they leave the school)

We have kids who would like to see their Dad sometimes, but as we all know teachers don't work hard, and get so much holiday - they can work late another evening after all it is just one more evening.

The school has said that they will contact you - they will contact you, and you will probably get more information than you would get on the open evening.

It has to be two way spababe. It isn't possible for every teacher to see every parent - logistically it cant happen.

If you really want to see all these teachers then you need to arrange additional appointments individually with each teacher at a mutually convenient time. If that means that for an additional 3 or 4 evenings a year you need to go to school for a meeting then so be it. It depends if it is really that important to you I guess.

You have to remember that some teachers are teaching an awful lot of children - not just your own.

No it isn't a legal right to see every teacher your child has.
It is a legal requirement too have communication between school and home I believe. This is very different.

Do you really need to see every teacher?

When I was teaching one of my subjects was ICT. I taught over 300 children each week. How would I possibly manage to see every single one of those parents?

BTW it isn't once a year generally. When I was teaching I used to have between 8-10 parents evenings a year.

Tbh, parents' evening is probably the least valuable communication I have with parents (as a teacher) or school (as a parent).

I find it much more effective to discuss issues by email & arrange proper meetings where it's needed.

It's DS1's (yr13) parents' evening tomorrow night. I'm not going, I'm having emails sent, I don't know why I never thought of doing that before. I know he is on track because he tells me the marks he gets in his essays etc, and we talk about what he has done in school that day.

In all the time my DC have been in secondary school (DS2 is in Yr11) I have never seen all their teachers. Quite often the teacher would say they didn't need to see me( Not now so much as DS2 is in his GCSE year) and I was always relieved TBH that my DC didn't have any problems and left the appointments free for those parents whose DC needed them.

You honestly can not expect to see all of the teachers every parents evening!

as others have said, in particular redandwhitesprinkles it can be physically impossible for a teacher to see every parent of every student they teach in a particular year group. For example, I only teach one year 7 group, so their parents evening is gong to be fine, but I teach 6 year 11 groups and therefore impossible for me to see every parent during parents evening. If there is an issue, then I contact the parents myself without waiting for parents evening and hold meetings in my own time to discuss issues, but to demand a meeting at parents evening is just not possible at secondary due to the amount of students we teach

Why are you that desperate to see ten teachers? Have you got major concerns across the board or think that they're going to tell you something vitally important or that you don't already know?

With 'a' teacher, I believe - so not even the subject teacher - could in theory just be a general conversation with the form tutor.

I don't know of any school that doesn't provide subject appointments, though.

I'm quite often fully booked (English) & as BackforGood said upthread, if I have more than one teaching group in that year I'll tell the kids to tell parents: book to see me if you need a quick overview/update.

If dc is on target, good effort grades & happy with my teaching, don't feel you have to book at all. If you want a proper, in depth discussion - email me & we'll arrange a separate meeting when I will have a sensible amount of time to talk!

You asked about having a "legal right" to an appointment - as far as I understand it, schools have to provide a written report once a year, and an opportunity for parents to discuss it. That's it.

Link here

I teach 5 classes in one year group- 150 kids. Ten minutes each means 25 hours (except they never run to time). We start at 4.30, if you got your way I would be there until 5.30 the following day. Please be realistic. Email is a two way conversation if you respond to what the teacher sends you. Or if you have an issue then contact that teacher. You will get a much better response than during a 10 min rush job after I have taught a full day anyway!

I find the hardest thing is getting up the next day after I've treated my post Parents' Evening dehydration with a bottle of wine.

I actually quite like parents' evenings.

About 1 in 5 parents actually takes the time to say 'thank you for all your work with X - they like your subject'.

Most parental contact in secondary is about what we haven't done, so the odd nice word makes it all seem worthwhile.

Saying that, they do just about kill me. As does sitting at the bus stop at 9:45 on a cold February evening waiting for the bus home and knowing I've got a full teaching load the next day...

I wonder if OP's DS is in Y7. Y7 parents evening is always full of parents who sit down like they're ready for a nice long cosy chat and are then rather bewildered when they have information rapidly barked at them, a brief 'any questions?' and they're stood up and being moved on quite before they quite know what has happened.

It's def not once a year for secondary teachers. They have 6 year groups (in Scotland) so that is at least 12 parent contact evenings if they see each year group once.

In this regard, it is def easier to be a primary teacher.

It seems your dc is to blame here. He failed to inform you in a timely fashion. I would address that first then use the email contact you have been offered. Next year make sure your dc understands the importance you place on face-to-face contact.

If i had an issue I would ring school and ask to speak to xyz

also why wont a phone call suffice?