Year 7 Parents Evening - Unavailable slots for core subjects

I think OP, it is your apparent insistence that you know of a better way, even though you have only half experienced 1 parents evening in secondary and there are a number of teachers here who will have experienced 10s if not 100s of them, including working at different schools and seeing them run under different systems.

Shimmer, that wasn't the point I was making.
I didn't say that I taught 2+ sets in each year group. I was stating that I have 70 to see (impossible to do) on one parents' evening and some colleagues, for a particular parents' evening have 80+.
I am fully aware that seeing this amount of pupils at every parents' evening is impossible.
For this amount of pupils, it has to be on a first come first served basis with email contact / phone for others.

Our online system has 'RED' appointments these are ones the teacher. Oils for you IF they need to speak to you about your child - so it would still leave less appointment for kids doing OK

No problem, Chameleon

Doesn't anyone else find it odd that the OP is still here, five hours after starting the thread, diligently responding to almost every point? What is his / her DC - the one they are so invested in - doing this evening? I'm getting a wee bit suspicious that this is a Daily Fail journalist doing research for a sad-face I couldn't get to see my child's teachers feature.

No she wants a system that is fair to all and accommodates all parents.

The point is .... it's only not fair because you'd didn't get what you wanted and are now throwing your dummy out the pram!

If you had the appointment some other child wouldn't have. Nothing you suggest makes more time slots!

As long as it's fair to you though, eh @User32243535? Fuck the rest of them.

Okay it isn't middle but the point is you don't teach 2 classes in every year group

My DD school has this appointment syste, but only once have Ibeen unable to see the teachers I wanted to (and I wanted to see pretty much all but the PE teacher...). I found that:

• Not all the parents show up, so there aren't as many appts needed as pupils
• the time slot system quickly breaks down with people just queuing to see teachers instead, which is a bit tedious, but seem to work on the whole (as you tend to pick the ones with shorter queues, and the long queues eventually dwindle to shorter ones).

It's not my favourite night of the year, but it seems to work.

The only time I couldn't see a teacher was when the teacher applied these kind of calculations, decided there were too many to see, and picked which she would see. My DD was not picked, despite her grades having dropped that term, and having chosen that subject for A level the following year. No alternative was offered if we really wanted to discuss something. It was annoying, and I suspect she wasn't really too busy to see more then the chosen set of parents (due to the number that don't turn up) - but we survived ;-)

A middle school superpug has fewer year groups. Some were suggesting that they'd have to do 2 evenings for 2 groups across all year groups plus sixth form at secondary. Only if you were teaching for 60 hours a week.

Nail on the head @TeenTimesTwo 😃 well put.

@User32243535 I'm just awaiting how they break the news to you that they've thought about what you're suggesting and decided against it. And I'm a nosy cow. That's what makes me a good teacher - am like a dog with a bone.

Middle sizednot middle.

Shimmer, that completely depends on the school and groups you are allocated. I teach 70 Year 9s in a middle school. I also teach other year groups and have to be there for every parents' evening.
Most pf the parents are reasonable. The minoriy are not and blame everyone apart from themselves and their child.

"But User, you can’t just kick a kid out of a Grammar for not being smart enough"

I thought it was quite odd that St Olave's made the news, because my grammar school had a policy that you had to have minimum grades to pass from AS to A level in a particular subject, plus a minimum number of A-level subjects in total. They also "encouraged" students out in y7-9 if they weren't doing well enough.

Myfavouritechameleon
Of course I realise that. My post was in response to a Pp who suggested that we should simply do 2 or 3 parents' evenings for each year group. This is a massive increase in workload. Speaking to 30, 40, 50 (or whatever it may be) sets of parents after school after a full working day is very, very intense. It's not a competition.

That’s about it Teen!

The OP wants a system that ensures that she/he gets all the required appointments.

Stuff the other parents.
Stuff who the teachers want to see.
Stuff the cost of an online system.

Added to that, any pupil struggling at the Grammar should be made to move schools. (Unless presumably that struggling pupil should turn out to be his/her own child).

A core subject means teaching a lot of pupils. It is reasonable for the teacher to communicate by phone/email but impossible to meet other parents on separate evenings. Do you think the teachers should have to meet with 80+ sets of parents?

No teachers who teach core subjects teach fewer children not more. And if a teacher has 2 classes in one year group they are very likely to have 2 year groups that they don't teach at all.

Yanbu op I don't think, parents evening iso pretty basic imo I'd be disappointed by that.

Yes 8wheels. Completely agree and that sounds awful.
A core subject means teaching a lot of pupils. It is reasonable for the teacher to communicate by phone/email but impossible to meet other parents on separate evenings. Do you think the teachers should have to meet with 80+ sets of parents?
Perhaps this is a good lesson for your dc to become more organised.

but disorganised and disruptive kids are deemed worthy of special treatment and appointments handed to them on a plate
erm...however nice a teacher is surely appointments are not designed to be ‘rewards’ for good work