Virtual parents evening

Yes ots worked well, not least because you don't have other parents overhearing what the teacher is telling you. I'm sure tge teachers liked it more too.
Our school has asked if we'd like to continue with the online meets, even if in person parents evenings are allowed.

As a teacher I like it, but normally I get a chance for a quick drink in a gap and a chance to look over my notes, while parents are on the move . No chance for that when you're booked solid for three hours!

I don't mean given to you but your ds will have his own assessment scores. I think when you have your parents meeting I would ask each teacher for their email explaining you need more information but cannot physically come in.

@Tonty I'm not given any homework or test scores. I've occasionally looked at DS's books but I think they are mostly just for his use. I think the teachers look at and mark the assessment items and I don't see those. Homework is online on a student account, I'm not given any scores. I only have Edulink and there are no grades on there. We get three reports a year, two with grade numbers and effort numbers, then one with a couple of sentences per subject as well. I'll just see how the parents evening goes.

@kowari The predicted GCSE grade is a good place to start. The 5mins allocated in the parents evening will be enough for the teacher to tell you specific areas he may be struggling in, I usually scribble some quick bullet-pointed notes as well. What about homework? how is doing in those? between homework scores, block tests and the predicted GCSE grade given, you should be able to have some idea areas of that needs extra attention. Can you ask your DS to also show you his books so you can look through?

Does your school give termly reports? at ds's school they get grades per subject every half term and some of the teachers (not all) all more notes to it re: recent tests then we get a full report end of term.

We found it much better, particularly for secondary school. Didn't need to sharpen my elbows to be seen. The only downside I guess is with live ones if you missed someone then they can sometimes squeeze you in a different time, but if their system goes down it would be harder to reschedule. Some teachers are quicker at joining the meeting than others, some jumped straight in with the feedback whereas others looked as if they had been pulled through fifteen hedges and were completely disoriented.

@Tonty
I've got a number, the predicted GCSE grade for each subject. I don't know what he is doing well with or what he needs to work on within any subject. DS just says 'good' if I ask him. I guess the parents evening is only a month away, though I'm just going to have to ask DS which two teachers I don't need to see. I just mean if he has a test in a topic of a subject and I had the score and the GCSE grade equivalent then I would know how he was doing and what he needed to practice. I just have a number for the entire subject.

Yes to school cloud, we didn't see all teachers but worked efficiently (Year 8). Only thing I would like was a bit of a break somewhere in it so DH and I could discuss what we'd just heard instead of being straight into the next subject

As far as gauging how well he is doing from his scores, what type of scoring system is it? if it's in percentages then all you need to know is what is the class median. If it is in letters i.e A*-E then it's self explanatory. I don't want to sound patronising so I'm going to guess neither of these is what you are talking about. Your ds should also have an idea of how well he is doing in each subject? failing that, you mentioned a teacher emailed. Can you email the other teachers and discuss it that way or email his form tutor who will definitely be in the know about your ds's overall performance and be able to explain the results?
The bottom line is it's never going to be possible to discuss in more detail with 9 teachers in 45mins, so you may have to find an alternative means of which emailing might be a possible solution for you. At our school, we are able to email the teachers during the day, they don't always get back but often they do and its a great help when you can't get down to the school.

@Tonty He has English, maths, three sciences plus computer science, DT, History and RE so that would be nine teachers. I only know that English is a problem because his teacher emailed me about his work during school closures. I don't know enough about his other subjects to know if there is any need to speak to the teachers involved or not, and it would need to be important for me to take a half day off work for. It would be good if assessment results were on Edulink or similar with something to tell me what the result means. We initially get to book to see six teachers for parents evening but I have absolutely no clue which two teachers (RE unavailable) I don't need to see.

Kowari Can you not make an appointment with his teacher to discuss in more detail? they should be able to make time to see you for this sort of thing. Most teacher's are more than happy to make a bit of time to discuss gradings and what they mean, progress charts etc.

I'm not told much about my DS's progress though. I get a number grade three times a year and a couple of sentences once a year, then the 5 minute appointment. I sometimes get results of tests from DS but I have no clue how hard the test was to know if it was a good score or not.

I also think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of 'Parents evening'. They are for a quick catch-up on your dc's progress of which you should already be aware. There shouldn't be any big clangers or complex issues waiting to be shared at Parents' evening. Such matters are meant to be arranged as a separate one-to-one meeting allowing for a much longer appointment where you can discuss in detail. Parent evening is a short, 'Yes Johnny continues to do well, is on track, could expand his essay writing a bit more, thank you goodbye'.

I agree OP, it was a fantastic way of doing parents evening and I hope it stays! It normally takes me over 2 hours of hanging around in the school hall and library, awkwardly trying not to overhear other parents and dreading bumping into "certain" parents.

I felt it was much easier to focus on what was being said and that I could address some points better as it was more confidential.

I've enjoyed doing them too. I do think I'd like an in-person appointment with my form group early in the year (say before October half term) as it helps with relationship building but that's just one slightly longer appointment per parent and could still be done virtually if preferred.
Does give less of an excuse for me to pick up a takeaway on the way home now though 😂

I've had two online parents evenings and they've bothered been brilliant. So much less stressful than face to face.

I don't have to leave work early or do a 30 mile round trip or have the stress of missing the last teacher because they've gone home at 6pm and everybody else was running late.

The down side is I don't get to to say hello to other parents or see other pupils my DC talk about, but as there's been no socialising these year, I don't need to meet Sophie who my DD has a been to town with every Saturday this year, because it hasn't happened

We found it worked really well too, the teachers were well prepared for their five minutes, with a summary, next steps even allowing time for questions. Only issue was one teacher had really bad connection so we missed them but overall a much better experience.

Another School Cloud fan here. Both my children’s schools used it and it worked like a dream.

@annaseal

Yes OP. Exact same experience. No stressful running around from one building to another, no long queuing up. Only negative was 5 mins for me was not enough. Should have been 10. Rest super-good. Wish it stays same even after Covid leaves us for good

Even for parents 10 minutes per subject would be a long evening.

I work in primary, infants and we are doing virtual parent's evenings this time.
School are investigating a system called 'school cloud' which is a video call with strict timings, so sounds similar. Will be interesting to read all the responses to see how people find it.

I'm a teacher and I really hope we keep this system going
Yes it's nice to have a chit chat and get to know parents but we are all busy and this is an efficient system

Dds school used school cloud too. It was brilliant, we normally have to get my mum over to look after ds, if we both want to go, but we were able to both attend. 5 minutes was fine apart from one teacher, who we emailed afterwards. The school has gone a survey, and apparently it's almost 100% positive.

Ds's school tried something on Teams, which was an utter failure.

In theory, yes much better, no rushing back from work, hanging around on tiny chairs etc.
However, we had ours on Schoolcloud a couple of months ago and unfortunately the whole system went down so we couldn’t see half the teachers - very stressful for the school, and meant extra work for the teachers who had to rearrange our appointments for another day (just a phone call instead).
I think it’s one of those things that is great when it works!