Student at (virtual) parents’ evenings - secondary

What a lovely update, thank you.
It sounds like everyone involved, including the teachers, enjoyed and benefited from having your DD present. 😃

Ours and in-person and kids are expected to attend

It is strongly expected that DC attend at the DCs’ secondaries.

There is no point having a parents evening in my view if they are not present. It is their education and they need to know how they are doing and what they need to work on.

It’s less of a kick from the teacher and more constructive comments to better their grades.

I think that's a good idea and helpful for her to adjust to that- there's only a few terms until 6th form when her attendance will definitely be expected, and then University when she'll be doing it alone.

I never had DD at parent's evening - she couldn't have attended even if she/we had wanted her to as they were generally finished by the time she got home.

With only 5 minutes per teacher online, I found it much more useful to not have her there so it could be focused on the information I needed.

Once I went without dd but it was completely pointless really, much more productive when she comes along because three way conversation about who needs to do what can be had and agreed. I think at secondary age they need to take responsibility and not including them makes it easier for them to shirk it off.

We had year 11 parents' evening this week and yes, it would have been a bit pointless if DS hadn't been there too to hear the feedback, as it's really on him to work at this stage. My year 7 DS refused to come to his parents' evening last term but I think next year we will make sure he does come as it's him who really needs to hear it. Of course in his first term there wasn't a lot for the teachers to feed back anyway, they mainly just told us what year 7 were working on at the time.

I've got my virtual parents evening on Monday and son is not going to be with me. However when it's for year ten he will be.

Our school says that parents are encouraged to have their child sat with them for the virtual parents evening. The only time I haven’t was when I was dropping her at a club and took the call in the car whilst I was waiting. Nothing was said bout her not being on camera. And generally it’s expected however they often comment it’s great to have her there as many choose not to. Same when I was invited to an in person parents evening for sixth form recently after she started so we could have it all explained about how it’s set up and expectations etc. About half brought there child and about half didn’t. I know one friend commented her child point blank refuses to engage with these things.

My DCs have attended all their parent evenings whether in person or remote.
It is basically a conversation between the teacher and my child, with me observing it prompting as necessary and ensuring transparency.
I have always been impressed by how honestly my DC have participated. It isn't a perfect system but it wouldn't be improved by excluding DCs.

It's interesting that DD is reluctant to contribute in lessons and she's one of the few that doesn't attend parent's evening. Could it be that she's more used to having you do the talking on her behalf? I did assume you were talking about a younger child, by Y10 I'd definitely expect her to be attending.

In case any French speakers are horrified at my mangling of their beautiful language, may I protest that it was my phone. I obvs meant to write the phrase “apres avoir + past participle” as being worth using in your GCSE writing :)

I bring my daughter when I can. She has an intensive dance schedule most evenings so she couldn’t come last time. I think it would have been helpful to have her there - but for the opposite reason, she never thinks she’s doing well enough and I would have liked her to hear about her progress directly. The vast majority of parents have their child with them in my experience.

As a teacher of secondary students for many years it's interesting to listen to what the students think of the process. Personally, I prefer to have the student there because I view the education process as a partnership between myself, the student and the parents. My students know that I tell the parents exactly what I have said to them in school about their performance/ attitude be it good or bad.
However, I have overheard many conversations between students saying " Mrs X tells it as it is whereas Mrs Y never says anything bad."
I didn't get the impression that the narrative changed whether the student was there or not, but I found it odd that some teachers feel that they can't " say it as it is" in a polite, professional yet clear way. Surely that's the whole point of these sessions?

I agree with the ever-excellent @SheilaFentimanthat feedback, esp in GCSE years, can be very specific. If I as an MFL specialist said “your speaking is good but I need you to use a greater range of irregular verbs and try phrases like “apres about + past participle” would that be easy for you to pass on? Is it not better heard by the student who may then have a question?

And I also agree that in class feedback does not work as you seem to think. It’s quick and focused on the task in hand (and very brief tbh; how much individual time does a student get in a class of 30 when perhaps half that time is spent on input, recap, whole class feedback?). Before parents Eve I spent time collating points to raise from the year as a whole, quite different from “good work Issy but remember your adjective ending”.

It doesn't really work like that. My manager gives me small bits of feedback on a regular basis but i still have a performance review at set intervals. I wouldn't be happy if performance review level feedback was delivered to me in a classroom full of my peers. Parents Evening at school is an opportunity for the teacher to give a summary of the student's s progress in private. There really shouldn't be anything told to you that they wouldn't want the student to hear. What's the point in feedback that the subject never finds out about?

I am surprised the school - in year 10 - isn’t more insistent that the child is there.

Some of the FB we get is very specific (eg “great work on graphs but you struggle with vectors, don’t you, do you know why?”) and I wouldn’t want to rely on myself to convey every piece of it across 9 subjects or whatever. Also means if DC doesn’t understand the comment, they can query it on the spot.

I was expected to have my child there and it was suggested on a few occasions that if they were absent without a legitimate excuse like sports practice then they weren’t taking school seriously.

I think it’s for the best tbh. The child hears what their teacher said to me(good and bad) plus I think it’s good for kids to know that teachers and parents are a team.

My kids think that teachers dampen down comments at PE because some unreasonable parents will complain and hassle the teacher if the comments aren’t good. My kids have always said that they think that the comments aren’t I’ve heard are fair and obviously enjoy hearing compliments about them being said to me.

As a teacher of many years, I think you are mistaken in thinking it's the student to whom teachers would feel the need to 'dress up' what they say. If anything, teachers are more likely to be wary of saying negative things to the parents, not to the student. We are very used to having to be critical about students' level of effort and behaviour to their faces!