To want a straightforward convo at teacher mtgs

[Folicky]

At parent teacher meetings, I want to come away knowing what level DC is at academically and how he can get up an increment. The increment doesn't have to be big but not negligible. I find it hard to get teachers to be frank about this. One was good at it and DC made massive improvements in her year. The others seem to say 'what do you want to know for?'
We live in an area with academic selection at the grammar/secondary level.

I'm interested to know about DS's social and emotional development but I don't want to spend the entire time on it when it's unremarkable. Also, a couple of years ago, another parent poached my son's best friend (set up play dates between my son's best friend and her son, etc) so my son was Billy no mates for a while and spent lunchtime trying to tag along with other kids. This was stressful for him and the school minimised that for over a year. They said, they all just runaround together - the children only do this for a part of playtime. So I don't want to come away with having heard this on a loop for 15m

What the lack of straightforwardness about this key aspect of why children are at school - or else selection for grammar school places would be based on more dimensions

What do you want them to say though? The answer to how to improve is nearly always “pay attention, do what you’re told, practice key facts until you’ve learnt them, check your work…” for every subject, every student, every year! As a teacher I can’t offer magic advice to parents for each student as there isn’t any. How do you get better at English? Read more, write more, practice spelling. How you do get better at maths? Practice questions, read them carefully, learn tables and other maths facts. How do you get better at PE, Science, History…? Practice, read, pay attention in lessons!

I think it really depends on the teacher, at my last parents evening I got told what subjects DS1 did well in and the level, the subject he did less well in and what to work on, and that he has a good group of friends but can be a chatterbox. No euphemisms or anything!

My son is primary level.
Camomila - that sounds great

I use to quite enjoy ds parents evenings at his secondary as they were very clear and concise (it was like speed dating!).

Then he started college. The woman running it is an idiot with no communication skills what so ever.

I come away from parents evening confused rather than feeling like I've learnt something. I didn't even make an appointment for the last one.

Probably best as I'd complained the week before about how she treats my autistic ds differently and I'm at the point of seriously taking it to complaint stage if she doesn't stop!

I've jut had two parents evenings and haven't found this to be the case at my kids school. We had a specific issue to discuss with my ds's teacher and we were all very straight forward, there was no way the problem was going to be resolved there and then but a plan was made. I think the fact that the meeting was online still helped really as you're very aware of the 10 minute count down. My dd's teacher wasn't particularly frank but she didn't need to be really, dd is doing very well and is very happy so there wasn't much else the teacher could say tbh!

It's worse when they want the child to be present, something they introduced part way through junior school. What I wanted was a frank and candid discussion on where my child was working at, what they were struggling with and maybe suggestions on what we could do to help them improve.

What we got was a hearty Blue Peter style discussion using simple words and all positive fluffy stuff, nothing that could be construed as negative and glossing over the difficulties. What the hell use is that?! I want honesty and practical suggestions at parents' evening, not a session geared towards boosting the dc's ego. That's not the point of the meeting! And I want to be able to say "I understand dc gets distracted by motes of dust and it's infuriating, how do you manage that", I can't if he's right there listening!

FWIW I do believe in being positive and appreciative of dc's efforts, but I want discussions with the teacher to be warts and all and geared towards helping them improve if they need to.

@TheNoodlesIncident why can’t you be honest in front of your child? Granted there might be a way of saying things but you could surely say we all know that dc gets distracted quite easily, what can we do to help this improve or whatever?