They need a different system for parents evening, how does yours work?

[longdiling]

We had an appointment at 5.10. Dh is still waiting to go in. Parent before him has been in 35 minutes and counting....

School tend to give everyone 10 minute slots but obviously some parents need longer. There must be a better way surely? Can't be great for the poor teachers to be stuck there til all hours either. How do your schools do things so I can make some helpful suggestions?

We get 10 min slots which are booked online. Teachers go in and mark one taken every 6 or 7 slots so they can catch up if needed (as it takes time to get to classrooms etc) Parents for juniors wait in the junior hall and teachers come and collect you. Infants you go to the classroom. We an look through kids work whilst waiting. It works.

They used to give us insane times based on a rough preference (we could select a day then from 1 of 3 hour long slots. You got something vaguely based on that ) with 3 kids you could have massive gaps or undo ably close times.

We just moved to online through e-schools and doing it ourselves means we can plan. Went tonight and had booked 4.00 4.20 and 4.40. First two done on time then walk up to infants. Job done. We were out by 5. Best and easiest parents evening ever.

If there are issues meetings are arranged at other times. All staff have always been open to other meetings if they have been needed. You can leave messages with a TA each morning if you have concerns and usually the teacher will then come and find your hat evening to discuss or schedule a meeting.

The more I read in here the more I love my kids school.

In our primary it all depends on the teachers. Some teachers are great - cover the basics, answer a couple of questions and manage it all, or make a further appointments all in time, and other teach rd you know you'll be waiting an hour.

If a teacher isn't assertive enough to tell the parents their time is up then get a bell/alarm/another teacher in. In our DC's school it's the same late teachers every year.

God knows what happens when they get to secondary.

We get reports a week beforehand. Each child and parent(s) is allocated 10 mins. If you need longer you make an appt to see the teacher at another time. Seems to work well.
DS is only in Y2, so maybe I am being naive.

At primary I think the time allocated to parents should be more flexible, in many primary schools a parent collecting a child often speaks to the class teacher to clarify issues etc. on the otherhand some parents do not pick up the child so parents evening is there only opportunity to speak to the teacher. Therefore I think the teacher should be flexible as quite often it is the parent who speakers regularly to the teacher who then wants additional time but who should be allocate less

We have online booking. The chat with the teacher itself happens in the hall but before this you go to your child's classroom and their books are out and there is an envelope with their results etc. You then take this to discuss with the teacher; it's always well annotated so questions are usually answered before you go in. Head teacher rings a bell every fifteen minutes for change over. Every teacher has a sheet on the wall and you add your name if you want a further appointment. Must take some organising but it runs smoothly.

We've just had parents' evening. We had booked the last slot (each 10 mins) and were probably seen about 30 mins late. I'm not at all bothered about being seen late, except that the teachers don't get to go home on time.

I think of it in the same way as when the GP is running late - someone has needed the extra time and one day that will be me, so it's best not to resent it.

When we did see the teacher we had a good, unrushed conversation and I was able to ask the questions I had. If I'd had loads of questions then it would have been reasonable for the teacher to ask me to make another appointment (like a GP would if you went in with a long list of ailments).

Secondary teacher here. Yep, it's a nightmare. I don't know any school that's got the perfect solution. I think it's pretty straightforward in primary schools- but if you've got to meet ten different teachers arranged round different parts of the school, things are always going to be awkward.

The whole ringing the bell after ten minutes thing is great....if all the teachers are all in one room and parents give the subject areas equal status. But in fact, they are always way more interested in some subjects than others- and those are always the ones where there are big queues (I'm looking at you, English, with your two GCSEs).

OP, you don't know what was being discussed by the other parent. It's all very well saying that they should move on after their allotted time- but that really isn't possible if it's a very emotive/ difficult subject. I've had parents bring up historical sexual abuse, or ask for help about their abusive marriage...or what about when they're talking about the recent death of their partner, the child's other parent. I'm with the PP on this sort of scenario (which happens about once a year to me). Honestly when you get this sort of discussion, I don't care what the other parents think. You're not just going to interrupt them and ask them to come and see you at another time.

We have 5 minute slots from 4-7. I teach 120 students. I have not made appointments just said pop and see when you are not queuing for English....

Side issue. No teacher has ever told me anything about my kids I didn't already know.

This is how it should be. Anything that is really important should have already been discussed well before the PT night. My template for each student is basically: 'this is where we're at, these are some recent samples, this is what we're doing for Xxxx to progress to x level, any questions?.' Anything outside of that is really not meant for a ten minute meeting with other parents hanging around outside the door.

Primary wasn't too bad, parents were given ten minute slots, but our local secondary school's parents' evenings used to leave me losing the will to live by the end.

Each teacher would be sitting at a table in the hall, and parents were expected to form separate queues to see each teacher. You could be standing in one queue for 30 minutes, then have to join another to speak to the next teacher, and so on. There were no time slots, and some parents would monopolise teachers for ages, leading to even longer queues. There was absolutely no privacy either. Parents new to the school found it very confusing, but old hands usually managed to work out which order to see the teachers in to minimise the time there. But it was still pretty chaotic and used to take hours.

I'm glad I've attended my last one, tbh.

I think no parent should have 35 minutes in a parents evening. The teacher should have limited it and advised making an appointment out with parents evening if there were issues that need to be discussed. Parents evening is really just touching base not a venue for sorting out issues.

At primary some parents need the time as they do not have contact with the school other than on that evening. There are parents whose only opportunity to go to the school is on a parents evening and therefore at times they may need more time

At secondary school it went down to three-minute slots, booked on-line. One teacher was great - had an iPad with a large timer counting down the three minutes. Said everything he needed to say, with time for us to ask questions and make small talk. Another teacher spent the first two minutes fifty seconds telling us why three minutes wasn't long enough. Needless to say, she was the one with the long queue of grumpy parents.

If a parent is taking that long, OP, it shows an arrogance and lack of respect for other people's time. They should realise that it would be more appropriate to arrange to meet at another time when other parents aren't being kept waiting.

Primary - online booking introduced a few years ago, genius. Before that it was a pain as DH did the morning school run, but I was the one better placed to go to parents evenings, so he'd leave it to me to book, and I'd get fairly rubbish slots. Only one child though, so never too much of a problem. A few 'unavailable' slots always programmed in to keep things on track. Ten minute slots, the only one I ever remember overrunning was YrR, all the others always ran to time - most teachers would have a watch or clock placed fairly ostentatiously on the desk, but no actual alarms.

Secondary is coming in a couple of weeks and sounds like hell - or some sort of mad game show, which is much the same thing.

I have been told something about DD I didn't know. They did CATS tests in Yr5 and her teacher got to tell us DD is basically quite a lot cleverer than she'd ever let on (in particular she is spectacularly good at non-verbal reasoning tests, for all that that's worth). I spent ten minutes going and not a lot else.

We've got the y8 parents evening in a few weeks. They've decided to lump it in with the choices talk too. Fucking amazing. Daughter can't even go as she's usually at band, but this time will be participating in a music festival. So I get to run the gauntlet on my own. Poor teachers much be dreading it too, the last parent evening was an utter shambles.

At my Year 7 daughter's school the children are responsible for booking the appointments themselves...not online, but in person with the teacher, which means they either forget half the subjects (sometimes conveniently, I feel ) or can't catch the teacher they need to book with. I ended up with appointments five minutes after each other and at opposite ends of school, no appointments for a couple of teachers (luckliy I managed to blag five minutes with them when other poor sods were late or no-shows), and then an hour's gap between the last two . I could have cheerfully murdered my child by the end of it.

Our school (not in UK) gives TWO full days off for patent- teacher conferences (twice a year) and one evening. But of course all the working parents want the evening so it's always packed but the days (TWO!) are lovely and relaxed... Grr

Primary is held over 2 evenings 3.30-5.30 and 4.30-7.00. 5 minute appointments in October then 10 minute appointments in January. We ALWAYS get stuck behind the parent who takes up 30 minutes. It's so inconsiderate.

Secondary appointment times made for each subject but nothing ever runs on time.

Dd2's secondary school got a new system in place about 2 years ago and after some fine tuning it works like a dream. Appointments booked online - 5 mins with a bell rung to tell us when to move on. She's in year 11 now and I saw all the teachers at last parents evening and got out without a headache - brilliant!

Ours works quite well. These are the things I like:

Online booking system which schedules all your DC on the same day and sensible (but not adjacent) time slots
10 min slots, visible clock and best of all the deputy head goes around and 'encourages' the over-runners (who are always the same people) to move on. If you need more time you can book separately to see the teacher. TBH if there was any serious issue would you really want to bring it up in a hall full of people anyway?
They run a crèche with a film which is staffed so you can drop DC off there
There is an open classroom separately each half term for 1hr after school where you can drop in and look at DCs work but explicitly billed as a chance for DC to show you their work not to bug the teacher. Apparently they do it on staff meeting days so staff have an excuse to leave on time. By the time parents evening comes you will already have seen their work and know what qs you have.

My school has online booking and a bell.

Each parents' evening is preceded by a short report to focus attention.

All homework tasks up online parents can see if they've been completed.

No surprises is the rule.

YANBU

The scheduling at DSSs secondary was an absolute farce

We just used to turn up and visit about 3-4 key teachers and then left It was just a free for all and the feedback was pretty meaningless generic and ticked their box.

We only did it to give DSS and tge school tte message that we cared about his education. Looking back it was a reasonable investment in time for that reason alone.

Don't sweat the small stuff as they say.

Curioushorse, you do make a very good point in general. My view is coloured by the fact that I know this parent very well so I'm pretty sure it was nothing like that. She can be lovely but is also prone to be very self involved. Still, my anger has gone overnight so I don't think I'll raise it with the school.

Sounds like mamadoc's school have it spot on though! And secondary school sounds horrendous - we'll be dealing with all that next year.

I think the 10-15 minute slot system is fine, it's just that everyone has to be boundaried and stick to those slots. I like the idea of a bell to remind people to 'move on'. I think it can also help if a teacher schedules in one or two 'empty' ten minute slots during the evening so they can catch up a bit if they are running over, and have a few minutes to visit the loo / have a drink without impacting on anyone's appointment times.