Parent Teacher Consultations. Teachers too busy to contact me. AIBU?!

[WhoUpsetTheEquilibrium]

The PT C’s were two weeks ago. They put clip boards out in the morning, it’s a mad dash to get to them to write down what slot you want. This only works for the parents who aren’t at work that morning.

I’m at uni and I work and I have placements. Suffice to say, I’m rarely at the school so I miss this opportunity. Usually this isn’t a problem, I simply call the school and arrange it with the teacher.

Both teachers (two kids, primary school) offered times that I was in training or at work (I can’t get time off for a 15 minute meeting) and I offer a whole bunch of times and days that I can do. They call back (via the woman in the office) and offer a time I’m at work. Helpful.

Nothing since. I’ve called three times and left messages.
I call this morning about it and about my son being in hysterics again about a maths thing. I mention that no one has contacted me yet and got “Yes that’s becuase they are extremely busy.”
Well them and us both! She sounded pissed off.
AIBU?! I’m getting pissed off now.

The people saying oh just a quick chat at 8 or 3.30 have obviously never tried it! If I arrange to see a parent at 8 it usually means they'll turn up at 8.05/8.10 with 'sorry, traffic!', chat at me whilst I'm trying to sort the classroom out, tell children to wait outside etc and then about 8.30 I'll have to hurry them out despite their protests of 'we didn't cover maths or PE or talk about little Johnny's aversion to sharing'

They end up having longer than the actual parents evening slots yet I still get grief for wrapping it up!!

Teacher here, the clipboard situation sounds very unreasonable to me. However, it is a nightmare trying to find time for a drink or the loo during the school day, let alone a phone call to a parent! I don’t know if a note might be better? We use home-school diaries which I can write replies in while in class, whereas I obviously can’t phone back while teaching.

YANBU
The times you offered are fine, plenty of scope and the system they have sounds awful. I hope you get sorted. I think the end of term is a really difficult time to organise things though. Everything's a bit messy and up the wall. I'd leave it then ask again after Easter.

Hiya

Your not being unreasonable actually - I'm the daughter of a teacher who was primary for 40yrs and who I helped do marking for, set up parents evening etc.

You've done what you can time wise so they need to get their finger out and organise a time to see you that's within school time. They may have non contact time they can do it via FaceTime etc?

No teacher - sorry no teacher with aspiration only works 8-4 unless they get everything done including forward planning, classroom budgets etc done in 6.5hrs.

Wrap that around chartered teaching, project planning, NCT and training they need to do.

Speak to HT and explain you have done all and if they can't organise it then complain higher as they should have a late night for PT nights.

(Our school did it til 8pm).

The placement is in hospitals. Nursing.

It is frowned upon to ‘just take time off’ for a 15 minute session with the teacher who offered one day to do so, I could have possibly have done so in my first year but not now. And what happens when I qualify? Just leave my patients because I have a PTC? Or kick up a fuss about my shifts for a 15 minute meeting? Sorry but I have absolutely no intention of doing that.
It’s give and take.

It makes no odds that I wasn’t there when the clip boards aren’t out, I was working on the day that was offered anyway.

No teacher will claim to be able to get everything in 6.5hours, but often the extra 5 -6 hours are made up at home. Mine are.

I agree with the pp who suggests emailing. My heart sinks when I get a message that a parent wants a meeting. 99.9% of the time it is something that can be resolved by a two minute phone call or an email, so I will always try that tack first and 99.9% of the time it is resolved by that. My preferred mode of communication is email for a basic question.
I don't think you are unreasonable about wanting to speak to the teacher, the signing up system sounds ridiculous (ours is an online booking system), but I think you need to try to be more flexible in answering the phone, and if you can't, do it via email.

You come across as really abrasive on here and if I were the class teacher I wouldn't be bending over backwards to accommodate you. Your time is no more important than their time.

Oh and rest assured, re parent consultations, if there was an issue with your children you would have been informed.... Just email your specific maths concern. You don't need a 15 minute meeting o be told that Joe and Mary are doing really well.

Just leave my students because I have a PTC? Or kick up a fuss about my classes for a 15 minute meeting? Sorry but I have absolutely no intention of doing that.
It’s give and take.

Yes I'm sure they could be more flexible but you come across as thinking your time is more important than theirs.

Just leave my patients because I have a PTC? Or kick up a fuss about my shifts for a 15 minute meeting? Sorry but I have absolutely no intention of doing that.
It’s give and take.
And in the case of your attitude, no give and all take because obviously everything in your life is 10 times more important than anyone else's (because obviously no other parent in the class will have made arrangements to do PE & no other parent will have taken a call at another time)

I'm all for doing my best to get a hold of parents but if I had a parent acting like you I'm afraid I'd just think you were being an arse.

Many parents have jobs. Many of them are important/busy/stressful/delete as required. Unfortunately when you have a child part of that is accepting there are parents' evenings and that school communication does not work on a 'this is when i want it' basis. School do their best. Parents do their best. All understand the pressures of life.
It is give and take on BOTH sides and you haven't worked that out yet

The booking system your school employs is rubbish. As a teacher, I prefer to be in control of my own appointments (sorry, but I'm not going to schedule any parent with "issues" last slot of the evening or I'd still be trying to wrap up at 10pm), and what we do is send out letters with broad time-slots for the parents to select over the course of two evenings. Staff then liaise with each other to put sibling appointments reasonably close together, and allocate the rest of the class accordingly. All parents have to do is to return the slip by the given date so teachers can make those arrangements.

Last time, I had 16 parents who didn't return the form at all, despite several reminders! Some of them asked on the actual day if I could fit them in. That is pretty annoying, actually, as I was only properly prepared for those who'd already booked, but fitted them in anyway (getting home late for collecting my own kids). That left around 10 who didn't respond, beyond saying they'd "pop in after school one day." Er, no! I'm not doing TEN parent consultations on random days without notice. Parents always expect longer than than their 10 minutes in those after school "chats" and I'm not mentally prepared (after a long day teaching with little or no break) in the same way as I am when I'm psyched up for the proper evening.
We organise parents evenings with plenty of advance notice. Is it really too much to expect people to make the effort to organise arrangements (as we do with our home life and childcare) to come to talk about their own child?

As ever, some parents only consider their own child and circumstances, and disregard the fact that the teacher has to juggle many more children.

Sorry to be dim, but are you wanting a parents consultation by phone, a return call to book a face-to-face or an actual face-to-face meeting in the 8am -4pm Wed/Thu or post 4.30pm timeframe you've mentioned here? Posters seem to be implying different things.

A two minute call to fix a time for a meeting or phone consultation I could fit within your time expectations, but the full meeting I couldn't. We have a meeting 8.15am, straight into class set up and children arriving who need supervising. Then teach all morning, playground duty, lunchtime coaching, teach all afternoon, then after school meeting, club or prompt leaving as its my turn to collect from nursery.

I rearrange my personal schedule to allow me to be in school late for parents evening (we all know it's part of the job, but for working parents it needs planning) so after that its "a mutually agreed time" only. Not through lack of dedication, but because teachers have a right to a work-life balance and have a balancing act just like OP.

Presumably you knew parents’ evening was coming well in advance, as these things are generally in the school diary dates/calendar from the start of the school year. This provides you with ample opportunity to arrange time off to attend with work/placements so they can ensure you are covered. Even if you don’t know the exact time of your appointment, you’ll know it’s going to be between, say, 4-6.30, so you arrange to have that time off.

You need to be more organised.

YABU.

Teacher here and you are not unreasonable. I would email the head and let them know how rubbish the booking system is. I would also agree with pp about getting email addresses. They are useful for this but will be useful for other things too. It's not the office's fault and I bet thwy are getting a lot of phone calls like tours which mau be why they seemed irritated. It's just a very poor system. Having said that you have given the teachers multiple times so it seems ridiculous that they can't find a suitable meeting time

My kids school does a similar thing for school performances, they are released from the school office at 8.30am and we all have to queue. Parents who use breakfast club or a child minder have to hope they have a friend who can collect for them too otherwise they won't be seeing their little darling in the performance.

Armi

But the OP doesnt have an appointment because she wasn't there on clipboard day. The day the appointments were released probably wasn't in the calendar.

No give and all take?

I’ve taken absolutely nothing. I haven’t even spoken to the teachers yet.

No give? I gave them several phone calls, messages and days in which I am free. They have given me nothing in return.

Fruitcorner, But she also says it wouldn't have made any difference if she had been there, as she was too busy to attend the consultation evening anyway just as the teacher is also busy now.

I laughed at “You need to be more organised.”
Good one! 😂😂😂

Yup. I’m juggling work, placements, uni and kids.
I wasn’t there for the clip boards and I wasn’t there for the day they suggested.
This has never been a problem in the last 7 years, I don’t understand why it is now.

wow ok fair enough that makes a difference. Parent consultations are in the calendar and if you are able to take leave to attend them or change your shifts or finish early you ought to. There are some jobs (e.g. teacher ironically) where it's not possible to take any leave. Most teachers will meet you in their own time but people who repeatedly do this would get annoying. No meeting outside of parents evening will just last 10 mins. It will drag on and on. Imagine if that teacher has 3 such meetings in the days after parents evening, that's 3 after/before school sessions after a long parents evening.

So OP if you always do this I have changed my mind and thing YABU.

I gave them several phone calls, messages and days in which I am free.

Do you do the same thing to the GP when you want an appointment? Or do you make do with when they're, you know, actually running a surgery?

Wait, what? Re-wind! Just seen that the OP has expected appointments outside the normal run of things every year for SEVEN YEARS??? No wonder the school is now dragging its feet.

Our primary school uses an online booking system for parent evenings, so you get emailed in advance when the system is open for bookings, a clipboard sounds ridiculous.

However our school allocates one whole day for parent meetings, so not only do you have to race to the online system to book the evening / after work slots which disappear fast, you also have to find childcare for the day of the meetings as pupils aren't allowed at school save for their own parent /teacher meeting.

However you seem to have this double standard where your course and hours are too important to be interrupted for a 10 minute phonecall, whilst expecting teachers to find time in their job to cater to you and arrange meetings/calls outside their hours to suit.

This ^
I agree it is frustrating. However, the problem is with the ridiculous system of signing up. You say it has been like it for several years. Has it not occurred to you to suggest an alternative way of doing it beforehand ?