To expect the teacher to call me for Parent Teacher conference on time...

[eleusis]

and if not to make SOME effort to give a phone number where I could call her back when SHE missed the appointment by 23 minutes?

She very begrudgingly agreed to this phone conference when I told her I could not possible be at school at 3:34. (then appointment was later changed due to their error to 4:15). I told her I could do the time, but only on the phone. Blah blah blah, so she agreed to it.

I waited for the call, but then missed it because I was away from my desk 25 minutes later. And she left a message that said something like "Well this is really difficult over the phone because there is a report for you to comment on... well, maybe we'll catch up some other day."

Now, why couldn't she say "so sorry I'm late, if you can call me back on x I'll be here for another 15 minutes". I think her approach was a bitpassive agressive to be honest.

And Im bloody pissed off that the school thinks I can just leave work in the middle of the afternoon.

There goes my donation to the end of the year teacher pressie's. Think I'll spend it on someone more deserving... like my lovely new nanny.

except thsoe who works shifts of course

coz you just can't get ti right for everyone

You just can't...

Peachy My understanding by my last senco is
that letters regarding sen/iep's are to be given out at least 2 weeks before so people can definatley be there.

Ask to see their sen policy (okay won;t help this time but should detail procedures and would def annoy them!)

Policy? ha ha ha

No you;re right but trust me have been fighting this for years, just glad DS1 is out of there soon (although ds3 may be there and needing 1-1 full support which should be a larf)

Our school has a policy that the child in question is supposed to come but siblings are not. So I always try and get an appt between 5 and 5.30, which we can race out of work and get to, but DD is still in nursery until 6. I usually meet DH and DS at the school gate. But we have aft and eve appts. But I haven't got a babysitter for DD in the evenings. If it was afternoons only I would take 1/2 day holiday - but grudgingly. Same for sports day, concert etc only less grudging for those.

Eleusis, I think you may have to get used to the fact that many schools make very few concessions to working parents! At our dss' school, parent-teacher evenings run from 3.30 - 7.30 on the first evening and 3.30 - 6.30 on the second evening. Given that we are in Surrey and a lot of dads work in the City and actually are interested enough to try to get to Parents Evening, combined with the small number of working mothers, makes for an undignified scrum when the sign-up sheets go up. Everything else runs through the school day - Open "Evenings" (I use the word loosely) when you can go into your child's classroom to look at their work run from 3.30 - 4.30, meetings to explain SATS took place at 2.15 so mums could pick up their children at the usual time, a meeting for parent helpers was during school time (as I "only" work 4 days a week I do help but couldn't of course make the meeting), a chance to meet the school governors took place at lunch time - the list goes on. I am not saying that this is wrong per se - teachers have lives outside of school and families too - but I think that if you take on the battle of trying to arrange some later events, you better be prepared for it to be a long-running war!

Even though the times available were between 3.30 and 6.30 (ish) we couldn't make parents' evening on Monday night due to DH's shifts, so we arranged to see the teacher at 8.15 this morning, as we both wanted to go.

We just had to ask.

I do think it's unrealistic to expect a direct number for a teacher. My sons' primary school has about 3 lines