...to love virtual parents evening

[LODReturn]

Just had my first virtual parents evening. Amazing! No standing round the hall trying to work out which teacher you need to see, no other parents craning to heart what is being said about someone else's child or standing behind the parent who wants to take 20 minutes to discuss their cherub when it is a 5 minute slot...

You log in, get connected to the teacher at your appointment time & the system boots you out dead on 5 minutes. There is a timer that lets you know how much time is left if you need to prioritise questions.

AIBU to hope that parents evening always stays like this?

OP your experience sounds better than ours. We had 5 minutes with one teacher (form tutor). Readers it was a total waste of time (and DD's in Year 10 so it should have been useful!).

We had schoolcloud too. 4 mins per appt with 10 sec inbetween. Asked us to list the times we were available and who we wanted to see. It worked out the timings.
Teachers were great. 3 mins each telling us everything we wanted to know. Couple of questions at the end.
Absolute result and I hope they keep it for parents and teachers sakes.

We've loved them too, so efficient and quick. I'm going to request that we never go back to real life ones.

Yanbu. I love it.
But you've just reminded me that I forgot to log on for DS2s parents evening earlier. Bollocks.

I hate it. I enjoy the tea, the chat and the face to face.

Also, Year 7 DS has some SEN, and I want to meet his teachers properly, not on screen for three minutes.

Yes, I was just thinking I can see why parents would want to see their children’s work but there must be another way - it doesn’t have to happen on parents’ evening.
I am a secondary teacher so I hold the pages of notable work up to the camera. I think we are keeping with it, far more parents are 'turning up' because there is no problem with the weather, finding a parking space, finding childcare for younger siblings. If a parent has a problem with their wifi or whatever and can't make the appointment we e-mail them the next day. Plus it is really nice to have your slippers and central heating on. I froze at some of the parents' evenings earlier in the year because the heating went off at about 4.

I’ve never worked in a secondary school where tea is provided for the parents!

I love it!! I've done one, another one coming up. I can beat you though OP, our school gives 6 minutes 😉

If you forgot, please don’t expect the teacher to reschedule. Mate is a KS1 teacher, eight parents in her clsss forgot, so she had to give up another evening to redo those ones.

Also a fan. At previous ones, teachers would read out a report and ask if any questions. Now, they sent the report to read before so you can then actually talk, not listen.

We were also always in a mega rush so never got to enjoy the books/displays. Also much easier to organise slots for 3 children - no hanging around either!

Yes I love them. So much easier. And no need to either bring the kids or sort childcare

We don't have auto cut off but it runs better. Love not having to arrange childcare. We get a portfolios sent by class dojo, which isn't ideal but is something

Hated ours. My son is in Y7, so has made the transition during covid times. We have not met in person one single teacher at the school. Five minutes online is no substitute for meeting in person, plus two of the meetings the connection dropped out on their side so no discussion with maths or English teachers.

[quote DaphneDeloresMoorhead]@Whatabouttery we usually get 10 minutes[/quote]
Ah fair enough, my apologies I misunderstood

@Passthesauce "At previous ones, teachers would read out a report and ask if any questions". Absolutely! Drove me nuts that I had taken a half day's leave to be there in time to attend b4 6pm, sorted out childcare, then the teacher would spend 5 of the 7 minutes reading out a report on his levels and next steps which we were then given to take away. Hugely inefficient use of the time!

Yanbu, so much easier and no stress when a parent is talking and you can see the queue building.

I know it's not a popular opinion but I'm in the same school 16 years and yesterday was the most enjoyable sports day I have ever had there as there was no parents there.

I prefer parents evening.

As a teacher and a parent I much prefer this system.
I got to see parents of students who may not normally make an appointment, lose their sheet, couldn't remember what time parents said they were free etc.
We extended our KS4 appointments to 7 minutes, as generally we had more information to discuss.
I also have many students who's parents cannot attend ( boarding) so it's been great to actually "meet" parents we might not have ever seen.
We will continue with online only as it suits our school well. The thought of a hybrid evening of in person/ virtually would be a nightmare, and probably take twice the amount of time.

As a parent I could do an appointment without having to arrange with EXH who was looking after our child. We were able to see work the teacher held up and I can't see how I was missing anything if had been face to face.

Hate virtual parents evening as I detest zoom calls. Can't say I like parents evening in person either but I feel uncomfortable talking over zoom. It's so impersonal.

I did a very quick and informal straw poll in the school department I work and the consensus is that teachers want video call Parent evenings to stay as well

Secondary teacher here, and a parent to Primary children. Hate them. from both parent and teacher point of view.

Parents book our appointments online as a teacher so they are massively spread out. When I book the appointments, it makes it flow much better.

Primary ones always cut short as so many are booked in with no time to sort the tech, you can not leave one meeting and start another in the time frame given.

As a teacher it is so draining, I have done a full class in one night and was much more draining than a normal parents evening.

I have everything crossed for face to face returning.

I think though if there is SEN or other concerns I wouldn’t wait until parents’ evening anyway. What I would like to stay are our 1:1 form tutor meetings that happen before term kicks off in Sept. Those are very useful. But main parents’ evening fine to be online for me.

Our last 2 have been virtual and I’m more than happy for it to stay this way forever! We have another one next week. They’re all on zoom. The only disadvantage is they automatically cut you off after exactly 10 mims, usually mid sentence!

I loved it for 3 of my dc. The 4th had several subject teachers raise issues. We got as far as “so what he needs/ we need to do is…”
It was hugely unproductive.

Another vote for love. We wrote down any questions we wanted to ask ahead of time, teachers were able to get through what they needed, for us (dc are y9 and y11, just left school) it worked brilliantly. For my y11 dc we had more frequent virtual parents evenings but teachers made contact as and when, because of the lockdowns and teams I have always been able to contact teachers when required and have a phonecall/teams call.

Like many other pp I don't enjoy the face to face evenings, there is always THAT parent who runs over appointment times or sneaks in before your appointment, making you late for subsequent appointments. I hope they stay online!