Sick to death of online parents' evening

[noblegiraffe]

The Telegraph headline says parents are 'sick to death' of online parents' evening and are desperate to get back to face-to-face meetings.

On here I've read mostly positive comments and how parents never want to go back to sitting in the hall waiting in a massive queue to see the science teacher who always runs over, that it's so much more convenient to sit at home, click through and done. I was quite surprised to see such a strong headline against them.

What do you reckon?

YABU - Would prefer face-to-face

YANBU - Online please

I hate online meets, I find them really stilted. They can be convenient obviously but I wouldn't do it by preference.

Online is better without a shadow of a doubt.

Those who say that f2f gives them more time. So you're happy to encroach on other people's booked slots then?

Online all the way for me. Three kids at school now, doing two before was bad enough, nightmare to manage with teachers running over, making you late for the second one and trying to keep a toddler happy at the same time…now I can book the appointments in, sit on my sofa for ten mins to do each one, feed the kids in between, and it doesn’t take all evening. Much less stressful.

I mean I'm sure that everyone can agree 3 mins Is a bit of a joke right? Mine are all still in primary but what the hell can you do in 3 mins?

I much prefer the online meets! No hanging around unintentionally overhearing about another pupil while waiting, not getting round to all the teachers, and inevitably some parents take far more than the five minutes. Plus my daughters school is a half hour drive - she'd have to hang around for two hours waiting for it (it's an hour by train for her so no point coming home), snd it makes for a very late night.
On-line the scheduling is tighter, the meetings are private, the five minutes is plenty of time (if there are issues then schedule a longer meet). I definitely want to keep them!

Other people encroached on ours! We joined the online one and found ourselves in the middle of the previous-but-one meeting (no waiting room, just ended up right in there). Kept joining and leaving every five minutes, with no way of knowing when the teacher was ready for us. Eventually she was done with the previous two sets of parents and it was our turn. Other parents kept joining while we were trying to speak to her. After three minutes she said DS was doing fine, she didn’t know he had a stammer, and hadn’t noticed any social/behavioural problems but would look out for them. And asked if we could cut it short because she was running late. Complete waste of time. And no, no option to book a separate meeting.

At least with F2F people didn’t keep barging in midway through so we got a chance to actually speak to the teacher without interruptions. Stayed well within ten minutes.

3min is ridiculous we have 10 minutes.

Online all the way for secondary! I say that as a teacher and a parent.

Far more efficient, even though our slots are actually still the same length of time as they were face to face (5 mins KS4 and 7 mins A-level). It allows people to join from wherever they are, so working away or struggling to get time off is no longer a barrier. We have boarders too so parents from abroad can now join.

Those who think they are too short are probably the parents who want 20 minutes with every teacher regardless of the fact that appointments were always 5 minutes. That can't happen now and its a blessing for everyone else. They should contact the teachers individually, as is always encouraged if they feel they will need a longer discussion for whatever reason. I teach 60 year 9 pupils - I can't fit them all into one evening anyway, nevermind 10-15 minutes each.

As a parent, it's much easier to get on with family life after school and log in whilst dinner is cooking. Amazing.

I get the 'meeting other parents' thing, but ultimately the pros far outweigh the cons. I think teachers with unreliable home internet should be doing it from school though, and I say that as a teacher. I do mine from my classroom as I know I won't be disturbed.

10 minutes at secondary would be ridiculously long (there's really not that much to say about a kid you see for max 4 hours a week) and would mean that barely any parents would get appointments.

Both of my DDs are at independents, primary and secondary. I’ve never thought of patents’ evenings as an opportunity to network - frankly the though makes me shudder, but perhaps I’m just a bit antisocial…! We just want to chat to the teachers - not the parents…

@Changechangychange that's terrible and sounds like an IT issue. I only have experience of School Cloud, at my school and my DC's school, and it is brilliant. Log in, appointments lined up, click to start each meeting, count down clock for the final minute and it will cut you off once time is up. No running over!

@Changechangychange that’s a bad system. The system DS’s school seemed to work very well. All appointments were consecutive so parents’ evening over and done with very quickly. Automatically logged in with teacher at our appointment time and automatically thrown out at the end of the specified time, so assume we couldn’t have any other parents logging in by accident

Quite positive here, although we didn't have time to discuss two subjects in the allocated four minutes when the same teacher teachers two subjects when normally 4 mins per subject

I’m well aware it should be possible to run parents evenings online! DH and I both manage similar at work. The school made a conscious decision to use one Zoom meeting for the whole year group, and to turn off the “waiting room” function. And to overrun, but that would have been less of an issue if there had been a waiting room.

I doubt ours is the only school in the country with crappy IT literacy though. If your online offering is shit, people won’t want to use it.

I'd be grateful for online.

We only get a phone call.

We get 10 minutes at secondary. Even when we were late booking once there was slots left. Sometimes we’re finished early, sometimes we use the full 10 minutes. It works well.

*were

After my last experience of a F2F secondary parents evening if they ever go back to it I'm not going. 18 parents waiting for one parent to stop monopolising a teacher. Despite the fact she stood up twice to get.them to go.. No little jonny's lack of progress was nothing to do with the fact he continues to interrupt the class , failed to do home work and has as they already know sworn at the teacher twice! Yep we could hear it all as we all stood glaring at them. Screen, coffee and 5 min appt back to back appointments me and on polling 92 % of the years parents!

We had 10 minuets, DD was one of those kids who never had any major issues and was your average student in all but one subject. The majority of ours ended early because I had nothing to say after the teacher ran through DD's progress. I didnt see any point in dragging it out given there are parents who might need to have a longer meeting for whatever reason.

Being a hard of hearing parent of a ASD child, all forms of contact are difficult. I struggle along with whatever is offered. Face time was ok. But I much prefer one to one.

I think you’re in a very unusual situation if every child in your class is picked up by a parent at least once a week.

Online here for all the reasons pp have stated. Both my kinds primary and secondary schools use a programme that gives an appt slot where you join at your allocated time and are kicked out after 5 mins. I always finish early even with my ASD child.

The only time I've had any issues was when dh (teacher) and me (parent) tried to be in simultaneous slots in the app and it couldn't cope. That's a unique issue though.

Using zoom with one code is crazy and shows lack of IT knowledge from that school

For me it's part of a wider feeling that school is a closed off place we aren't to see inside.

Our school all children are dropped at the gate and you aren't allowed near the classroom at all, including reception. There's never any opportunity to see the classroom, see the work on the walls, see the teacher face to face (she's never on the gate in the morning and they stand 20 feet back from it in the afternoon and send kids out 1 by 1. Contact at pick up time is on the their terms, they will come to find you if they need to speak about your child but you can't go past the gate to see them.

If you email in, they try to phone you back, there's a real avoidance of you actually setting foot inside your own childs school.

Online parents are just another part of this. I also don't like them because again it's all on the teachers terms - she initiates the appointment, starts her "speech" and kicks you out after precisely 6 mins etc, I've often found I didnt have time for a single question and tbh she often talks about things I'm not bothered about. Not to mention you lose basically all non verbal communication.

I prefer face to face but I hate this "online" culture anyway, hated it during lockdown. It's anti social.

DS's school went back to face to face at the start of September thankfully.