To be dreading face to face parents evening Thursday

[IHateParentsEvenings]

Going to get flamed to a crisp, never mind.

I am dreading it … teaching all day and then three solid hours between 4 and 7 talking to parents, some will be lovely but there will be some really difficult ones, won’t be able to be cut off after five minutes, will enjoy making me justify every detention since September.

Then home exhausted and still got the next days planning to do …

sorry MN, I dread it.

I don’t know what you’re all moaning about. Face to face sessions were only 5 minutes per teacher and were absolutely chaotic. The online system is much better and much calmer. Parents evenings are not supposed to be an in-depth analysis of Little Johnny’s (Our Lord and Saviour) prodigious knowledge of ox bow lakes. They’re a ‘what he’s doing well, what he could do to improve, and any concerns’ and that’s all you need. For anything more serious a separate meeting can be offered. OP I agree with you - online is the way forward. We have the technology - we should use it.

@Tolson - you do sound like a good little wifey, being so intimately familiar with the goings on at your husband’s place of work.

Or are you a tea… I mean, learning journey facilitator there yourself?

Can you give yourself an easier day today? So less direct teaching and put on a few documentaries?! Depends what you teach and age I guess! I teach RE/ethics secondary so there is always something interesting they can watch

Is your husband the yoni man by any chance?

I agree - not nice to read the contempt in the OP (though I suspect she’s aiming to be h i l a r I o u s)

@doingitforthegirls
Cuts out after the allotted time.

So should face to face appointments. Well done for outing yourself as someone who thinks they're special and need extra time, therefore messing up the rest of the evening for everyone.

@waterrat

No one begrudges 5 minutes, but from a secondary school point of view, 5 mins per teacher is enough. Overall this gives you at least 40 minutes discussing your child's progress in each subject.

Do you have any proposals for how to increase the length of the appointments while staying within teachers directed time limits?

I’m a parent who is a massive fan of online parent’s evening. No rushing home from work, being in the hall for an hour, not getting in with every teacher (some years including maths) over 3 kids. Then waiting behind that parent! Live it staying focussed and being managed in 5 minutes. The teachers are also primed so they have your kids info at hand.

@waterrat

5 min per kid in a secondary clocks up about 30 hours, and then 2 written reports a year takes about ten min per child so that’s 60 hours… and then open evenings, etc etc. It all add up, on top of a long busy day with no breaks

Genuinely aghast at how controversial this comment is.

At times I had to miss parents evening multiple schools (2 primaries and a secondary) assured me that I could arrange another appointment with teachers. Indeed I thought it was completely normal to be able to access a teacher to discuss issues outside of parents evening. Why wouldn't it be?

Utterly bizarre that people think your husband is a monster. This isn't a great look for teachers.

And how does that align with the DfE push for free schools to consider teacher workload?

And the Ofsted focus on teacher workload? L&M judgements have been impacted in some schools where the Head and governors have not taken teacher world into account.

Parents evening only takes place a couple of times year - it's part of the role!

our school has a bell that goes off after 5mins is up so no over running

@Miffee It's the late evening and early morning comment alongside the home visit.
I have no problem with speaking to parents during reasonable hours, say 8-4.30. I'm not phoning someone late in the evening when I'm with my own family.

Teachers are paid for 1265 hours across 195 days-so 6.48 hours a day or 32.5 hours a week (not dissimilar from the public sector roles) . That is basically the time with children plus a small amount extra of directed time (parents evenings, staff meeetings etc)

How mush of your unpaid time do you give every week ? The DfEs own surveys show that for most teachers it is 55 hours- so 17.5 hours a week unpaid but you want them to give more?

Any teacher replying to an email from a print is almost certainly doing it in their own time

Online parents eves worked so much better for parents and teachers. For working parents they are a godsend.

@Miffee I think the issue is not that teachers don’t want to meet parents: often far from it, there are many parents we really would like to meet with but who don’t seem to want to talk to us about the work ethic of their child. It’s the fact that this expectation is “at any time”, including late evenings. (On a similar note, perhaps opticians, shoe shops and banks could also routinely offer on demand late evenings, as that’s when I am available.)

In the evening we do the work we need to do in order to ensure that our actual teaching work can happen: children waiting for twenty minutes for us to write a ppt or download differentiated work won’t work all that well. Oh and see my own family, to do some parenting.

I can only assume that the teachers in @Tolson DH’s school share the delight of their £19500 salary, bonuses and excellent working conditions by allowing others to take over their jobs on a regular basis. Not all free schools are like this: DH is a deputy head in one and it follows standard terms and conditions. If anything the working conditions seem favourable.

Thanks for both of the replies. You're right.

I work in the public sector and from time to time have had to work out of office hours. However my role is paid better than teachers and I have the ability to take the time back during my normal hours.

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers. They live in such a grey area as a profession. On one hand they are treated like idiots (ie COVID aside there is no trust placed in their judgement for children's grades or the best way to teach them) and yet when it's convenient they are treated like a profession that's failing (despite governments doing their best to deprofessionalise them).

Glad I don’t work at your DH’s school, no wonder teachers are in short supply. Teachers are there to meet the needs of the children, not the parents.

Sorry I hit enter too soon I meant to add...

A lot of us (like I just did) compare teaching to our own job then scratch our head wondering why they are moaning. It's easy to forget the constraints of teaching.

I work in a college now so I only manage a small number of students (20ish maximum) and for our parents evenings parents can choose either a teams meeting, a phone call or an email update. They are allocated in 15 minute blocks because we know that relatively few parents will book. One of the best school set ups I saw was when I was a PCGE student, where in mid December they had a whole school parents day, and saw everyone on that one day, I think an inset day must have been used for it. It really worked for them because it was the sort of school where a high proportion of parents would take their kids out of school for a “Christmas shopping day” and attendance was terrible for the entire month, but giving all the students a day off mid month encouraged parents to use that instead. It was a long time ago but I think the way it worked was KS3 in the morning and KS4 in the afternoon and ran 8 till 6 so a longer day but not quite as long as a full day of teaching followed by a full parents evening.

Totally sympathise. Ours are all online now except for 6th Form and that’s bad enough but at least they are cut off after 5mins. Parents seem to have got as needy and demanding as their offspring over lockdown -total nightmare

@Tolson
I totally disagree. Teachers are there to serve the client (ie the parents and DC). It’s up to the teacher to meet their needs. DH is a headteacher at a free school. He offers flexible parents evenings, where parents can request a meeting with any teacher at any time. Whether that be before school or late evening. Home visits are also encouraged to allow flexibility for parents.
Without parents teachers would not have jobs. It’s up to teachers to be flexible and meet parents’ needs and demands.
Not sure I’d be bragging about having a DH who is such a bellend! Thankfully, Headteachers like him are few and far between. Bet the turnover of staff is huge!🤣

The thread wasn’t intended to be “funny” () I know a lot of people didn’t like online parents evenings but as covid has shifted so has this and we are back to ‘normal’. It genuinely makes for a very long and full on day.

Its seven times a year, which isn’t a couple either.

As a parent I like the online meetings. I can get home from work and sit down with a drink for an hour rather than rushing out, driving 20min, finding rooms and sitting in queues. Five minutes doesn't sound much but is plenty for an update on a child doing OK at school. I imagine for a child with problems (with the subject or socially) a longer appointment face to face could then be arranged to go into more depth.