About parents evening?

[Drstrange]

I feel I need to start this by saying that this is not a teacher bashing thread. I think they do a fabulous job and I fully support them in their work.

We have just received a letter home about “parents meetings”, during Covid the traditional evening was replaced with a virtual meeting with the class teacher, brilliant that they tried to keep in touch and provide updates on my child’s progress during challenging times. However, the pandemic has moved on but school are still operating a virtual system for these meetings. The slots for the upcoming meetings are 2.30-5pm on one afternoon and 2.30-4.30pm on another afternoon.

Whilst I understand this ensures that teachers get home at a reasonable time what about parents or carers who work? How are they meant to arrange to attend? There is no option at all for any later than 5pm, and from previous experience of booking the slots, unless you are on there as soon as they’re released then you are only left with limited options to book. AIBU to think there should be some options to book in the early evening, parents evenings have always been a standard thing in teaching?

Really??

Its a strange world where spending a few more hours at work is more important than supporting your child's education.

The only people who can answer the question of whether this is unreasonable is your child's school. Yes it's unusual not to offer slots later in the evening but they are offering two rather than one night. Are there particular circumstances that led them to make this decision? Do teachers have a particularly tough workload at the moment that means the school have given them some time back? Have they surveyed parents and the majority have opted for early evening (even though this is inconvenient for you)? The problem with teaching is there is always more that we could do but everyone only has finite reserves of energy and time . For those saying we knew it was part of the job, yes absolutely but these days there are loads of demands that certainly WEREN'T part of the job we trained for. Online seems fairly standard now and having experienced both as a parent and a teacher I think far better overall and much less faffing around and time wasting.

Its a strange world where spending a few more hours at work is more important than supporting your child's education.

It's a strange world when you see schools assuming that there is a parent at home who can be available outside normal working hours.

Unfortunately lots of schools haven't caught up with the fact that most families have two working parents.

You are in a fortunate position if you have the flexibility some schools expect.

I do have an enormous amount of flexibility but not everyone does. I'm a governor at a primary school and this is an issue I've raised repeatedly.

There is never a good time and never a good format for everyone.

Personally, online at 3-5 is the perfect scenario.

I really struggled with evenings in person.

Unfortunately lots of schools haven't caught up with the fact that most families have two working parents.

And lots of teachers marry teachers so who's supposed to look after their kids while they accommodate you?

One secondary school did parent/teacher meetings during the day on one day for the whole school. Meeting was with Tutor who relayed grades etc for all subjects. We were sent a time & told not to ask to change it. I got 11.30am & was working an hour away so couldn't attend. DS was quite happy with a day off.

I think parents evening should be looked at as a bit like a doctors appointment - we just all have to work out a way to facilitate it within the day, with notice. I get that it won't work for everyone but the work landscape has changed so much since Covid that virtual appointments at that time might actually suit the majority of people more than 4 - 6 or 5 - 7 would in person. Our school ran a survey and turned out a large chunk of people wanted them virtual and in the day.
And at secondary, I sincerely hope we never go back to the system of running round the school building all night in the desperate hope you won't be late for a five minute appointment.

Teacher here...

I appreciate the hours available may not be convenient for your working day, however, expecting teachers to conduct parents evenings even later than is already offered (without transition events, KS4 open evenings and KS5 open evenings, compulsory department meetings, twilight sessions and all other 'behind the scenes' meetings that occur after teaching hours) is totally unfair.

If you have one or two children, you would have to book a few hours in the afternoon off once or twice a year. Surely it's that simple?

Teachers are parents too and would like a reasonable work life balance where they can put their children to bed and not feel completely exhausted from all the unrealistic expectations in education these days.

Yes, how silly and self indulgent of parents to work. It’s almost as if they need to do so in order to feed and house their children .

YANBU

Ours does parents evening from say 3-6:30pm one day and a half day the following day so the teachers get back their extra time. But then some parents are enraged about that too because they need to find childcare. Not sure what a reasonable solution for all parties would be.

@TheMoops maybe they aren’t assuming a parent at home. Maybe they re assuming one parent will take an hour off to enable them to attend. You just assume a teacher can add an hour on…

If it's on SchoolCloud, this is definitely an option.

I teach seconday - parents' evenings are part of our directed time ie included in the number of hours we're supposed to work each year. Ours are normally 5pm to 8pm - a long day but part of the job.

That's a weird argument 🤣

I was relieved to find out secondary school was virtual... no need to take my younger child. If its an evening I work DH can attend from wherever in the world he is.

Timing... there's no perfect time. Some schools do it in school day, some after school, some evening. Not everyone will be happy with whatever time. Teachers will have lives too (including childcare responsibilities...)

We do 3-5 one night and 6-8 the other, that seems to work well.

What I find difficult is separated parents who both want a meeting with me but refuse to have the same slot as their ex partner. My head put her foot down this year and said she isn’t expecting teachers to do this any more as it was being demanded by a growing number of parents and was getting really time consuming. We do one appointment and they can both come to it or not. Reports get sent to both.

Our system allows another parent to be invited to join. Our parents evenings are going till 6 this year. Last year I spoke to a parent who use his phone and was sat in the middle of a huge open plan office. Another parent sat in his car. Really as lo g as you can find somewhere you are happy with the teachers won't mind.

Can you take a half day annual leave or a couple of hours TOIL/flex your hours that day? It's not ideal but as you say it's only once per term

The problem here isn't the school, it's workplaces not accommodating parental leave for this kind of thing

To be fair, I am Irish though, and as far as I know all parent teacher meetings - junior/secondary school happen before 5pm. We don't have evenings. Although it could just be where I live.

Our parents meeting is until 8pm. I’m a teacher and find this is so long, especially when I have my own young children at home. But I prefer it to be all on the same night so it’s over and done with. Ours has a break in between which means we can get something to eat but personally I’d prefer just to simply plod on and get it done so I don’t need to stay later. We have ours straight after school until 4 and then from 6-8. I sympathise with parents who struggle to get time off as I’ve experienced this with my kids and their school meetings.

I teach 14 different classes. If I had to do it for every class every term I wouldn’t know what to talk about because I wouldn’t have time to plan lessons or mark books!

I would also have to have days off because I would be significantly over my directed time.

And if all the appts are in the school, how do those families ever go to their own kids parents evenings.

Plus I imagine the no of teachers married to teaches in their own school hence parents evening same day is pretty low