To think those who complain about online parents' evenings ...

[dinaminion]

... because they want to "get to know" the teachers, and don't like being cut off after their 5 minutes, are probably the same people who made face-to-face parents' evenings a nightmare for the rest of us, by hogging the teachers' attention, and over-running on their appointment slot, so everyone else was seen late, and the poor teachers were run ragged?

Long live the online parents' evening!

I don't mind online, although seven minutes was a bit tight for A levels, particularly when some teachers spent two minutes of it talking about the time constraint!

Our school has parents seated for parents evening and the teachers come to you. Works well as you don't have to queue.

I'd prefer to have the choice, DD is in year 1 and we have a 5 minute phone call. This year it felt like they were reading a script on the curriculum and spent little time actually discussing the child. I know some parents who have yet to actually meet the teacher due to not doing drop off/pick up, we have the same teacher for two years so it would be nice!

The school claim phone calls are the preferred choice of parents but nobody I know has been asked!

I actually don't think I'd mind this in secondary.

Primary, yes face to face much better.

Secondary, oh my goodness what a dream online. No queuing, running round sweating trying to find a room, getting stuck behind "that parent", parents the getting a bit tetchy in queues, teacher is more prepared as they know who is coming next. Calm and constructive.

Secondary parents evenings used to be soooo stressful!

I'm happy with online parents evening, mainly because of how far it is to school and a nightmare to park once there. I have no concerns about my child so it's usually pretty basic catch up. I might feel differently if I had worries though and want to talk in more depth than online can offer.

Ours have always been split over one Thursday evening and one Friday afternoon (both sessions have been virtual since Covid) This year, the evening is in person and the afternoon is virtual as the school and parents couldn’t agree what to do. Best of both worlds.

God how can anyone prefer face to face?! It’s not exactly conducive to a proper conversation- In a hall with dreadful acoustics with hundreds of other people all jabbering on dashing from
room to room struggle to park. Online is bliss.

I much prefer the online meetings. However, the time slots aren’t long enough by the time the teacher has said what they want to say there is no time to ask any questions or speak at all. I don’t think I’ve actually been able to ask anything since they started so it’s no more beneficial than a written report. It’s very one sided.

I interact better easier with real humans.

DS has SNs and it's much easier to support his corner in an actual discussion rather than being rail roaded by a computer screen where there's an imbalance of power. I managed to get much more positive results for him in our spring PE than the autumn fake online PE where the teacher seized the opportunity to rabbit on and not allow for discussion.

I'm dreading the first secondary one this week because it will just turn into an anonymous barage of information and meetings 2-7 will not be retained well anyway. Meeting someone, changing spot is all chance to process the information and distinguish each meeting.
It's interfering with my evening plans and I'd rather it was buggered up for doing it properly at the school than staring at a screen at home.
Visiting school would also create an opportunity for DS to open up and tell me about school life. That's been removed. I also can't see his work over a computer. That allowed issues to fester unchallenged in the covid-waste years.

While doing parents evening as a secondary teacher was always a tiring experience it was always worth meeting the parents. Lecturing at a screen is not the same.

Doing it online heavily erodes the quality and purpose of the experience and people tend to like it for the wrong reasons.

Because it's much easier to lip read a 3D human face that doesn't have lag.

Also environmentally mine attend a large school in a residential area bet the locals are thrilled too not having numerous parents flooding their streets fewer cars on road etc

I love online as at high-school face to face can be hours of running round the school hanging around classrooms waiting for your turn. Online all done within the hour sitting comfortably at home. 5 mins a Teacher about right if no issues and if there are teachers usually ok with an additional meeting at another time to go deeper into issue.

I hated the online as couldn't get it to work. When it did work there was a delay in what the teacher said and I struggled to hear anything. Hated it. Glad back to normal now

@parameter ours was a slot of 4m40s for each teacher then 20 second break. The magical scheduling assistant sorted them out back to back so we just sat there for 45 mins and saw every teacher. For my year 7 this was fine as 5 mins was enough for most and there were no issues but I can’t imagine it would be enough for the upper years. Perhaps their slots were longer but I thought ours worked really well. I did feel for the teachers though - 20 seconds to flip between kids is not much and yet they were totally on it!

Primary school we’ve never got our actual 9 mins, it’s just never worked. Different platform and not a very good one, they’ve just arranged the first face to face one in years now, based on parents’ votes - over 70% voted for face to face interestingly.

I like the online.

We did it pre covid, as DH would never have got to ‘meet’ the teacher otherwise.

it worked well for us

I think we’ve got a F2F with the new Y7 tutor soon though.

My son has potential special needs and is getting extra support from the school, so there is more to cover than can be done in the standard five minute online slot we were given during covid. I imagine with some parents it’s just a case of hearing how well their children are doing….whereas with mine it’s trying to catch up with which targets he’s currently (probably not) meeting and whether there’s anything I can do to support him with trying to read and write.

I can see how for parents whose children are struggling less and who live far away from the school online could be better.

Hi @madnesss request a face to face because of your neurodiversity.

Hi @madnesss request a face to face because of your neurodiversity.

Thanks, I wasn't able to during covid and I no longer have DC in school but that's great advice for anyone struggling with these online things.

At my dcs school the onine one you book your slots in advance and it cuts you off after the time is up

From that pov it's very good but I hate video calls so hoping they go back to normal this year

Obviously one year group per evening

I hate online parents evenings and the sooner they stop being "compulsory" the better. A face to face meeting is always better IMO as you lose so much via a screen. When I've had to do them there were connection issues too so I only heard every other word of one meeting. Utterly pointless. I don't want to get to "know" the teacher, I just want a face to face meeting where they can show examples of what they are talking about.

I do agree that they should be an option so that people who struggle to get into school can choose an online option though.

no, I have never been one of those parents who make meetings over run either.

My DS started secondary during covid, not met a single teacher in person for over two years. Last online parents evening they had connectivity issues so I got 30 seconds with the maths teacher, one minute with English and a whopping ninety seconds with the science teacher. Online parents evening is crap.

I can see benefits to both. It's much easier for me and DH to attend online as they are only offered from 3:30-5/6 and my DH's work has a strict policy on if you need to leave more than an hour early you book a half day. Also better for timekeeping.

I do like face to face sometimes too though. In those we are given the children's tray so we can look at the work they have done while we wait.

I much prefer the strict timekeeping of online appointments and not having to make polite chit chat with other parents in the hall while waiting to see a teacher is amazing. But I do find it much easier to communicate in person, I struggle to interpret tone etc accurately on line. So it's pros and cons for me, I'll make the most of whichever system the school use and probably will always wish they had made the opposite choice!!!

Our school did a survey of parents and decided to use face to face. I'm sure most of the parents who chose that option are SAHMs with one child and are definitely the type who want to "get to know the teacher" and treat the whole thing as a social occasion. As a parent of two kids at two different schools with a co-parent who lives in a different town and we both work full time out of the home online parents eve would be infinitely better. But the yummy mummies prevail as per.

I much prefer face to face. Every time I’ve done online there’s been technical issues and my times been cut short and it’s laggy. I find it much easier to talk face to face. Don’t think our school will ever go back though.