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!

Face to face ones at DC's secondary schools were always managed very well though.

Schoolcloud has really upped its game since the early ones where it just fell over. Technical issues have been pretty minimal recently, and I feel like I've done a million of them.

Much prefer online parents evenings. I've been to so many where I've missed several slots with teachers due to someone over running or not being able to locate a particular teacher.

Online ones meant we could both participate with kids playing in another room. Face to face means only one of us gets to go whilst the other has the kids (no family support or babysitters close by). My husband does prefer face to face because he actually got to see our dd1's work. I would like a phonecall halfway through the year to let us know if there are any areas we need to support the kids in before it gets to the end of the year parents evening whether that be online or face to face!

Also why do parents need to “get to know” the teachers? They are not your friends

When I was a teacher I sometimes found myself - as did other colleagues - still seeing parents well after 10pm precisely because some parents did not know how to stop talking. Even doing the 'stand up, hold out hand, say "Lovely to see you..."' bit didn't shift some of them.

I left the job before online parents evenings came in but it must have made it a bit easier to get home before 11pm for a lot of teachers.

With Eldest DD secondary I'd just like to be able to speak to a teacher occasionally about her progress. They have a system for you to book a slot but there are never enough slots and I never get into the system quick enough. Honestly getting Glastonbury tickets are easier.

I honestly don't care how I speak to them but it would be good to actually speak to them occasionally!

The '5 minutes isn't enough' argument against online doesn't make sense as the in person apppoinments are supposed to be only 5 minutes too. Unfortunately there isn't a way to shut people off easily in real life!
IMO parents evening are just to get the headlines about where your child is at, I would have thought any issues that need to take longer should be addressed seperately. I had concerns about my daughter last year and I emailed the school and then a couple of teaches called me and we talked through the issue over the phone and via email.

IMO parents evening are just to get the headlines about where your child is at, I would have thought any issues that need to take longer should be addressed seperately.

IMO they are for taking the headlines from the report we get beforehand and asking any questions you have about comments, or raising well thought out questions (that are not enough to warrant a meeting with a busy teacher, but helpful nonetheless) about anything you are unsure of and get clarity on how you can support your child.

I found them informative and invaluable during ds's time at school, just because you didn't doesn't mean no one did.

It is not as easy and natural to build a rapport with someone you have never met before through a small screen in a couple of minutes. They can't point at pieces of paper with information/class test marks etc etc over a screen easily and certainly not in the time allotted.

We've only had one parents evening at secondary so far and that was online. The 5 minute cutoff worked brilliantly and it seemed a much better system so I hope they stick with that. For primary we now get a choice of face to face or zoom. We chose zoom this time as it works better with work etc but I noticed from the list we were one if only teo or three families to do so. It would have been nice to meet the teacher IRL and see the classroom etc but it just didn't work with our schedules. Next time will try to sort it so we can go in!

I think the quality of discussion is better face to face but logistics of online much better. I went to my DS's Y7 parents evening a week after having an operation. I wouldn't have been able to do face to face at all.

6 minutes? We only get 4 minutes. Hardly long enough to discuss gcse options! 😪

Our school has a separate GCSE Options evening, in person, for parent and child. If your school doesn't have anything similar, perhaps you could ask for it. Normal parents evening are for progress updates, not gcse options.

I wish the online parents evenings would return as then we could both attend. Less time wasted going to school and waiting. You actually get your full slot and don't feel rushed because the in-person meetings always run late.

I found the online meeting so much better! They were really informative and the 9 min seemed to last longer with no chitchat. One of the few positives of Covid.

Online works splendidly for us. It was particularly good last spring, when I was able to have a really good talk with older sons' teachers from my apartment in Corfu where I'd escaped for a sneaky break... 😎