To think parents' evening at nursery...

[User154871]

It's a tick box and a fairly unhinged one at that.

At the last one, I was told my ten month old had a 'target' of walking. I shrugged that sentence off because the rest of it was good and they are a nice nursery with lovely staff and activities.

This time, they said the 17 month old likes playing with others but 'we can tell she's an only child because she can't share'.

I don't know whether I'm being oversensitive because I has a MC in Nov and I hated the phrasing (they knew at the time but I don't expect them to remember)... but I thought that struggling with sharing was normal at 17 months?

The other target is to talk more as she only says five words clearly although she understands a lot more than that.

Christ....I've got that problem but I'm blaming old age 😉

We have them (usually during the day- either via Zoom or face to face) and they are really useful. They are an extended catch up with the key worker, and you get to share things you have both observed (eg little Flub won't do her own coat up at nursery, but will at home), concerns, thongs going on at the nursery etc. I find them helpful.

We also have a whole room catch up once a term for parents to socialise etc, and to learn more about what is happening in the next term.

That's ridiculous 😂

I have been both sides of these pointless parents evening and I can’t understand why nurseries bother about them.
why worry parents into thinking their children aren’t developing how the text books say they should or how society say they should.
I was told by playgroup my youngest ds needed speech therapy as he wasn’t even saying his first word at the age of two, I refused and said he would get there when ready he was nearly three before he spoke but he’s now nearly 12 and never shuts up and has such a unbelievable vocabulary.

Had them with both of my DC at 3 different nurseries.

For most parents it's just a quick chat and look at their pictures and what they might need a bit of help with etc

It's good to hear from childcare professionals where your DC is developmentally. They can often flag things that may start the SEN process. This is what happened to my friend's DC so they got the appropriate support all the way through school.

You’re a better person than I am, I’d have suggested the employee’s target should be the same.

Yeah all this learning objective stuff for tinies is daft. I'm always getting things for DD written in the first person like "I will continue my socio-cultural development" when what she was doing was pretending to feed a teddy. Just let her play and stop filling up the staff's time with pointless admin!

Until he was 2, DS only said one word (nope) but understood pretty much everything you said to him 🤣 all children are different, I think after 2 they can flag speech stuff but before it seems pointless.

Total bollocks - sharing capability doesn’t actually come about until around 3. Asking a 17 month old to share is batshit.

Also, isn’t it really daycare and not nursery so to speak?

It's part of communication, it's not supposed to be delivered or taken as judgement, it's supposed to help understanding both ways.
I found ours helpful in pre school, but with younger age we had a childminder so every day had a good handover, but bigger settings can't do that.
There's no obligation on the parents side especially if you don't like the way they do it.

If your child was behind with their milestones it would be an opportunity to share that with you and discuss what both home and nursery can do to best support your child.

The fact they have nothing all that constructive to say is a good thing. It means your child is developing as expected. So they’re just forecasting the next milestone.

Wow!
They have parents evenings at nurseries these days.
( older parent here)
No wonder so many parents are stressed.

Is it only a waste of time for the majority because the majority of children do hit their milestones. For those that don’t isn’t early intervention helpful?

Absolute waste of time and I feel very sorry for the staff having to do them.

For most parents it’s pointless but for those with SEN then these early meetings can be a good opportunity to gently start talking about development and missed milestones. Especially for parents with only one child who might not know what is typical.

It’s ridiculous. The children would actually gain so much more without all this unnecessary admin childcare staff have to do as they’d have more time to actually do activities/play with them, rather than documenting it all.
My mum used to love childminding until it all had to be ofsted regulated and a tonne of paperwork came into the mix.

@Morningcoffeeview absolutely, early intervention is really useful and that’s why documentation of certain things is so important- hence why I said some of it IS useful- but often it’s a box ticking exercise without any real meaning for the child, which is when I’d rather see good quality interactions over paperwork. When done properly, targets are good. But often, in my experience anyway, there can be a lack of training and staff with not much experience.

Sorry that should say early intervention is really important.

I would have thought it's just a communication breakdown between staff and parent. I can see why a parent might think this is being too pushy (and to be honest, the wording with the sharing target was appalling) and I also get that having to record/report all of this can be labour intensive and seen as a bit of a waste of staff time... But, taking the concept of targets, imagine a nursery that didn't have any in mind. They'd literally do nothing with the children and never interact. Many people are saying that the children shouldn't have targets and just be able to play and have fun but as I understand it, the whole point is for these things to happen simultaneously and all these meetings are doing are just making you aware of that.

I'm 28 and sometimes I wonder how I made it this far in life when my mum just dropped me off at nursery school and picked me up and that was it. None of these daily/hourly updates (unless something medical had happened like you'd fallen over and banged your head or something), let alone parents' evenings 😂

Fortunately, parents' evenings were not a thing when my "children" (who are all now in their twenties) were at nursery.

Sounds like bullshit to me, and I don't think I'd have been inclined to go to them. Not at that age. I'd have already discussed any issues arising with staff at drop-off and pick-up.

I went to all school parents'evenings, but see no need for them at nursery or preschool. Are preschools doing it too? Is Ofsted also requiring it of them?:

I liked 'parents evening' (wasn't an evening as such, just made an appointment at a time that suited me and the teacher), nice chat about how DS is getting on, how he interacts with other children, how his language skills are improving (bilingual, nursery are putting in extra effort to improve his language skills), what he likes and dislikes about nursery (then went through this with him before the meeting) and an opportunity to ask questions that wouldn't normally have time to ask at pick up.

Providers have to demonstrate working with parents and agreed next steps that they discuss with you that's an EYFS requirement some use Apps but most parents don't contribute, some daily diaries but again parents lose them or don't comment.

Why? I don’t think we commonly call it daycare in the U.K.?