To expect an appointment with all my child's teachers?

[ACTIVE123]

My only child has started High School for the first time this academic year.

Appointments have been made available for parent consultation evening (5 min zoom appointment per teacher) but despite looking at all slots, I can only get appointments with 4 out of 12 teachers.

I logged onto book only 2 hours after the email was sent saying appintments were made available.

I contacted the school and was told I'm on a waiting list as there are simply too many children to get an appointment with every teacher.

Am I being unreasonable to expect an apppointment with every teacher? Is this how it works at High School? Asking genuinely as I'm new to this and not sure if it's just me?

The school is an ofsted outstanding and is highly oversubscribed.

Perhaps it would be better to do away with general parents evening and issue invitations to the parents the teachers need to see? I always knew I'd get glowing comments for my children, but I felt that I needed to show support for their education by signing up for the appointments offered.

Me too. My dc are 15 and 18. I have never found parents' evenings very useful asa parent, and quite often not that useful as a teacher tbh. I prefer reports.

Yes this.
When I was kid (not in the UK), this is how it worked. Teachers where inviting some parents for an appointment, and parents just confirmed attendance. They had more than 5 min too.
Other parents could request an appointment on parents evening too, but usually where redirected to the "referent teacher" for the class.

We didn't even get to see all the teachers in DS1's GCSE year. (however, I'd sort of given up on the school by then anyway)

Our first parents evening, none of the teachers had any idea who DS1 was, completely pointless.

Other two go to private schools and parents evening are useful, staff teach well and given relevant, useful feedback.

Genuine question - my eldest in last year of primary - is there any point going to parents evening in secondary? I’ve always felt I had to go to show I supported the school / teachers. But if our child has no issues should we stay away and leave appointments for others? That feels “wrong” to me but then I am a bit of a goodie two-shoes when it comes to school….

It is very clear practical use. The children are there (at secondary) and should hear the praise.

The praise happens constantly in school time, verbally, through marking and through the school's rewards systems.

I am actually surprised that teachers still concentrate on the negatives so much when people do much better when their strengths are praised.

You say 'teachers still...' as though you are imagining rigid old schoolmasters back in the day barking out 'Young Ponsonby-Smythe is a dolt who will amount to nothing in life!' You are misunderstanding the purpose of feedback. It's not about 'positives and negatives'. It's about giving information to enable students to achieve the best they can. Repeatedly saying 'You're great!' doesn't do that, however nice it is to hear. Telling the parents of a weaker, or bright but underachieving pupil what they can do to perform well is not a 'negative'. It's constructive and positive advice, even if it relates to e.g. inattention in class.

Are schools still doing it over zoom? We’ve all gone back to in-person at the schools local to me. I had my son’s first high school parents night a few weeks ago. He got all the appointments by going round all his teachers with a slip of paper all students were given, and he got appointments with all of them. We went up on the night and just went chair to chair; it was running late as they always do and some appointments got a bit muddled but everyone got seen!

We are back to face-to-face. I preferred online, as a teacher and as a parent, but apparently the majority of parents preferred face-to-face.

We are online too. Considering how many teachers are at home rather than school, I suspect that the teachers like it too.

My youngest is in year 13 and I’ve never been able to book every teacher as there’s always one or two who are unavailable on the day. (our school is always recruiting for science teachers and they are generally the ones who were unavailable in the younger years.)

I’m glad that it’s not the system where only children with problems get an appointment. I suspect that my kids are pretty typical in that they don’t really talk about school at home so while parents hope that they are doing fine, it’s good to hear it from the teacher. I also suspect that secondary school kids secretly love having their teacher tell their parents that they are doing great.

Which teachers are at home rather than at school? That's quite a sweeping generalisation for what might just be your experience

We are only offered slots with SENCO and the head of year. I would if there are any issues these aren’t left to raise at parents evening. We get reports and I emails the teachers directly if needed. I don’t need a slot to be told my child is doing well. I only want to know about issues I need to address.

If there are parents who need speaking to they don’t wait for parents evening.

Oh believe me, no smuggery - my children all have SEN. But they were making the progress expected and behaving well.

We are online too. Considering how many teachers are at home rather than school, I suspect that the teachers like it too.

I prefer it online as a teacher and a parent for the same reason - I can do things like put the dinner on or get a cup of tea in between appointments rather than standing/sitting around in school waiting for the next one. As a parent it means it doesn't matter if I can only get appointments that are far apart.

What subject do you teach to do this????

I’m always fully booked, 3 hours non stop which is why I like online as it ensures appointments stick to 5 minutes. Yr 7 and Yr 11 PE are fave to face at my school and Yr 11 ran over by nearly half hour!

What subject do you teach to do this????

I’m always fully booked, 3 hours non stop which is why I like online as it ensures appointments stick to 5 minutes. Yr 7 and Yr 11 PE are fave to face at my school and Yr 11 ran over by nearly half hour!

MFL, but it was the same for all subjects, in that while parents' evenings were online, my school had a policy that all teachers were only to book 30 appointments, regardless of how many classes we had, and could block out gaps wherever we wanted them. When it was online, the parents' evening was over a longer period of time, so there was plenty of space for decent gaps. Appointments were 3 or 4 mins.

We are allowed to book up to 8, can usually book an appointment but then they don't all turn up on the night !

We just picked tutor, core subjects and then once in year 10 included the special subjects.

So we never did music, dance, drama and a few others as we knew he would be dropping them all. Did art once on the auto system and even the teacher said good student behaves etc but I know he doesn’t like art so as long as he completes his work I expect nothing more or less from him. Year 10 dropped art.

I think talking to every single subject teacher at secondary level is more a box ticking exercise. Half the subjects will be dropped, anything important such as falling behind you should already be aware as you should if they are exceptionally fabulous.

They all know their set groupings as top, top 2nd, middle, lower and bottom which tells you quite a bit as well.

If you have a question surely you just pop an email across and get an answer in a few days. No point waiting till just parents evening.

Fewer teachers teaching more children.

The way our school works parents evenings is much better than the appointment system in my opinion.
We book an hour time slot, eg: 3:30-4:30/4:40-5:40/5:50-6:50.
We then have a table allocated to us and the teachers walk around and find you. They will sit with you for 5 min or so and then move on to someone else. This way no set appointments need to be made and the teachers get to see everyone.
We've only ever had one or two teachers not make it round to us.

Our secondary manages it - 1000 students in the school. They do a tutor parents evening in term 1 where you have 10 minutes with the dc tutor to check they’ve settled back in okay/raise any issues. The dc are home schooled for a day (before half term) with work set on Google classroom to free up teachers to do this. Parents evenings with subject teachers are over 2 evenings and one afternoon with students for that year doing a group activity to free up teachers.

I’ve never not spoken to a teacher and ours are actually really helpful (and honest).

dd1’s year is high achieving (was at primary and seems to still be in her secondary state school). The head teacher commented that they’d had to change parents evening for our year to accommodate all the parents wanting to speak to teachers and be actively involved in dc school life. She felt there was a direct correlation between the high achieving year group and parental support.

It would take 27.5 hours for me to see every parent for 5 min. We just don't have the directed time for that.

@annahay I saw that and after my post I said "ignore my post" I wasn't on a laptop so couldn't edit..

Me too. Sadly I cannot see everyone's parent. After a full day's teaching, I have 36 slots from 4pm - 7pm - and I actually have 58 Y11 students. Also, as a pp said, the parents I really want to see probably won't make an appointment.

I'll be seeing the parents of the keen Grade 7-9s who love History and really want me to meet their parents and probably talk about A level. Not the ones who are doing no work and look like being a Grade 2/3.

DS secondary parents eve is per year group.
Slots opened online at 6pm one evening and an email was sent 24 hours prior to inform of booking opening.
Logged on at exact time and managed to get all slots required.
I went for Maths, English, Science, Engineering, Geography and Design Tech.
Didn't bother with Tutor as she only sees them 10 min per day.
Didnt book PE as not taken as an option and is used as 'down time' for those not taking it as an exam.
No concerns should be a Suprise. We are advised to email any tutors we don't get a slot for if we require an update or wish to raise any concerns

What has changed is you some parents wanting to spend half an hour talking one teacher and holding everyone up. Some parents becoming aggressive towards teachers. Whilst I’d love to meet my kids’ teachers in person I get the new zoom thing means you get your 5 minutes and you get cut off!! I’ve usually gone straight on to make appointments and usually get one with each teacher but the time they’re released has worked for me up to now. If they were released during my work day I’d struggle - I’m also a teacher and can’t just leave my class to go online for these appointments. They do tend to be 7pm though when released so work for me but I guess people do work evenings.