If you missed your kid's parents' night because you were on a term time holiday, would you expect the teacher to allow another appointment when you return?

[Purpleturtle46]

Just that really. Parents night same week every year and parents informed 2 months in advance.

YABU-yes the teacher should arrange to see you at an alternative time on your return.

YANBU-no, you booked and holiday and missed it so that's on you!

Wow this is quite eye-opening. Parents evenings are mutually beneficial aren't they? Not a favour bestowed upon the well behaved parents.

Term time holidays are a common thing where I live, it's a low income area and it's term time or nothing for many parents in the area. The schools offer options, and try to support families even if they're not rich enough to afford school holiday breaks. I find it a shame you seem to resent that so much.

I don’t think they should be expected to offer another appointment if it’s been missed for a holiday. A lot of this could probably be avoided if parents were aware of the dates well in advance.

Separately though, I don’t feel it’s that big of a deal for a child to miss a day here and there for a term time holiday. If it were multiple weeks repeatedly then I can see how it would start to have a significant effect on their education.

Firstly its not "just ten minutes" its more likely 20 minutes (rarely) or most likely 30 minutes. and if it was an exactly ten minute phone call, there is the prep time and doing whatever needs to be done afterwards.

But here's a general run down of how it works.
New teacher will give you a face to face at a time that you want.

A teacher early to the job, will make the call back even to the extent of of calling back at 17:30.
Middle years teacher, will make the call back but when they want to and will leave an answer phone message with the details and an offer to get more details if the parent asks for it this might be by phone or an email.

Long in the tooth teacher. you will get an email with the details and an offer to get more details if the parent asks for it and will definitely be in email form.

Some more bits for you to consider.

If the teacher rings you up and you are 'too busy' don't expect another call back.

If you book a slot that is late in the parents evening and the teacher has very few appointments, you will get a parents evening phone call. why?
because some parents think that its funny to book the last couple of slots and not turn up.

If the appointments are running late its because the parents that are before you won't leave the table and give it up to you.

If the appointments are running late either because you refuse to run them to time, schools will end the parents evening on time and hurry you out of the door.

Posts like this make me realise how ignorant most people are about DV.

My abuser would be utterly charming and polite to you. You would probably think he was the most delightful person you had ever met. You would not be at risk.

Anyway, this thread is horribly triggering so I shall hide it now,.but it looks as though teachers would benefit from some training on DV and how it impacts people

I am glad my children's school isn't silly about separate appointments.

Parents who split without DV tend to be fine to go together.

My psychologist told me it was important for me and the children that I parallel parent rather than co parent

Can they attend remotely from their holiday destination?

Depends on the school and where the appointment are.
Also it depends on whether the school can provide the required equipment,

In your case, tell the school and they'd almost certainly do separate appointments.

It's not silly to mostly say no. Most separations aren't due to DV. It's a huge extra workload if every separated parent asked. IME plenty of children only have one parent attend anyway.

The time (10 minutes) is from previous posters in this thread, which you can see from past posters.

If it wasn’t okay, why did you comment that many other professions work overtime unpaid?

Your quote “In some industries unpaid overtime is a given“ insinuates that OP should just offer her time Willy nilly, as plenty of others do the same in other professions.

Also, what is the relevance of others doing unpaid overtime got to do with OP’s post?

Also the idea that it’s just ten minutes, DD’s teachers have all clearly prepared for each appointment. Work does actually go into it, they often have a lot to convey in just ten minutes. DD’s teacher sits there with files and notes that have clearly been prepared for each child. No idea how long it takes but she’s provides very detailed feedback so I assume she’s spent hours of her time reviewing childrens profiles, condensing it plus all the stuff around behaviour, social relationships etc.

It's not 'silly' to be protective of your time. I would absolutely accommodate anyone who spoke to me and said they needed a separate appointment and wouldn't need them to explain why. I wouldn't just automatically allocate every child two slots though. One slot is appropriate for the majority of children.

I don’t know how people have become so entitled tbh. Holidays are not essential, they are a nice to have, if you can’t afford an out of term holiday you have one every other year. To be blunt, if you are skint, generally you don’t want your kids to grow up skint, one of the ways to achieve this is to make sure they take school seriously. I came from a skint family, my life now is much more comfortable but I am still keenly aware of making sure my DC is present and accounted for at school. She is also ahead of the curriculum, I don’t care, she’s still going to school and I suck up the cost of a holiday or I choose something that is within my budget.

A friend has just had parents evening for her children. It was online with the form teacher and a maximum of five minutes before the call automatically ends so the teacher can dial into the next call.

Indeed, so it's sometimes good to consider that other teachers don't have the same experience as you, and can't make the same use of 10 minutes of trapped time.

To which if that was the information given with no other context (ie abuse) my response would be “tough shit”? We don’t all get what we want in life and the “right” to a parents night appointment is not an unqualified right that schools have to bend over backwards to accommodate

That is the parent's problem and responsibility.

Teachers already do enough

Thank you.

We had one set of parents who went off on holiday abroad in term time but organised for their child to stay with a relative in another LEA.

They mistakenly thought that we could arrange for their child to sit their exam in a school close to the relative's home. At least they tried, I guess, but this kind of misunderstanding does take up a lot of time.

And if the school is aware (and they should be, to support the children) of course they would expect to provide separate appointments.

But for they average breakup it's not necessary

No way! You go to Parents' Evening or you don;t. Teachers are underpaid and overworked as it is without stretching the boundaries so they are at the beck and call of individual parents at the parents' convenience. If missing it had been due to illness or genuine family crisis, I might ask but holiday? No.

I used to have to remind my HT of this. He had the mistaken idea that the WTA was only there for the benefit of management.

CCR are the only initials I don't understand in that - what does it mean? Thanks!

Do you understand the teacher's workload?

And that they have families and childcare to organise (and possibly pay for)?

That they can't give up another X number of evenings so that parents might possibly fit them in

And lots of parents can't afford term time breaks either.

Do you not think they actually have work to do during work hours?

Parents' evenings are a totally separate thing.

Yup.

At one point, I was working full time and caring for both my late mother (with dementia) and my late husband (a stroke victim).

I recall one set of parents expressing astonishment when I told them that I had to leave, when they wanted to continue to discuss their child and extra tuition, etc. It was well after after 7 pm by then and the janitor was locking up the building.

It's not baseless resentment, it's how can you pull extra time out of thin air for a bespoke schedule for multiple families.
How does an overloaded person physically meet all the demands of their role and still carve out special slots?
Realistically any scrap of flex in the schedule must be used for dire need only.

But what if several parents did this? It's not just 10 minutes then is it?