AIBU to expect teachers to keep to parents’ evening time slots?

[Skipin29]

Waiting past my time every parent’s evening and then when I’m seen it’s rushed through and I don’t get the full 10 minutes.

You need to tell the waffling parents that their time is up and if you personally need to speak to the parent for more time then book them in a double slot.

Parent’s evening is a bit different to a doctor’s appointment.

A video call, call or even a email would suffice for most parents evenings I’ve had.

I have walked out and rearranged a dentist appointment after waiting 45 minutes after my time with no end in sight however. Some of us have plans and arrange appointments accordingly to fit in not to sit waiting forever.

I'm a single parent with twins if you have 6 appointments and they run over fine but if you have 12 teachers to see and they're running behind you dont get to see all the teachers. Online had been so much easier, last parents evening I spoke to 12 teachers in one hour.
The year before covid the school implemented a call back service, if teacher/parents didn't think they'd covered everything they'd arrange a phone call at a later date it worked if everyone stuck to it, I think its a parent and teacher problem.

Some parents have more to discuss. The bigger issue is divorced parents demanding a slot each rather than sucking it up and coming together - yes I know there are times this isn’t an option but for most divorced parents they could, with half the class having divorced/split parents it’s not just one or two extra slots if it was allowed

Online didn't work for my daughters' high school. Invariably subject A would be running late, so you would be due to see subject B, there then followed a dilemma whether to stay waiting or try and join subject B. This continued for the other subjects too and meant missong some despite having spent the evening online.

In the school hall, there is a bit of an unwritten rule that you make the appointments and aim for appropriate times, but if a teacher you need to see is free, go there instead. The teachers will usually gesture for you to come over if they spot you. It seems to all work out in the end.

My child’s junior school has begun starting the meetings from lunch time onwards.

luckily, one of the days falls on my day off, so I book the very first appointment. No waiting around, works out perfectly.

it is frustrating when they overrun, though.

@Skipin29 We've done it this way since I was a pupil, through to my kids and me teaching there.
I think most of the schools in our area do the same.

Some parents who aren't used to it huff a bit initially but soon realise they can't have half an hour of the teacher's time.

How did they manage to run behind online? Ours had a count down and at five minutes the call closed automatically.

That must be really frustrating but its not the teachers' fault, I'm sure they find it just as frustrating as you except for them its all evening. 10 minute slots just doesn't seem enough if overrunning is a regular thing, at my children's schools they spread it over several days and do 20 minute slots (but also they don't have meetings with every single subject teacher, just the class teacher - if you have a subject specific issue you can send the teacher a message on the school app, so not so much time is needed, and the students have their own meetings with their subject teachers during school time to discuss how they're doing)

As a teacher there are two sides to this.

Some teachers are bad at wrapping up meetings. However, some pupils do require more time than others. You don’t need a long meeting to congratulate someone on working hard and doing well, so you can use professional discretion to use more time on pupils who need your time.

It is a balancing act.

Its really annoying. At my son's secondary they were loads of teachers in the halls so not sure why anyone would talk about anything very personal as there are 100s of people around. The problem is, if the previous teacher has been held up you then miss your slot for the next teacher so end up seeing about 3 teachers if you are lucky and its 5 mins per teacher but may get 2 mins if the next parents is breathing down your neck or you want to see the next teacher on time.

Its totally pointless.

Just had college one on line and was 8 mins with the teacher having 2 mins in between each call and was ample. Other concerns I've emailed about and spoken to HOD.

Ours, Secondary, has recently gone back to online, which we definitely prefer. The last few in-person were terrible as they were so overrun and we had to give up waiting for several teachers so we could try to make the next one on time. We would go back and try to wait for a gap with the ones we'd missed earlier, but it was hit and miss.

However, technical difficulties made the recent Yr11 online one a bust. We couldn't hear any teachers. We only discovered the next day that it was a host server issue and not us.

We just had a Year 10 one today, also online. Only 1 teacher out of 8 couldn't be seen or heard, so quite successful on the whole.

Parents evening below secondary are a complete tick box exercise. If I had my time again I wouldn’t bother.

I would have agreed with you until the first secondary school parents evening where on the very first teacher it became clear they hadn’t been given important info re DS (and yes, I’d told the school, even had a meeting with the year head about it) and the rest of the night was “before we start are you aware that ….” “No and that totally changes things”. You don’t say.

sorry if that was me holding you up.

Or the parent isn’t really that interested and has no questions to ask.

This is why I love online parents evening.

The absolutely best thing to come from Covid.

Set time limit and disconnects.

I feel sorry for the teachers when it over runs. People complain it over runs and then people complain if they manage to speed up a bit like in the OPs case.

Lucky you get 10 minutes....i only ever got five when mine were at school.

This is why I always pick the earilest slots. My children require a lot of help but I always make a further appointment.

I always told pupils their parents would learn anything I had t already told them (the pupil) and if there were concerns obviously I contacted parents when it arose. Overruns are usually because the parent brings new information which needs discussing.

I disagree. It was an opportunity for me to see how academic my children were and decide whether tutoring and grammar school were a suitable choice for them. It was also an opportunity for the teacher to raise anything to the child, she’d like for them to practice waiting their turn, write longer sentences, read more etc…

Without a good primary education as a solid foundation the rest can be a struggle for kids.

Well why are you on here instead of emailing your child’s school to suggest that admin make that adjustment? Because that removes responsibility from the teacher and makes it neutral. It may astonish you to hear this but some parents make outrageous demands of teachers and teachers are reluctant to cut them off in mid-flow for a wide variety of reasons. So take the weight off them and put it on a neutral party.

Even if that can’t be done YABU expecting teachers to be exclusively responsible for managing timings when parents are also adults and could take some responsibility; maybe suggest that on the class WhatsApp.

School cloud parent teacher meetings. Online. Cuts off after time. Best thing ever.

If you want to say something to the school, keep it civil and to the point. For example, "my parents evening appointment was X minutes late starting. This caused inconvenience because Y (made me late for / miss stg else, pay babysitter more etc). I realise there are pupils whose parents may need longer discussions with the teacher due to a range of issues. However, is it possible for those issues to be kept out of parents evening appointments to avoid inconveniencing other parents or leaving them with insufficient time to discuss their own child's progress?"

Don't make suggestions on what the school should do because that would get their backs up. They will know there is a problem with overrunning appointments but unless parents raise it as an issue they won't want to devote time to coming up with a solution if parents are apparently unbothered.

At my (primary) school, someone rings a bell every 10 minutes and everyone is expected to finish their appointment promptly, and a member of SLT helps move on any stragglers. Teachers are available on other days to discuss more serious issues.

My DC's secondary school appointments are all online and the call gets cut off after the slotted time even if you are still talking. It's great.

This I agree with!

Yeah, these teachers that want to keep on chatting to all the parents because they really don't want to get home and be with they're own dc. 🙄

Pre covid in primary, being a seasoned parents evening parent. I did walk up and knock the door to remind them it was my slot.

Some teachers are too nice.