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.

I am sure teachers have better things to do with their time then listen to parents endlessly going on about how misunderstood their children are and how much more important parents time is to teachers

Nobody is trying to get rid of you. It’s just there arent many issues to discuss. If everything is fine why do you feel you need to go at all though?

Reports are way, way more detailed than they used to be. Most parents really don’t need to come to PE.

My primary DD’s school offer either in person or online appointments. Where I teach it’s online for ks3 (cuts off after 5 mins) and in person for ks4 & 5. Seems to work ok.

In what way is it being seen that way? The teacher is working all evening talking to parents. At the end (of a 12 hour+ day) they are entitled to go home.

No I really do think it was like that. Unfortunately she went to primary with a lot of children with issues and she was just pushed aside. When you asked questions you were given short answers and made clear that it was the end. It’s frustrating when you’ve seen others sitting there for half an hour.
Actually the main issue is that she was looked over incessantly in favour of badly behaved children, but again, that seemed to be their policy.

Looked over? Or taught effectively so there were no issues? If there were other things to discuss, why didn’t you raise them?

So are parents after THEY have worked all day then at a parents evening

In secondaries, giving everyone a time slot means that the parents arrive at a fairly constant rate through the evening. If you just had a free-for-all, you'd have loads of parents waiting at some points (probably the middle) and teachers sitting waiting at the start and end. It's best to see the times as approximate, and to be prepared to adapt - often you can spot a teacher who has nobody waiting who you're not due to see until later, and it's usually possible to jump in. Likewise, if you're stuck in a queue, go on to the next one and come back.

Some schools have senior staff patrolling and intervening where they can see a queue building up; they often know which staff are the ones they need to keep an eye on.

i try really hard to run my appointments on time and am successful generally speaking. This comes with practice and also having experience of being on the ‘other side’ and going to appointments as a parent and being kept waiting.
Newer/ younger teachers seem to run late more often ime.
one parent was notorious for booking the last slot thinking she’d get more than her 10 minutes , I had put my coat on a turned my classroom lights off before she would even get up !

Online all the way.

I detest in person PE.

Running one end of the school to another. Having to choose to miss one teacher (because they've overrun) to see another.

If the previous parents were using my time, I would stand up and stand directly behind them, eyes boring into the back of their head, making it entirely clear that it was in fact 'my turn'. They generally got the message and if they didn't then the teacher did.

But the teacher is working all evening too. I don’t understand how wanting to finish on time means they think their time is more important than parents’ time. Coukd you explain your thinking?

Well if the parent has a 6 pm slot and left wait until 7 for a 2 mins chat it's wasted an hour of the parents time. The parents also want to go home you know.

And what about parents who have the earliest slot athey can manage as the might have to collect a younger child from nursery? Id it ok for them to pay late fees and have the nursery staff pissed off as well because these things can't run on time

The teacher didn’t waste it though. They were working. And if you need more than 2 mins, ask the questions you want answered.
You haven’t explained why you feel teachers think their time is more important at all.

People ON HERE seem to think the teachers time is more important.

There's another thread running with everyone bleating on about how attending parents evening is sooo important. Really? To be waiting around ages for a 2 mins chat? How does that figure?

That still doesn’t suggest teachers think their time is more important. As an experienced teacher I think PE is important when there are issues. The people who think their time is more important than anyone else’s are parents who come to PE after a report which makes it clear there are no issues, and with no new info to impart, but take up a full (or usually longer) slot.

Where did I say the teachers thought their time was more important?

At primary school, DS1 and DS2 were unfortunately in the same classes as siblings whose mother was extremely verbose. Despite every teachers' best efforts, no meeting with her ever lasted less than 30 minutes. There was always a hell of a rush as soon as bookings opened to get in ahead of this woman, and the air was blue amongst those who hadn't succeeded.

I have every sympathy with teachers, they can't manhandle women like this out of the room so there really is very little they can do.

It does seem on parents evening that it’s taken for granted that parents can just hang around waiting far after their booked appointment time.

It is a disregard for their time.

Like we don’t have other children, dinner, clubs, events or even work to get to. Maybe a babysitter has been booked.

Secondary parents evening already takes forever if you try to book every teacher. Ours cannot be back to back so you have to leave a gap between each teacher which by the time you work out your slots could be as far as 20minutes between without teachers running late because time keeping is poor.

Schools bleat on about how even 5 minutes late to school is bad yet that goes out the window when it’s the parents time 🤷🏻‍♀️

Parents can jigger things up by running late as well......
I had one Parents' Evening where I was set up for 10-minute slots, with a break mid-evening at 7.00pm. In theory, we could run up until 8:30 - 9:00, but bearing in mind that I usually arrived at 7:45 am, and taught all day, I'm not sure how coherent I was by 9:00 pm.......
When the requests came in, by some fluke, everyone got the spot they asked for in the first half of the evening; one parent asked for another day because he was a deputy head with his own Parents' Evening on the same day! Fair enough. One pregnant lady was highly imminent, so I saw her at morning drop-off a few days earlier, and as chance would have it, she had twins, so two interviews for the price of one, two others came in straight after school on other days.
On the evening in question, I had the schedule posted outside the door, and while they waited, folders were laid out on the chairs outside with the latest test papers and a few other samples, so they were gainfully occupied while waiting, I had thumbnail sketches to hand from colleagues who taught their sons in other subjects.
One couple had the 5:40 slot, but did not arrive. No worries, but no message to advise of traffic jams or the like, so I moved on the the next on the list. I worked my way steadily through the list, calling for them again each time I called in the next parent, but no sign, and no message to say that they were on their way; I would have waited if there was a problem I knew about.
My break time was over, and I had accounted for all the other parents, so I explained the situation to the head teacher. He agreed that I could reasonably call it a day; quite honestly, after a certain point, you have trouble remembering who you are, let alone anybody else.
Apparently, they turned up 10 minutes later, and were gobsmacked to discover that I had gone home. I think they were working on the assumption that the appointment times was a mere formality, and I was basically at their disposal at any time during the 5-hour time period which suited them.

Here. In response to talking about people with lots to discuss booking the last slot, rather than an early one and then at that arranging a subsequent one. You seem to think it’s ok for teachers to stay really late and feel they think their time is more important than the parents if they decline.

Believe me, it’s not teachers making the slots overrun. This is another example of parents not keeping to time and expecting teachers to take up the slack.

You presumably have a bit of flexibility around when to attend your appointment? If not, perhaps explain why it’s not convenient and might you meet at another time?

I’m a SENDCo and I meet parents every day. I don’t begrudge a meeting.

I remember nightmare parents’ evenings, where some teachers would see parents strictly in order of appointments, whereas others would see parents who were there. Thus I staggered out of school at twenty to eleven because my appointment was the last one with a teacher who had massively over-run - I felt sorry for the teacher but my appointment time was 9.45, and I had just been waiting for 45 minutes!! The poor teacher must have been on her knees.

Again where did I say the TEACHERS think their time is more important? If you actually read it I stated that it wasn't ok to do .

If you are going to say that I said something at least quote me saying it