since when did children attend parents' evenings?

[mrsshackleton]

I've just been asked to sign up for a slot for the parent/teacher consultations for dd1 who's in year one. I've been told she should attend too

Why? There are things I want to discuss about dd1 that I certainly don't want to say in her hearing. Does this mean I make another appointment with the time-poor teacher to discuss them? It seems to me

Year 1! =O
In Primary school I never went to parents evenings. If we went, we had to be left in the playground while our parents talked to the teachers.
There are other opportunities to discuss targets and achievements with the children, so I really don't see why they should go to parents evening.

In secondary school I can see why the pupils should attend, but it's still awful. Nothing worse than sitting there as the teacher discusses you with your parents. I have a twin too, so I had to listen to the teachers compare us. That was always fun.
Now I'm in 6th Form I don't even know if we still have parents evening. Hope not.

At secondary we have to take them and that certainly makes sense to me as they should be taking main responsibility for their education by that stage and teacher usually doesn't find it harder to be honest to a 13yo than to his doting parent.

In primary, I tend not to take ds, as he is less able to join in the discussion in an adult way.

At my dds school the dds (age 6 and 9)come in for the first couple of minutes - to talk about positives (and things they need to work on) while we are all together. Theyy then are expected to go and wait outside the room while we have a longer chat.

For me however I wouldn't have anything to say that I wouldn't discuss in front of my dds. If I need to make a complaint / have a serious discussion about any burning issue I wouldn't wait until parents evening.

I'm not sure I'd have wanted ds in his year 1 parents' evenings. His teacher was always so negative it would have been pretty demoralising for him to have to sit and listen to it.

I'd have hated it if I'd been taken. Ever. I'd rather have talked to me teachers myself in secondary, and in primary it would just have been horrible. Especially if they'd wanted to talk about issues of shyness or confidence or friends or wahtever. It would have been awful to sit there while it was discussed, and would have increased it a hundred-fold to then feel that I was being watched afterwards.

I think there are a lot of things that parents might want to talk about that are better without children there. And when I talk to parents about my pupils, there are certainly things that are easier to explain without the child there, particularly if you have been trying very hard to build up the child's self-esteem and say always positive things. That can give a misleading view to the parents of the extent of the problems.

It's interesting that there are quite a few parents here who think their primary schoolers should be party to the parent/teacher discussion!

I am of the belief that I am the parent and one of my responsibilities to to 'straight talk' with the teacher (and hear straight talk back). Until they hit secondary, we are the captains of their ships and, in the same way the midshipmen don't sit at the captain's table, my children don't sit next to me whilst we discuss their attitude, progress, strengths and weaknesses. That's adult talk.I don't want to sit through a simplistic hagiography or a pasting whilst my 7 year old sits next to me!

And for the purposes of this discussion, I am assuming that 'not talking the kids' means not physically sitting down at the same desk as the teacher, not having them running around the playground whilst you have your meeting. That's still 'not taking the kids'.

I thought parents evenings with the kids there were a particular waste of time at primary school - no straight talking was ever done, the teachers came out with all this touchy feely over posititve let's not bruise their fragile egos stuff (same as the guff that was written in the novels that purported to be their school reports).

I'm in my thirties and remember going along to parents evenings with my parents so not a new phenomenon.

I think it's an important way for children to start taking responsibility for their education. Parents evenings, as I recall, aren't really for the 'difficult' conversations anyway - it's all too public with other parents hanging around and the time slots are too short.

I always attended my parents evenings, and as a teacher kids always come too.

But surely DCs 'start taking responsibility' for their education from day one, to a small extent? It's not something that suddenly happens in a 10 minute slot with parent and teacher present!

In many ways, I use parents evening to make sure the teacher and I are singing from the same hymn sheet. We discuss strategy and make agreements like 'Now you know this and I know that, let's do such and such' Well you can't 'plot and scheme' like that if your 7 year old is sitting next to you!

MrsC2010- have you ever had to use your 'kids-present' parents evening to hammer home some hard truths, spoken with complete honesty? Do you really feel comfortable with that? Or do you temper your message so as not to fly in the face of our 'praise and encouragement' peddling education system?

I have often seen relief on the faces of my DSs teachers when I sit down and make it clear that I am aware my DSs have weaknesses, what they are, which are caused by laziness, which by inability. If I need the teacher sitting there reinforcing and agreeing with me so that it impresses my DSs that we have the measure of them, I am not doing my job as a parent effectively.

I'd say that in my observation, at least half of parents bring DC with them for Parent's eve, often the child gets to wait in another room during the actual consult, but they are definitely around.

My DD comes along but has to stay outside the room. I wouldn't want her in there- at the upcoming parents evening I'm going to have to say "DD's handwriting is terrible and it's getting worse, why is this not being addressed?" and I don't think it would do her any good to hear that as she tries very hard.

Our dc have been coming with us to parents evenings since yr 2. I admit to having being sceptical about it to start with, but it has worked very well. They are well aware of their strengths and weaknesses and seem relieved to be able to discuss them with their teacher with us there as support. It does shift the emphasis of parents evening into something more centred on the children?s concerns than ours, but I don?t think that is a bad thing. It encourages them to take some responsibility for their own education. From time to time issues arise that I think are more appropriate for me to discuss without the children present, but I think these are best done by making a separate appointment with the teacher. There isn?t time for a long discussion in the 10 or 15 minute slot allocated at parents evening anyway.

OUr school has always encouraged the children to come along - we only started doing this last school year when DDs were in Yr 2 and 4 respectively. We didn't find it touchy-feely and overly positive at all, both teachers were very straight with us - pointing out that yes, they were bright and doing well but both had a tendency to cruise and not work as hard as they could. It put us all on the same page, we all knew what the expectations were and took practical steps to get more out of homework etc. and be a bit less lackadaisical about spellings. As for praise - there was that too, but it was very specific, i.e. DD2 suddenly 'got' jioned-up writing, DD1 was producing high quality written work and was going to have her target adjusted. It certainly worked for us.