what (unreasonable) questions shall I ask at parents evening

[TheIIlusiveShadow]

DD is in foundation year:

Any idea what sort of A-level grades we could be looking at?

This is going to sound awful coming from a teacher but at secondary level, it helps to clearly identify yourself and your child. Lots of parents, myself included, have different names from their child, so please be clear. Sometimes, a few pointers as to which one is yours would be good, eg tall, red hair. Dreadful I know as your Little X is the apple of your eye but I often have three Little Xs in a class and ten classes. Sorry.

Turn up drunk, spend four times your allotted five min slot slurring your life history and that of your child at the teacher, proclaim to all passing that your gloriously average child is "gifted", refuse to look at any of their assessed work, demand to know why they don't study Chaucer at Key Stage Three, tell the teacher that at home you make them read Freud.

Oh no, that's just the parents of my students that do that.

I always enjoyed catching up with my daughter's teachers. They were generally pretty cool people. I remember asking one of them about a notice that had arrived home full of spelling and grammar errors and the teacher just laughed and said it was written by one of the teachers who was pretty much illiterate, but not to worry as she was only the librarian! :)

@ DrSeuss

Or ask if s/he went to a proper university

Indeed, in view of Michael Gove's drive to ensure only top-level graduates take o the work of teaching the nation's children for a pittance ask what class of degree s/he got. If not a 2.1 or higher ask why.

Hi Folkgirl I know learning through play is meant to underpin the EYFS Curriculum, but having worked in a Reception class recently (as TA) I'd say it's not only the parents who are obsessed with academic progress in Reception - I found the atmosphere quite pressurised TBH.

I would seriously ask questions about play as a parent going to a PA of a child in Reception - if only to redress the balance and remind them how 4 year olds really learn

Actually juggling you have a point (how gracious of me ) thinking back to when I was in reception a couple of years ago, there's a huge disparity between what the HT tells you is important in reception, and then what is actually important to them at pupil progress meetings.

It's one of the reasons I'm not gutted I've been budget cut out of schools.

Themumsnot they want to make it an MA level career.

I think if they only want MA graduates teaching children then they might need to reduce the level of student debt incurred by teachers in getting to MA level, or raise the starting salary! Perhaps they could also give such highly qualified professionals some autonomy and credit us with a modicum of professionalism...

sorry, to digress...

I was quite enjoying the light heartedness of this. I'm going now!

Thanks FolkGirl

• Even though MN is a parenting website (well that's how it started ) some of us may be prone to fly off on other tangents without warning (except see NN)

As you were !

I don't ask questions at parents' evening, I just apologise a lot - the poor teachers have enough on their plate putting up with DS and his questions without me asking any.

DS1 has just started secondary and although the science teacher clearly thought DS was very enthusiastic and he didn't want to stifle this I think he was a bit surprised by the phenomenon that is DS1 and the fact that he asks completely random questions about science at regular intervals throughout the lesson.

I frequently ask DS2's teachers if they have the right child because the one they describe is nothing like the one that comes home with me every day.

BBB I found myself apologising for the fact that in DD's teachers words, she can't leave a piece of paper unattended during "child-led" time without DD making it into something...

stealth - you could always ask if they have a G & T group for those showing advanced origami skills such as your DD and if not why not?

Here are some good ones I had over the years.

"What are you doing later?"
"Why are you insisting on my children learning about rhythm? I had no sense of rhythm so they won't either."
"Why can't you work out a way for her to learn piano without having to practise?"
"Why can't this school finish at lunchtime on Fridays, so we can go to the country before the rush hour?"

Ibmum - it was a joke. Teachers work harder than nearly everyone.

I used to teach and had
Why aren't you teaching her long division? About a reception child. Her father then tried to get his child to demonstrate her ability to me and the poor thing sat squirming.
I have also had the Why don't you teach more Christianity/less about other religions question. This was after weeks of Christmas related work and of course the Nativity. I don't think they had connected Christmas and Christianity
Why have you separated George from his best friend? Well do you actually want George to get any school work done?
I do remember droning on about thevreading scheme we followed for aaaages when I was newly qualified and later found out that the parent was a reception teacher too [ blush]
actually that is a cracker, just very breezily announce that you are a teacher too. It always put the wind up me.

So can you explain to me why you need 10% "non contact time" when no other profession working with Joe Public seems to think it does?

Did you know that most health care professionals are expected to have read their patients/clients file and treat them as individuals?

BBB - the teacher prefaced it with "of course we know where she gets her creative drive from...." - serves me right for making teachers presents instead of buying them.

I think they need to do patchwork with her, actually - it is less origami than the irresistable urge to cut things up and then stick them back together again

Oh and can you explain to me why it is perfectly acceptable for you to fail to notice a child cant read by 11 but if as a trained health care professional fail to notice a patient has died I get struck off?
Finally why are teachers entitled to TD days when all the rest if us have to do our mandatory training in our own time?
Not that I'm feeling bitter or anything!

happygardening, I would love 10% non-contact time

sorry to go against the grain of the thread, but once again I need to correct something

happygardening - we lost 5 days from our holidays to cover inset; the kids are still in school for the same amount of days as they have always been so we do mandatory training in our own time

Not a question, but DH came up with this gem at a 3-way interview last year (warning: he is a mathematician..)

DD1's teacher: The next step in DD's maths work will be learning squares and roots of numbers.
DH: Oh, well that shouldn't be too hard, as she knows what cubes are already.
DD1 (hideously embarrassed) Dad, I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea what cubes are.
Me: laughs nervously, as I know she doesn't know, and I am also hideously embarrassed.
Teacher grins, but rolls eyes and looks at me as if to say "oh no, another maths parent..."

Happygardening - I can answer a few of them if you want.

1. 10% non-contact time. Lots of other professions (such as doctors, MW, HV) have admin time. Teachers obviously do have some time after school/during the holidays to get admin done, but the 10% non-contact time is pretty important to give a bit more time for admin and allow for things like meeting other teachers for concurrent planning. If you saw the hours teachers actually work then you probably wouldn't question it. Before I did work shadowing for teaching I hadn't given any thought to the amount of preparation teachers do. They don't just wander into the classroom and spew a random train of thought. They prepare long term plans to ensure that the whole curriculum is covered and then break that down into smaller and smaller units until they have planned lessons (and often what to do in each 10 min chunk of a lesson) with differentiation for various levels in their class. They prepare the resources to go with the planned lesson and make sure that they are in the right place at the right time. They assess the outcome of the lesson (whether by marking or other forms of assessment) and record the results of the assessment. They revise their future plans based on the outcome of the assessment and consider how their pupils are acheiving against targets. Those who are still in the profession could probably give a longer list. But yeah, you are basically right. They only work 9-3.15 with an hour off for lunch and really long holidays.

1. Teachers used to work 38 weeks a year as they were required to teach for 190 days. The 39th week was added for training days so they are effectively doing the training in their own time as holidays were cut to give the training days.

1. Ok, no excuse for not noticing that a child can't read.