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?

My favourite was the parent that went on about how his son was a little shit and I had his permission to hit him if he was naughty. As he was saying this someone brought me a cup of tea. He bloody well drank it!

I actually did this:

Me: Is she one of the bossy ones in the class?
Teacher: Ummm, well shes not bossy but...
Me: Its ok you can say she's bossy because she's like it at home id just like to know if shes the same at school. If so i pity the kids.
Teacher: Well shes one of the headstrong ones & we do tend to use her to help other kids get involved.
Me: So she is one of the bossy ones then.
Teacher: Ok, you want me to say it & i'll admit it, she is.
Me: I knew it.

That was the end of the appointment.

I think DH and I intimidate DD's teacher. He's a scientist and I used to be a maths teacher. The week before the last Parent/Teacher interview, she had corrected in class him pointing out that the Nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere couldn't be NO2 as that is highly toxic. DD is 10 and a real Daddy's girl.

I used to love interview evenings, though working in FE you usually got the self selecting parents attending and frequently these were not the ones you really wanted to talk to.

Some gems included:

Father: My son stays out till 5am every morning. I can't stop him. Tell me how.

Me: Err, it's not really my place to advise you, but you may want to stop funding this by stopping throwing money at him in compensation for no longer having a mother

Parent: My son says you're and evil bitch who refuses to teach him

Me: (checking statistics) Well, given your son is late to every single one of the 50% of my classes he has managed to attended, it's a bit difficult to teach someone who is so far behind the rest of the class.

Are you talking about my son because his name is Harry not Harold?

Yes, I have asked this question.

I'd love to know why it is that at our school all groups have exactly 6 students. Don't they ever just get 4 really poor students or 8 really high flyers?

To follow on from a post i read on page 1, At the end of reception they may have their KS1 scores set. But when they go up to secondary their KS2 SATs dictate exactly what they should get at GCSE!!!

'Who is the competition?'
'Oh I see what DD meant when she told me about your clothes/hair/mole/bad breath.'

Seriously though....
I got frowned at in no uncertain terms for pointing out that the letter at the end of last year clearly said that students could move up a level in maths this year according to their grades and test results as the weeks went by, whereas the reality, so we were informed, was that the higher level had the maximum number of students and to add one more would mean messing up the science classes, the parents of those students already in the higher level were not going to accept that their pfbs couldn't hack the pace of instruction/got into the class based on faulty assessment of their ability by the pretty dim maths teacher who thinks boys have some sort of natural talent for maths and should be given the benefit of the doubt. I was grudgingly given the maths book the faster paced class is working through for DD3 to tackle at home after I dug in my heels, and she is now all caught up with the next level up, while still expected to do stupidhomework from the class she was assigned to.

I am going to risk further ire by sending a crisp e-mail pointing out that leggings were not specifically banned for the music class trip to the theatre, so there was no need for embarrassing my DD in front of her classmates and phoning me to tell me to bring something to cover her bottom with or for the sanctimonious lecture on 'modesty'; that what constitutes 'modest attire' is in the eye of the beholder (ref Saudi Arabia, the fact that the school allows the students to wear sweatpants with graphics or words on the rear end, and the fact that the emphasis on female 'immodesty' has fed the notion that women are responsible for crimes against them by men, like rape over the centuries and down to the present, that emphasising appearance of girls has the same effect whether in a rap video or stupid and badly thought out school rules) and what passes my gimlet eye should be acceptable to the music teacher, since in the RC scheme of things the parent is the teacher wrt matters connected to faith and morals, with the school providing backup, and that next time a class goes somewhere on Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence from meat (again cf RC rules), would she mind making sure the lunch menu that she is responsible for approving contains no cheeseburgers...
I have a feeling that one will go up like a lead balloon too.

I know most of these are meant to be light-hearted, not serious.

But I am seriously considering asking his French teacher for what reason he thinks ds's exam marks dropped by more than half in the course of the year - and whether his teaching was the only variable factor.

'Mum: When is X going to move up a set?
Me: Well, she's currently working very comfortably in the middle on the set so she is in the right place at the moment.
Mum: How are you going to change that?'

I don't see why this is unreasonable for a parent to ask -- seems to me she wants her DD to be challenged. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. She might well have heard from her DD that she is bored in the middle set?

To clarify -- if I heard 'working very comfortably' I would want to know when and how the child would get to tackle work that would stretch her a bit.

In answer to the op; no need to ask questions. Simply introduce your dh as "my brief", he can then plonk a dictaphone on the table and smile menacingly whilst saying " you don't mind if we record this to use later do you."

I was using 'working' to mean 'performing' - not very clear, sorry. Meaning she was completing the core level tasks (as oppose to the foundation or extension ones) for that set and was in exactly the right place for her ability as half the children were performing slightly better and half not quite as well.

Think I perhaps forget that teacher speak is crap at times. I retract my view of her reply as unreasonable then!

Ah yes, that's much clearer all the same.

Ask the teacher if she remembers that DC doesn't have a dad around and why she mistook YOUR father for your DC's dad

That's a question DS' the teacher won't want to answer.

DS and I LOVE his teacher BTW!

I'd like to ask the teacher if she has any idea what my life is like. How would she cope as a single working mum of 3 kids, all with SEN. No wonder I forget the reading / spelling sometimes. My life is full on chaos!

Unblinkingly ask about their child abuse policy. Guaranteed to get a patient reasoned answer and a Black Spot

As a teacher - I have found this thread hilarious. I don't lose sleep before parents evening though or find it a particularly stressful event.

Loving the thread!
Parents' evenings arethe most draining part of the job, only because they are so full on and relentless and you want to give every one of them the best.

Had 82 sets of parents queuing to speak to me between 4.30 and 7.30 recently. (that is one sore dry throat!). I love them, though.

Vast majority of parents are fab, but have had the following:

'What age are you?' Er, 31? (not even v young looking!)

'And so, can I ask, (after long, tricky to negotiate conversation about student who was being both lazy and disruptive), why is he in a class with other people who aren't like him? Don't you think they are causing him to get in trouble? His friend is in the higher set and says it's nothing like that.'

She meant 'not white, middle class' as a lot of the others where Somali and Nigerian. Fucking hell. When pointed out that we set on ability, and not any other 'factor' etc she asked 'Hmm. And how long have you been teaching? What are your qualifications?' and...

...wait for it...took out a notebook!!!'

PS yy to the 'I'm a teacher...'

OR

BTW, totally forgot my best one:

'Are you single?'

Y8 kid's dad. Quite fit, too. Every other teacher in the row looked round grinnin, storing it up to rip the piss the next morning.

3 in a row - am going back to my marking now!

"Well it is very nice to hear how well Lizzy is doing, her parents must be really proud, but could you tell us how is Strawberry-mini getting on?" :)

This is at primary in a class of 22.

Oh and Strawberry-mini was sitting there with us.

Would it be possible to see DS UCAS reference please? I brought along 2 sheets of closely typewritten A4 detailing his achievements for you, is it possible to ensure they are included in the reference?

I work in a school & I'm seeing the humour in all of these comments.

It was my daughter's parent's evening this week too. How about "If my daughter is the cleverest in the class, can you give me a list of all the children in order of cleverness, so I can discuss it in the playground with the oher mums." Or somesuch. As I bet several parents are told that their child is top of the class.

This reminds me of Alpha Mummy in the Times Slummy Mummy articles who invited each child to tea from her son's class & tested them all over dinner & kept a secret list of which child was the cleverest. All fiction of course. Or is it?!

My cousin was a teacher's nightmare while her DS was in State school. She decided he wasn't being stretched enough in a particular sublect and produced a (very detailed)project she wanted the teacher to do with him (and mark) to extend him. And then of course complained that the teacher wasn't interested.
Bet they all cheered when he went to Public School the following year.