Parents evening for divorced parents

[Techway]

Ex H & I divorced a few years ago and I had hoped we could co parent but he was very vindictive and abusive so co parenting is impossible. I have no face to face contact with him, everything is email or text.

So far we have attended parents evenings alternatively and feedback to each other via email. As dc get older this may not work as there is some benefit in meeting subject teachers, especially as they get close to GCSEs. Ex has EOW so not often involved with school but will attend as it's about control.

How common are separate parents evenings and how is it organised..both on same night or alternative days?

I might just stay as we are though as fortunately the DC are all thriving at school so generally no issues and reports are pretty comprehensive.

You mean one night for one parent then another for the other parent? That’s not going to happen. Many teachers teach more than one year group so are already doing several parents evenings. Plus how many parents are divorced and even want to go to these things?
If you can’t attend together (which is what I see most divorced parents doing), one of you goes to the parent evening and if the other has a concern they can make an individual appointments with the relevant teachers.

At secondary school there is only likely to be one evening with a limited number of 5 minute slots available. I think you would find it almost impossible to book more than 1 slot for 1 student, especially as most schools use an electronic booking system. Teachers will usually email about specific issues if asked.

Just to add, you may not even ge able to get an appointment with each teacher yourself. We usually booked the key subjects first, then slotted in anything else if we could.

Thanks, just wanted to understand what might be possible. DC's school would be supportive since Ex became hostile to them (and privately the school told me how shocked they were at his behaviour and glad I got away) but I don't want to cause extra issues.

I will just do alternative visits and be grateful that there are no issues with dc.

I've had parents take up 2 slots for one child, one comes early, the other later so they don't see each other. Not very fair though if there are limited appointments

Children usually attend too in exam years at our school. Would that help with ex behaviour if your child was present? And if ex doesn’t come then your child could feedback to other parent? They get detailed written reports too. We have to queue up old style and struggle to get round all the teachers in the time anyway.

I’m not divorced but my DH never attended a parents evening which IMO are slightly pointless especially if you children are doing well. I know some parents like to go over every mark try and establish their position in the class and analyse every comment in the last written report but I didn't and generally they were repeating what was said in the last report. If my DS’s had any problems with a subject they generally weren’t at the same time as parents evenings so required me to contact the teacher via email.