School cancel English teachers parents evening as too much demand!

[maddiemo]

My ds1 is in year 7. We only have one parents evening in a year although there are two sugeries held earlier in the year if you have a specific problem. The English teacher teaches three subjects and appointments are made on a first come first served basis. All the appointments went straight away and many parents have been left without an appointment. Parents have complained to the school and now the school has cancelled all the teachers appointments for the night.
I did have an appointment and am angry that this has been cancelled. Surely knowing that he teaches three subjects the school should have had the foresight to predict this happening and made provsion for furher appointments. My dh has taken time off work to attend as appointments start at four and I have had to arrange babysitting for the children. The only person that can babysit is my mum as ds3 has autism and ds4 is just plain hard work.
Although the school has said we can contact them to arrange to see the English teacher another day there is no way I can take the children with me and mum is not local and has to travel to babysit.
I really will need to see English teacher as ds1 is 2/3 years behind.

I think I will email school and explain why it is so hard for me to rearrange.
Has this happened to anyone else? Is this the way secondary schools work?

Rant over.

Aww - Poor you

Parents evenings are soooo wonderful.

At my DD's school, the teachers tick a box on the report if THEY want to see YOU! You can of course list any other teachers you want to see. A form for this is sent home with the report, delivered back by pupil mail, and then you are TOLD what times your appts are. It does work though, which considering the sixe of her school (240+ per year) must be a nightmare to timetable.

Good luck

In our secondary the kids have a booking sheet and we have a time sheet. The kids ask for times and you write them in the kids sheet and book them into yours. First come, first served. We do them on lower school/ upper school/ sixthfor basis, so the most I could have in one session is 4 classes of about 20 each, so potentialy 80 people wanting appointments. In practice you tend to get about 20% attendance. You can also bet your last pound that the kids who's parents you need to see will never attend.

We had a similar system to hmb's. We did arent's evenings for each year group, adnd then made parent's evening appointments on a mixed basis of some first come first served, plus some I would pick out as ones I definitely wanted to see - and made them too. The most appointments I could make for a night was 30 (5 minute intervals). couldn't see every parent, as many teachers couldn't. But they were never canclled entirely - confused as to the reasoning behind it TBH.

Thank you.

Milliways That sounds like a good system.

Hmb At our school parental interest is high so I would expect the school to know that they would need to allocate enough time. If there is a problem{with behaviour} the school is on the phone like a shot to parents and if parents don't cooperate they are told their child is at the wrong school.
We were told by the Headteacher at a meeting when ds1 was in year 5 that it was not a school for any child that wanted to disrupt another childs education.
I know how lucky we are that disruptive behaviour and can't be bothered parents are not really an issue at the school.

Hula They have cancelled due to number of parents that have complained that it is not fair if they can not be seen. If they can't see everyone they won't see anyone.

Still seems very odd. One compromise I had at my first school (where parent's evening was popluar) was that if I couldn't see a parent, I would either

(a) make an appointment for another time - either in school time or immediately after school, or
(b) arrange a time to telephone them to chat, or
(c) pass my comments onto either head of year or form tutor, for him/her to pass on my comments to parents on the night, or
(d) write down a few comments on a slip of paper (or in pupil's homework diary thing) and pass it on that way.