Parents evening primary

[Chickenstick]

What do you actually talk about? I see parents chatting with the teacher for ages and they speak at the end of the day. I barely have any interaction with the teachers and parents evening consists of 'everything's fine, do you have any questions'.. it can be over in literally a couple of minutes. Genuinely, I have nothing I can think to ask, my children tell me anything going on, they are progressing as expected (I know this and they read well and knew their spellings well) .. so how can I prolong my parents evening as I think I must see uninterested but I literally have no concerns..??

Are you not curious about things they do at school?

DD is in Y1 so my questions for next parents evening:

• The books she brings home are a bit easy for her, will they be moved on to free reading or move more quickly through book bands when the phonics scheme ends?
• When does the phonics scheme end?
• Where is DD with regard to the end of year phonics screening?
• How is she doing in maths and is there anything (number bonds to 20, counting in 2s/10s, telling the time?) that she could do with more practise at home in?
• How are her friendships? She sometimes complains that she doesn't have many friends but the other parents have heard from their children that she's very popular and they often talk about playing with her.

One of my children tells me everything without being asked, the other needs asking. For both of them, I find it useful to talk to the teacher about one or two of the more significant issues that they have talked about and ask them how that went from their perspective (because usually the child has misunderstood something, but even if not the context is useful).
For example, the children were allowed to choose one person to be on their table with whom they work well. My daughter chose a boy she gets on well with and has sat with before (she knows her best friends talk too much in class and never sits with them). She said when she said his name, the teacher laughed and said it was a big old lie. I will ask the teacher about this diplomatically because firstly I think my daughter has misunderstood something, and secondly because I think it's useful to know whether my daughter's own perception of who she works well with is the same as the teacher's.
I also think it's good to ask stuff if your child is well-behaved and average or above average but not at the top of the class. These kids get ignored so much.

So for me
I ask for other ideas of how I can help with learning- if it's before a holiday are they doing a particular bit of British history- we will look to go and explore the area, or see where the fire if London has started etc (child isn't always reliable at telling me- and she is yr1 and if she has seen someone talking about natural history museum, science museum etc she wants to go there).
Where she is in terms of phonics- why they can't just push her on to free reading (currently finished read write ink) and doing quiz books which she finds boring and has a daily comprehension test about- so can't even pretend we have read it
Often about some friends- she will have often told me an elaborate story of x leaving her out of y doing such a and such. So I ask for clarity
Also she is an august born- 5 in yr 1- so anything else I can help her with emotionally or any skills that they feel she is lacking in...
She is also at the top of the class so I ask about how they are pushing her- she tends to gravitate to helping with and calming sen children which is great (and she has been fab at this since she was 2.5) but it does tend to mean she doesn't get stretched

Speaking as a teacher, PLEASE do not feel the need to unnecessarily prolong a parent's evening! If they're happy, you're happy and the teacher is happy, then head on home and enjoy something more fun.

As you can see from this thread, teachers will never be short of parents with any number of queries about their children - some valid, some inane - so never feel the need to add to that if you don't want to.

I have never had much to chat about with either of mine (one now in secondary). They’re doing well, have lovely friends, well behaved. We have a look at their books, done in 5 minutes.

But there are parents who have children who are not doing well, are struggling socially, who have behavioural issues. Those ones discuss that.

There are also those parents who seem to NEED to talk to the teacher, every day, first thing and end of the day too about something that happened yesterday or the school trip next week that is making them (the parent) have panic attacks or the school jumper that is missing or what time the cake sale is or that question on this week’s homework they don’t understand. Those parents no doubt could corner the teacher for hours. They’re the reason the sessions are intentionally short and one after the other.

I think it depends on your kid. I usually ask about my daughters social interactions and friendship group. She's really struggled with bullying and peer interaction. I also ask if there's anything I can doing at home to support her learning. Academically, I'm not worried.

Sample questions froM ours -

Are there ways we could extend him/her in X area? Seems to enjoy Y author - what would you recommend reading next?
Friendship with A and B seem super strong - what do you notice more broadly about other friendships?
what are they like with helping others with work/play?
How could we push a bit further in Z?
and so on

The phonics questions are a waste of time...

The phonics books taken home are supposed to be easy. You can tell where she is in regards to screening by the book levels she's on. It will end when she "passes" the screening and the phonics teacher can see she's a fluent reader with good comprehension. That could be at Easter, it might take until Christmas, it really depends on how your daughter does...

Jesus wept wait to they get to secondary school and you are queing to speak to ten teachers. Some parents could talk and talk with no regard for the 40 people behind them. I got through some teachers in less than a minute. Teachers “He is doing great or needs to work or needs to work on A,B,and C” Me -“ok that’s fab/ or we will work on that”I would ask a question about if he was behaving well in class and that was it. Move on. Honestly do not feel less of a parent for not asking ten thousand questions. You know your own child and if teacher is happy just move on. Teachers probably wishes every child was like yours and every parent was like you!

Quite obviously, not everyone’s child will be having such an easy time at school. If you’re happy I don’t think you need worry about what to ask. One of my children is always quite quick, the other takes ages as I do have a lot to concerns and she has some SEN.

But for reference, I always ask about behaviour and attitude as much as attainment. I ask what else I can do at home to help solidify learning, or stretch them in areas that they’re doing well.

I ask about friendships and class dynamics.

I ask what’s coming up in the next term.

I'm always intrigued when people say their children are 'top of their class' in primary school. What do you mean? Does your school have rankings in reception? Have they been tested and the marks published in order? Is your child brilliant at every subject so they are officially better than everyone else overall? How can you possibly know that your child is so superior to the other 29 in the class?! I genuinely don't know what people mean. My kids are where they should be at their age according to their teachers and enjoy learning. Beyond that I have no idea how they sit in a list of 30 children, not do I think it's in any way important at age 6!

Well, if you talk to the teacher regularly you can find out where they are compared with expectations in each area. If your child is reading and maths 2+ years ahead of expectation then you will know about it. However speaking as a Sen parent, there will be other areas where they are 2+ years behind expectations. I think it's more important to talk to the teachers regularly in that case, I've always been thanked by teachers for even things down to the level of "child didn't sleep well and refused to eat breakfast, I had to drag them physically out the front door this morning" or "they were unmanageable after school and they failed to clean their teeth and slept in their clothes". Teachers are likely to have no idea what happens at home, and I'm often equally surprised by what happens at school. We have had a lot of reasonable adjustments put into place as a result of repetitive conversations that happened almost every day at times.

So back to the OP,I think if your child is enjoying school and you have no concerns then it's a great thing that you have not much to say! I wish I had nothing to discuss.

That's not how the school phonics scheme works and the questions are not a waste of time but thanks for the input.

All phonics schemes send home easy books...

If you want to give her a more difficult read, then just read other books from wherever.

How else do they move book bands if they don't do some sort of screening?

I'm talking about the end of Y1 phonics screening, not continuous assessment. I believe my daughter won't have any issues but if they do fail it can be quite disruptive in Y2, so I want to make sure I'm aware in advance if that's likely.

Phonics is taught as a whole class and all the children are kept on the same book band.

Currently we stretch her with harder books at home but we would like to know when this will be reflected in her school books.