how to get something useful out of parents evenings

[muddleduck]

so far they have all gone something like this:

Us: how is ds getting on?
Teacher: really well.

Us: is there anything specific that we could be helping him with?
Teacher: no not really, he's doing fine.

etc etc etc.

truth is he is a very bright little boy who is coasting in most areas but does seem to struggle in other areas. But I can't seem to find a way of getting his teachers to give us constructive feedback. I know that he is doing 'fine' in the sense of where he is relative to his peers, but that isn't really what I want to know.

It feels like the aim of the exercise is to reassure parents rather than provide helpful information.

sorry if I'm rambling.

I posted a list of "Questions to ask the Teacher about Your Child's Maths" which were questions such as "Is there regular mental maths practise?" and "Is there different work for higher/lower ability children?" and "Are parents encouraged/discouraged from helping their child with their maths homework?"
It's best to be REALLY specific. I asked my son's teacher some of the questions at the parent's meeting, then some by email later on, just to spread the load. Also if you attend with your son's dad, then split the questions and ask some each so that one parent doesn't come across as too pushy!
Hope this helps

thanks for that

(btw you may want to check your practice/practise spellings. I don't normally comment on this, but given the time you've spent on this...)

You're welcome! Glad it helped

The whole practise/practice thing is the bane of my blog so far! I had it all sorted out when I started the blog 4 months ago, but then read somewhere that in US English both meanings can be spelt as "practise". I'm a Brit but 70% of my blog audience is in the US, so this gave me a great excuse to be lazy and also my computer and blogging spell checker is set to US settings.

However I think I'll revert back to the UK spellings (either that or totally sell out and change the name of my blog to Math Insider!)

Interesting.
I didn't know about the US thing.

I am American and I only learnt the spelling as practice (with a c) growing up, the difference beween practise/practice is a British thing AFAIK.

We Yanks do have same differences for advice/advise and effect/affect, though.