How many parents evenings?

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

My DC's school is a state primary (England). We have 2 parents evenings a year, one around Nov and one around March. We are free to make appointments with the teachers as necessary in between, but if you do that too often you feel as though you are being pushy.

Going from March to November without a parents evening feels like a very big gap to me, I would ideally like a third one after reports come out but they don't come out till the very end of summer term, just wondered what happens in other schools.

If your child is ON the SEN register I would see you once a term, minimum.

He is, yes, has been on SA+ since Yr R. I have an NT DD there too.

2 formal parents evenings here too - plus the option to discuss the report if you want to. I've only needed to do that twice out of 13 reports.

Sometimes I've kept in touch with the teacher in between times when there's been a specific issue we've agreed to work on. And I've never worried about approaching the teacher about my dc with (mild) SEN.

Apologies for the shouty on! Not sure what happened there. :)

We had three parents' evenings a year; October; February and one in July after the reports had gone home, to 'discuss issues.' One mother came to my last one, three the previous year; three hours after school in a stuffy classroom waiting. Think teacher would prefer it if you made an appointment to discuss; not unreasonable, as long as it is 'concerns', not, 'well, how is he doing?'

Good to hear it from the teacher's POV, I had thought maybe I was being a pain asking for ad hoc meetings, sounds as though it is actually better than an extra parents eve.

Sounds like plenty

You only get one a year at secondary.

I'd rather ad hoc parents evenings as I can do them before school or late afternoon. A full parents evenings means two late nights, which always run beyond the 8pm finish time and I'm always clock watching to try and keep on time so the next parent isn't kept waiting. It is much more productive to have ad hoc meetings.

As an aside, teachers have "directed time", which is the number of hours a head can dictate that they are working in school. We have to calculate carefully as by the time you have added direct contact teaching hours, before and after school time (in my case 8.30 - 8.45 and 3.00 - 3.30), staff meetings, INSET, evening events, curriculum evenings and parents evenings twice a year we are already just over those hours. That doesn't include all the non-directed hours we do in school and at home. The head cannot insist on extra parents evenings if it takes teacher over their directed hours. Maybe this the reason many schools don't have more full parents evenings.