March again parents' evening month.......

[sunsout]

No more NC levels! So what questions to ask your school in order to get the right answers about your dc?

E.g. Is my dc ahead? Or behind? How far?........

Should we consider grammar school?.......

What do you ask your dcs' teachers?......

Not sure I have ever worked this out or ever got much out of parents' evening. Just had parents' evening for dd in Yr 6. As she already knows which senior school she is going to, it all seemed a bit pointless this time around.

I do ask if the dcs are going OK and where they sit in the class. What their weakness are. What the school is doing to address what I perceive their problems to be.

We've had our last primary school parents' evening and we asked...nothing.

DD seems to be doing well enough so we just didn't see the point any more!

Exactly what we felt Clayhead - I did wonder why we had actually bothered going.

As an ex-teacher, I'm still rubbish at parent evenings! I think 'what can we work on next?' is always a good one. I wouldn't worry about how far ahead/behind they are, but perhaps ask if they are at an expected level.

We were not allowed to advise on grammar schools by our head after a parent tried to sue the school because a teacher said their child would get into grammar and they then didn't. They claimed they would have moved house to get into a better comp if they'd known!

DC are in Reception and Y1. I sent DH to our last parents' evening (ours are termly) and he asked how they were getting on socially and what we could work with them on at home, both of which proved useful to know.

As a teacher, I've always thought it was my responsibility to give that info and wouldn't expect to have to be asked.

I start off by asking if parents have anything that they want to ask, but that's usually a query about how behaviour is going, or a friendship issue that has arisen. That sort of thing.
After that chat, I'll tell parents whether children are below/at/above expectations for core subjects, what their particular strengths are and what the child's next steps are and how the parents can support at home.
I wouldn't expect parents to have to ask me that sort of stuff.

My dd went to the same primary school where I teach, and her teachers always did pretty much the same thing as I do. She's in year 7 now, and at her parent interview the teachers were prepared with plenty of info for us.