Questions to ask at reception parents evening

[sallythesheep73]

I have DS2's reception parents evening this week. What are the pertinent questions to ask?

Thankyou.

Is he behaving appropriately, is there anything he needs to work on/help with, is he mixing well with the other children.

We don't know your child!
Is he enjoying school? Is he making friends? Does anything about school life upset or worry him? Or worry you? Is he making progress with reading and writing and numbers? Is he happy to do any homework set? Do you understand what they're doing well enough to support him? (questions for you to think about, not for you to ask!)

Most parents' evenings I've been to so far the teachers had a very clear idea of what they wanted to tell me, so I didn't need to ask questions really, just react to what I was told. But I have had a list of a few things I wanted to make sure got addressed. Usually the teacher covered them all without prompting anyway.

Parents evening lasts for all of 5 mins at our school. You get to look at their workbooks after talking to the teacher but they have a print out of objectives and where they are and they say how they are doing socially. I didn't need to ask questions as the teacher had everything bullet pointed on paper already for me and stuff to take away to help with phonics etc.

I tend to ask the teacher what they think and see what they say. It can be revealing how much they know my child (it is also not unknown for them to muddle children up). Question then depend on what they say. They like to be positive so I also like to ask what needs to be worked on.

Ask your child if there's anything they wants to bring up, anything they like/dislike, or anything that they would like changing. Then bring it up.

I'd add to ask about how you feel your child is progressing against what the school's expectations are for Reception goals for phonics, maths, reading, writing. Is there anything else you should be doing to support at home?

I usually let the teacher say their piece (they always have a prepared spiel) and then ask:

Are they behaving well?
What can we do at home to support you?
Any other question that arises from what they’ve said.