Parents' Evenings

[ky007]

Hi All,

How many Parents' Evenings do your children's schools offer per year? When do you think the best time of year to have them is, and has anyone come across any alternatives that worked well.

My little one starts year 3 at a new school next year, and currently they only have a parent-teacher meeting in the Spring term. This seems a long time to wait for feedback for a new child to the school?! There are reports each term, and a big open morning in September, but just wondering what other people's experiences are. I know teachers are busy people so wondered also if anyone has had any other good experiences later in the first term, which aren't perhaps as intense as a full parent meeting for each child.

I know I can have a one-to-one anytime (and the school are very good at arranging these if there is even a whiff of concern), but there must be others that would feel the same?

Thanks in advance,

The primary school where I teach has 2 a year - 1 in the Autumn and 1 in the Spring. The first one is at the beginning of November. That gives enough time for children to settle in, the teacher to really get to know them and for the teacher to see whether they are on track to be where they should be at the end of the year. But it's early enough in the year to make parents aware of any concerns and for teachers and parents to talk about ways to support a child.

DD's school does quite a lot:

Parents' evening in October
Report in December
Parents' evening in February
Report at Easter
Report in July
'Learning showcase' (open classroom, look at books, chat to teacher informally) a few days after the report comes out.

We have parents' evening just after October half term, which seems very reasonable. Teacher has had a chance to get to know the children, assess, set goals, become aware of difficulties.

However then we get a end-of-year type report in March, when a parents' evening would be very useful to review how things have gone and discuss how to continue for the final term of the school year.

And we get a parents' evening in the second-to-last week of the school year, which is completely and utterly pointless. But no report. As we got a report in March y'know? So we never actually have a year-end report but instead get to talk to the teacher who we will never see again about what might have been done differently in the last 9 months...

The official-report years (YR/Y2/Y6) get the parents' evening in March and the report in July. Because, well, the end-of-year report is statutory so if they did one in March like for the other years, they would end up having to do two reports.

It very much feels like the school wants to impart as little information as possible, because informed parents might ask questions! Such as, how can I support my child! We can't be having that, can we.

End of Year report will be sent out towards the end of the penultimate week of this term and Parents' Evening will be at the beginning of the last week of term - which seems quite late. However we also receive a mini-report in the second-half of both Autumn and Spring terms and a follow up Parents' Evening after each mini report with a chance to look through the dc'sworkbooks etc. Both the Headteacher and Deputy Head are available, at all three Parents' Evenings.

We have one parents' evening per term. We also have two full, written reports per year. Finally we have an online progress report once per term (shortly before parents' evening) This actually covers quite a lot. It shows whether children are working towards/secure/exceeding in the main subject areas (with guidance on where they should be at each point - e.g. working towards is fine at the start of the year, but aiming for secure or exceeding by the end). There is a further breakdown of specific skills - so for example a child may be secure overall, but exceeding at certain areas in a subject and these will be shown, often with photographic evidence to back it up. We also get results of any tests on there, plus a report on effort levels (whether they are working to full potential etc). It is basically a report of the continuous assessment framework that staff are using, so although it must be a fair amount of work recording it all, it's only what is required to be recorded anyway, if that makes sense. This is a private school though.

We have one every term. A mid year report at the spring term one and end of year report in summer.

We had 2 a year in DS's Primary. One in October and then another in April with an end of year report.

I guess it depends on how the child is doing, it was fine for us but I would have expected them to contact me if there were any problems and so forth.

We got two, one in October then one in Feb. We also get an open day in July where you can see their work. Report is sent out week before open day but I already know some results as had a 1 to 1 this term with teacher due to ds’ Sen.
I can also can request to see a teacher after school and have three times this year, can also request senco appt and done that too.

Thanks all, really helpful!

Some have 2, and some have 3. the one having 3 used to have one at end of Summer term, and realised it was pointless, so cut down to two.
One in October and one in about March. Long enough for the dc to be settled and the staff to know them, but still with plenty of time to make a difference if changes were needed.

One in Autumn, one in Spring, reports in Summer, and then a drop in for anyone who wants to talk about reports the Monday after the Friday reports go out.