Teacher has nothing to say about my dd at parents evening

[bissscofff]

Dd attends a local primary school and is currently in year 5. She is greater depth in all subjects, gets on well with friends and classmates and never gets into trouble (sorry not meant to boast, but relevant to the rest of my post). She is happy at school and we've never been pushy parents or asked school to do anything extra with our dd.

We had our second online parents evening last week and the teacher explained what they'd been doing in class and the first few minutes were spent explaining she's doing fine. We asked them if she seems happy with other kids, if she's participating well in class, and the general things to which they replied "yes" without expanding on any of them. We then asked if there's anything she could be working on at home they shrugged their shoulders and replied with a one word "no". We had 4 minutes to spare until the end of the consultation but they decided to end the meeting.

I realise there are other pupils that need the teacher's attention and care more than perhaps dd does, but it just seemed like they didn't know her at all. Surely there is something she can work on as she's not a perfect child. No one is.

Has anyone experienced this, or if there are teachers out there I'd love to know if this is normal.

I taught secondary.

For some students, there's a lot to duscuss. Maybe they are disruptive in class, or behind academically or the opposite, so ahead academically that they need extra provision.

For many kids though, they are fine. The teaching is at the right level for them, they are progressing well, they are not disruptive and they have lots of friends.

In those circumstances it can be hard to know what to say.

I used to prepare a standard speech for parents evening,

I'd start off by asking if therewas anything specific the parents wanted to talk about (as like you we had 5 mins). If not, I'd talk about the subject generally and mention the extra resources we had in the website in case their child was interested in reading around the subject.

Honestly, they're doing fine is the best sort of parents evening.

I went to one of these in year 1 about my DS and halfway through it became apparent she was talking about another child. She laughed it off with "well, they do look similar ".
In year 6 another teacher said about him "I thought he was just one of the quiet ones but he's not, is he? He turns out to have a great sense of humour and is fiendishly clever" 🙄 I was inwardly raging on behalf of the "quiet ones" and horrified that it had taken them so long to work out his academic capability.

Go in armed with your own questions. This is your one chance to chat in a meaningful way about your child with the person who is with them for most of the week.

A friend of mine went to her daughter’s parents evening when she was in junior school. The teacher gave her the run down of how she was doing etc. It wasn’t until the end of the meeting the parents realised she was talking about the wrong child 😳

This isn’t what you would expect at all. From what you have outlined from your experience, I’d say this says more about the teacher than your daughter.
I’m not teacher bashing at all (retired teacher)
Sounds like the teacher may have been tired, overwhelmed or even unwell. I know this doesn’t help you.

Was the first Parent meeting more informative?
Timings are always tight and it is rare to end a meeting early. Sounds like you had to lead it really.

Is the teacher with the class every day? If so you’d expect more in-depth knowledge maybe about her contribution generally in school, her personality etc.
In Y5 you also might have been asked about any concerns about next year, secondary choices etc.
Children who are working at greater depth can put themselves under a lot of pressure to succeed. It is clear that you haven’t been pushy.
Primary parent meetings are very different to Secondary school subject specific ones.

If you see the teacher or can email maybe say you were a bit surprised by the lack of information. Hopefully the end of year report will be more thorough. A long time to wait though.

Well there is nothing to say is there? All is fine. No work probs no behaviour probs. Great. Stop worrying. Rejoice.

You are lucky my sons capabilities went unnoticed throughout his secondary school life. Now a very successful , hard working business owner.

We had a GCSE year secondary teacher say I set homework and your child completes it and gets full marks (maths) he puts his hand up in class, he is polite, happy to do peer on peer teaching to other children. What more can I say? Which is very true what more can a teacher say?

Having had 2 children go through primary, secondary, sixth form and uni and having volunteered in a primary school in years 2-5, mainly years 4 and 5 for 15 years I can tell you that some children are just very teachable. There is no point pushing them too far ahead as it just results in being bored at school. Greater depth is brilliant, so just keep on doing whatever it is you are doing and don't worry about it. You can do lots of wider stuff at home that has nothing to do with the curriculum and just feed into whatever your DD is interested in.

The format for the primary was to give them 3 things they could work on and they can choose 2 of them. I know for a fact that they struggled to even come up with 1 thing to improve on for Ds2 from year 5 onwards because I was in school and saw his teacher. He was greater depth, had a reading age of 16+ in year 6, aced out his SATs, so they can't really ask for anything more, it was more keep up whatever you are doing at home.

Some children could fill up a 20 minute parent/teacher chat with behaviour, attitude, talking back, thinking rules don't apply to them, disrupting the class, spitting, hitting, punching, swearing, licking faces, arms, hands of other students. Yes all of these occur in the outstanding primary I was in. Other students are happy, have lovely friends, are kind to everyone, thoughtful, get their work done and enjoy learning and being in school. Be thankful yours falls into the latter category.

my kid is still a vanilla kid. He is a good boy, does everything on time, completes learning etc. All way through school as he’s now Y11 nobody has much to say about him apart from they love him and want more kids to be the same.

the only thing I would follow up on is targets. As even if greater depth there is always something to do. Wider reading, problem solving in maths eg open ended questions with lots of solutions. You aren’t supposed to just say targets from next year as that means kids gets bored but stretch them wider.

I was a teacher for 20 years and there is always something to improve

If she's greater depth in everything and settled well socially, what more do you expect them to say?

I had a lot of children who were doing fine. However I always found something about their work to compliment them on. As an English teacher I could praise their confidence in discussion, talk about the strength in their last writing piece and gave parents a suggestion of reading material to stretch them, if that was what was appropriate. There is always something to share with parents.

Ok for a start she is working to what she needs to be doing the teacher will not have extra things for her to work on. If she is meeting her criteria why would you want to push any more on her. If she already has a great depth of understanding. Then it's on you to push her to do more if that's what you want not the school or teacher who already has more than enough to lesson plan for.

My DS managed the whole of secondary school without so much as disturbing the dust. All his teachers said of him was that he was quiet.

Really it would be lovely if schools could help every child reach their true potential but the the reality is with numbers and resources they just want everyone to be average. So if you child is meeting expectations, getting along well with other kids and not causing trouble they aren’t going to spend too much time thinking about them or talking about them.

This is the reason I don't go to primary school parents evenings any more. My 4 were all much like your DD - well behaved and performing well. It always felt like the teacher was scrambling for something to say. I don't mind not going, trust that if there are any major issues, they'll be raised with me at the time, rather than waiting 6 months til the next parents evening anyway.

However, my youngest DD parents eve was last week and (as usual) I didn't book an appointment. Unusually, I got an email from the office, noting that I hadn't booked one and offering a phone call. I said yes OK thinking perhaps the teacher had something he wanted to discuss.....but was exactly the same as your experience, with lots of gaps and pauses and not much content. A waste of both our times essentially!

I got used to this with my daughter, but now I've realised I'm better to think about what I or she are worried about, than to expect the teacher to find something. So I know my daughter isn't the greatest at speaking up in front of strangers etc (shy ordering food in cafes, goes quiet in front of relatives we don't see often). So I raised that and the teacher agreed to find her some little class jobs that would get her speaking a bit more to the whole class. That made parents evening worthwhile and I'll probably try it as a technique again. Also, if there are any entrance exams or 11 plus in your area you might want to discuss that at the next evening?

Some kids just don’t cause trouble OP - they just rock up and get on with the work and will do well - I have one of each variety ! I’ve had many parents evenings where we’ve finished online sessions early - some teachers are just more talkative than others . I’d be more concerned at senior school as our local one don’t push on the bright kids they try and get the below average up to average . If there is Grammar near you definitely aim for it

One word answers is pretty poor, bordering rude. I would expect a minimum of highlighting one specific thing done/going well and one thing they could do extra work towards even if that is a higher level additional credit task like ‘they might want to consider entry to the science competition this year as this would solidify learning being completed in class’. No one should accept a total lack of next steps suggestions as how do you then as a parent know how to support their learning outside of school.

As a teacher, I'd say this was a bit shabby, but then I'm quite outgoing and confident speaking to people, and would be adding in extra info about how the child was in general ie. socially, organisation, team player etc or about any other skills I may have noticed. But I guess if the teacher is shy/quiet by nature, this 'chat' may not come naturally... As a PP has said, best to go in armed with questions, then you can force some more info out of them. On balance though, it sounds like you have nothing to worry about.

For a primary school teacher I think that’s quite poor. For a secondary drama class I see once per week I have really struggled to think of much to say at times.

I would take it and walk away if she is happy in school. If you want to do stuff at home find topics not covered at school that give her greater depth and teach her how to research and look up info digitally and with books and explore them in her own way. I would maybe look at some of the systems thinking work and see if there is lower level of stuff to take her through to understand how that works, critical thinking and thinking for herself to counter future fake news etc teach her to see through the actions of others and find out their motives and gains etc.

I was never more proud of my daughter when were discussing marketing and the role of SM etc and she out and out stated "its all a form of manipulation, you kind of have to look at several sources and make your own mind up" Spade is a shovel girl

It sounds like she’s just plodding away nicely. Not too overwhelmed, but doesn’t need to be stretched further. Most children are like this really there are only a handful of geniuses or naughty ones!

I've met a number of teachers at parents' evenings who seemed a little jaded as if they couldn't wait to get rid of you (and your off-spring). They've usually put a hard day's grind in before they talk to you. Teaching can be thankless, especially with all the admin and box-ticking required. Sometimes they just ain't bovvered - and can't muster the strength to hide it.

This.
That was how parents evenings were at primary school for DS1. Well behaved, no issues, working well, achieving what was expected, good marks etc - literally nothing needed changing. I was happy. DS2 was a different matter - lots to say about him - and trust me, that’s not fun as a parent!
Be happy OP.

Sounds like she's very middle of the road, not amazing and not terrible.