What time does your children's school schedule parent's meetings?

[Madsometimes]

Some working parent's at our school have asked for parent's meetings to be scheduled at more convenient times for them. At the moment they are scheduled between 4 and 6:30pm. Our head teacher says that he has to balance the needs of working parents with his responsibility as an employer to his teachers who already work very hard. I am inclined to agree with our head because I think his primary concern should be the children and his staff. If the school is kept open until 9pm for meetings then the working day is very long for staff who come in at 7:30am. It can also be difficult for single parents.

However, I also think that certain meetings eg. PTA, residential trip information meeting are not well attended and some parents who would like to attend cannot do so.

How does your school balance staff and parental needs and do you think they do a good job? Ours is a single form entry state school, so relatively few staff and a low budget. I would love feedback from both working parents and teachers as I am neither, so I'm not sure what to think.

Or should that be parents' evening?????

I think 3.30 - 7.30pm, and there is cooked dinner for a ridiculously cheap price so you don't have to rush about trying to get home from work, feed children, do parents evening, bedtime etc.

Ours is 2 form

Oh I think it is twice a year, and you can arrange other times if you can't make it

ds's old school was 3-5.30 and 6-8 on two different days separated by a week. You could pick the ones you wanted. School closed at 2pm both days.

Poor teacher was knackered, but parent's evenings were well attended.

New school is 2-6, different days for different years, and school looks after the children until closing time.

Malory meetings

Sorry forgot page number..it is a very long and boring document, but page 85, top 3 points............

Parents meetings about trips, PTA meetings etc are usually 7 or 7.30

Parents sessions about parts of the curriculum are during the afternoon unless a few parents actually request an evening one.

Teacher/Parents evenings are over 2 days one from 3.30-5 and the second from 5-8

Usually keeps everyone happy

Teachers are working parents too.

When the DDs were at infant school the appointments were never in the evenings and the teachers would have a day of non contact to see the parents. I just had to take the time off which is probably more difficult for me being a teacher than other people who can take time off when they want.

It's a hard one to keep everyone happy but daytime appointments are particularly difficult.

ours are always over two days first day 3.30-7 and next day 6-8pm

Between 3.30 and 6 on the Wed, and 6 and 8.30 on Tuesday.

It seems fine to me. It's only 2 nights a year.

Big school, over 300 pupils, PEs over 2 dates on separate weeks (usually different days of the week, too, tho not this year). One day will be 3:20-5:30pm, other day will be 5pm-7:30pm.

Sometimes all children within a partic yr group having PEs, their work is laid out in one room for parents to peruse, then the actual meeting with teacher is in another room. I think this works well for confidentiality, letting spare children roam without interrupting, etc.

What they did last year which I loved, would like to see again, was a kind of open hour one afternoon (3-4pm), where parents could come in and just have a look at the work child had done, ask informal questions.

PTA is 3:15-4pm after school, random dates, although PTA AGM is usually about 2-3pm on a school day.

i teach in a small village primary

we have 3 sets of parents consults a year
1 early day 3.30-5.30 - no break after school
1 late day 5.00 -8.00 dont get home til 9 and back in school the next morning by 8am. The days are in the same week and are really tiring.

yes its not every week but it is for 6 days out of the year. We do need to have them and it is necessary for them to be later in the evening otherwise some parents would never be ableto come

pity the school doesnt seem to think it is unreasonable to expect teachers to run afterschool clubs, attend staff meetings, do lunch duty and drive the minibus on these weeks too

before you start complaining about when appointments are, consider that teachers are people too with lives of their own and a need for a work/life balance. They can only do so much and still be effective the next day as your child's teacher.