1st parents evening - what should I be asking?

[fritata]

have our first parents evening since DD started school - what should we be asking the teacher?

just whatever you want to know....

Let's assume a happy settled child will thrive. Do you think DD is happy and settled? Does she talk to you about her friends or do you need to ask the teacher about these? Will your child be at the meeting too? Are you basically happy with the school and ready to trust the teacher?

IME if your child is basically doing fine, you will get no really useful feedback from the teacher about one or two areas to focus on unless you really push for these. And there is a broad range of ability captured by the "doing fine" standards of reception. So how pushy a parent are you, or do you want to be? I think that "just one thing" we could do at home to support the school was not all that pushy, myself.

Tomorrow I fully expect to be told that DS2's handwriting has improved. This is true. It is also true that his writing is apppalling - he thinks writing is dull and his fine motor skills aren't great. However there are other areas where he's doing really well, so I believe he is doing well enough. I'm ready to be pretty relaxed about academic standards for a five year old.

HTH