virtual parents evenings?

[RaspberryCoulis]

Just saw another thread on Chat where people are singing the praises of virtual parents' evenings.

I have never heard of such a thing happening in Scotland, certainly not locally here? A zoom parents evening would be amazing! We get the report home with a wee note saying "please contact the office if you would like to speak with your child's guidance teacher".

Hopeless. Last parents' evening was in February. They aren't planning on holding any, for any year groups, all year.

It's strange that councils get involved in parents evenings. I always assumed it was up to the school! But I'm rather new to all this and only worked out this August that not all school holidays in Scotland coincide

We’ve had absolutely no feed back since the kids went back in August. We’re getting a summary sheet next week apparently.

I think it’s shockingly poor, no idea if they’re behind compared to how they were tracking last year given.

No beef with the individual teachers, but given how disruptive the last 10 months have been you’d think that something could’ve been organised.

Midlothian primary school - we got Parents Evening over the phone (from a withheld number). It was fine and I just put the teacher on speaker so DH could listen too. He’d clearly worked out what to say to us and did a very structured chat about DD’s literacy, numeracy, health and well-being and general behaviour. We were supposed to get 10 minutes and I think we were done in 7! I liked it - quick and efficient. No idea whether the teacher was at home or in school - I suspect home. I would have liked Zoom/Teams, but the phone call worked perfectly well. And it’s not like it’s using cutting edge technology that teachers may not know how to operate, either!

No prospect of virtual parent's evening here. Would much prefer that to an additional round of reports. So long as I was in school using school kit . But then I am not sure the tech would cope with us at once . Probably wouldn't bother with DD4's as she's S6 and on track , UCAS application submitted , sore lessons learned this year so has been working really hard since day 1. Weird to think after all these years my involvement will most likely be professional only .

@Callisto1

It's strange that councils get involved in parents evenings. I always assumed it was up to the school! But I'm rather new to all this and only worked out this August that not all school holidays in Scotland coincide

It's not that they get involved in parents' evenings. It's that they put out general guidance to schools in their area, so in March for example East Dunbartonshire said "no live video teaching". In fact, no video at all. So that rules out things like using SchoolCloud to run parents' evenings because they have a blanket ban on teachers appearing on video.

Total inconsistency - if Councils in Highland, or East Lothian, or Borders can work round the issues, everyone should.

I think that is what is generally happening, @Lidlfix, same structure as "normal" parents evenings which run from about 4.30 to 7, teachers would stay in school in their own classroom, staff base, canteen, wherever, hooked up to the software and with parents popping up on screen in the predetermined order.

I have three kids - S1, S4, S6. it's the middle one I am really missing a parents evening for. There's only so much information you get from a written report and it's so much better to be able to talk face to face with the teacher.

To be fair, the school did say that if you want to speak to a teacher then they will facilitate that. But it's not the same as having a parents evening.

Edinburgh, we did ours on teams at work. Some of my friends did phone calls.

North Lanarkshire primary and we had phone conversations with both teachers, went really well, felt focussed and had some really worthwhile discussion in the 10 minutes available.

Thanks @Raspberry for the explanation. I still find it strange it's the council that decides, rather than school and Scots gov.
Would they allow old fashioned phone calls? I find the report sheets we get in primary rather hard to interpret, since they never contain any context or explanation. So it's vital to talk to the teacher to understand whether the DC are doing ok or not.

We had one the other week- not on Zoom but via some other platform. It would have been great but I had a new iPad and we couldn’t hear the teachers for a crackling noise on the line. We got there in the end by switch g to another device 🤣

I think they are great though in concept. No hanging around waiting on the parents before you who have invariably exceeded their time slot, no weak coffee served by sixth formers and no address from the principal which always cuts the entire evening in half.

Hope to see a move to them permanently.....

We had a zoom parents evening in October. It was brilliant. Especially as he started reception this year it was nice to hear his progress and speak to his teachers properly.

I remember parents evening from when I was at school. A long wait in a crowded area with everyone pushing and shoving. And all very public. I hated it. I think virtual ones should be the way forward and stay

We had one for our primary school (fife) I believe we were one of a few schools that were set up as a test. It was good. Went pretty smoothly I think and I appreciated the contact. It was done through some special parents evening app thingy. Haven't had anything from sceondary, DD is S1 so have no experience of parents night at secondary but I believe they are a complete rammy.

We were given the usual useless report which tells you nothing, then invited to ask for a phonecall. Don't know why they couldn't have scheduled one for everyone. The school will not have seen/communicated directly with some parents for nearly a year. Apparently they couldn't do virtual because not everyone had the tech. I get we are in a mixed area but surely they know by now. They could do an outside ( in the gazebo meeting ) for those who genuinely don't. I expect those people would rapidly discover they could use zoom/ teams etc rather than the cold! Have been mightily unimpressed by our school's inability to communicate with us. I'm not a teacher badger ( used to be a teacher myself) but it's the patchy way across the country that is frustrating.

North west England here.

Ours is at primary, phone call from the teacher at a pre-arranged time. We put it on speaker so dh and dd could join in, worked fine. Heard from friends that the high school zoom parents evenings have been great, no waiting around and they'd much prefer to keep it online!

East Lothian here - we were only offered a short written report which wasn’t very helpful. Apparently too many issues to resolve with council and/or school to set up virtual or phone call which was disappointing.

Yes worked great for us, felt a bit like speed dating - after ten minutes the software cut you off and pinged the teacher into the next parent consultation meeting. Quite effective, better than nothing, Prefer face to face though.

It's not comparable to a GP phoning you. If all staff phoned parents using the "outside lines" in a school on the same evening, the system could not support it. Staff can't be asked to use own phones, could do so if they wanted I suppose but if even once you didn't manage to withhold your number it would not be very good at all (do you have your GPs personal number?!)
Video system better as no dialling up etc but many school networks can't support it. Wifi devices more likely to have camera and mic, but wifi is poor. Desktops have a better connection but not all (I know I don't) have a camera or mic. My home equipment is a little better but there are many others in my house, it can be a problem for those with young children. Even in school not everyone has their own classroom or other space to use a computer.
So it is certainly possible, but not always as easy as you might imagine when you scale up to the size of a large secondary school, and is not usually an issue with the skills of the staff but the adequacy of the ICT! And better ICT would require actual money from the government...