Not enough time to see all the parents on parent's night?

[var123]

Is this ok or not? The teacher has 18 appointment slots and 30 children. Its an important subject that matters to everybody so almost all parents want an appointment.

So the teacher has allocated appointments to just over half the parents and told the other children that their parents can get an email update if they want one.

Its year 8 so not a GCSE year, but more important than any other that has gone before.

I teach 3 x yr 7 (90 students), 2 x yr 8 (60 students), 3 x yr 9 (90 students), 2 x yr 10 GCSE (40 students), 2 x yr 11 (45 students) plus 6th form. We have 1 evening a year per year group - as you can see from the numbers it is physically impossible to see every parent. Whilst we offer a first come first served I do prioritise the parents I want to see; others are told if I have appointments left then I would more than welcone them, over wise they can email or take it that their DC is working well

cricketballs - I think the answer may be in the question, but how do you know that there isn't an issue unless you speak to the parents or child at some point?

How do you know that the children whose parents you don't see and never speak to haven't got something they could tell you that you ought to know? e.g. the DC struggle massively with the homework, or are finding the work a bit unchallenging? Not all children will volunteer info by sticking their hand up in class (including DS1, unfortunately).

Var - in answer to your questions from marking and assessing during the lesson

Var123 if you or your child have an issue, surely you would bring it to the attention of the teacher outside of parents' evening anyway? Meeting the teacher on the evening is very useful but it's only one way of contacting them or discussing issues. Very often, if there is an issue, you don't necessarily want to discuss it in an open hall with the noise at football stadium level and someone's handbag whacking you on the back of the head as they squeeze past.

My issue is I want to ask how my Ds is coping wrt to a learning disability. He is twice exceptional so sometimes it isn't picked up on i.e. the cleverness offsets the disability and the disability offsets the cleverness making his work good enough overall, if he was aiming for average performance.

The SEN dept were supposed to have told all the teachers. Maybe they have and he's genuinely doing ok. Or he could be turning in average work and the teacher hasn't realised that he's much more able than that. Its anyone's guess which it is when all the school offers is "we'll contact you if we have anything to say"?

I'm a bit at a parents' evening system that only allows teachers to see 18 pupils... Unless it's a private school and that's the general class size?

Also, at KS3 a child might have 15 or so subjects, so will you have to be there for 2.5 hours?!

My boys have always been in state schools: parents evening generally at least 4 hrs long for most teachers. Appointment slots are 3-5 mins each; teachers with two classes - 60 children - are expecting to see everyone who wants a slot.

In KS3 they usually come home with messages from teachers in subjects like music, dance, drama, art... saying the teacher teaches 7 yr8 classes, so is unable to see everyone in a single evening. If you want a slot, please book one; but if you have no particular issues, please don't bother; if you have a small issue/query that could be clarified by phone or email, please do so.

Var - targets are set which are based on numerous things (SEN does not affect targets, for example I have a student who is in my form who has ASD, but very intelligent, his targets are all A*/A, whereas my own DS has ASD and LD; his targets are a lot lower) therefore if your DS wasn't working towards his target you would know - I'm guessing that he is if teachers gave not been in contact, requested to see you

Roisin - I work at a state school, please read my earlier post re teaching load and parents evenings

I do think part of the problem here is the 10 min long slot. I teach a state secondary and our slots are 5 mins, as they were at my last school, that allows me to see at least one whole class per parents evening, those year groups where i have 2 classes are obviously more of a problem.
And var, we do speak to the kids in class and have a pretty good knowledge of them. Not putting their hand up isn't necessarily a big issue, his teacher should still know about his capabilities, limitations and SEN

I had a phone conversation with the teacher yesterday (at my request in lieu of not being able to get the appointment). The teacher is absolutely lovely.

She started by saying that he is a model pupil, very intelligent etc and that she had no concerns about him as he is in the top set and turning out work that is slightly above the midline of the class.

However, although she did know about DS's sen diagnosis, she wasn't aware of the impact it was having on pulling down his grades (because he's doing reasonably well anyway). Also, she wasn't aware that he's supposed to get extra time in exams.

I think she was genuinely shocked when she realised what she's missed, but when she looked through his work file and saw the evidence for herself, she did agree with me that what he knows is not making its way onto the paper.

Sometimes, information needs to flow in 2 directions, which is why I think its wrong to decide that, as teachers, you already have all the relevant facts and therefore don't need to speak to the parents.

Saying that, I do understand that you will be making a good call at least 90% of the time, and there is only 24 hours in a day. I am not criticising you, just pointing out that its a mistake to assume that you already know all that you need to.

This has happened to us as well OP. The teachers have always been happy to answer any questions by email for parents they have been unable to see.
Unfortunately it's not just a Y8 problem, we also had problems in Y9 which was even more annoying as dd was considering taking this subject for GCSE.
It's not usually the individual teachers fault though as they are not responsible for deciding the teaching groups or timetable.

Had parents' evening last week - y7. No appointments here. We collected copy of progress report and room locations and went and queued to see individual teachers. Saw all but 4 in about 2 hours (splitting up for some).

Predictably queues greatest for Maths, English and Science.

Worked quite well I thought. Poor teachers looked very tired but were still engaging and seemed to actually know who DS was, so I was impressed.

I emailed the 4 I didn't get to in case they had anything to share.

Appointment system sounds pants!

We don't have appointments at our either. we managed to see 14 out of the 15 teachers. Most you only need a couple of minutes with, and those you need longer with, other parents don't need as much and it all balances out. All done in 2.5 hours. We had appointments for the form tutor.

If he has SEN can you not get an appointment with the SEN department? I found I got a lot more out of the hour we spent with dd's learning support teacher & her guidance teacher than through the 5 mins with the subject teachers. It also enabled the learning support team to feed information back to the subject teachers.

We did the SEN stuff a couple of months ago. They don't have subject specific knowledge so they talk it through with us and then tell the teachers about his SEN. (They are supposed to mention the extra time too but obviously didn't say it loudly and clearly enough to be remembered).

Where DS falls between the cracks is that the teachers think he is doing ok. Its not 1-1 tuition so they obviously don't get to see his surprisingly deep subject knowledge because when they ask the class a question, he puts his hand up to answer that question and when he writes anything down, he answers superficially.

To be honest, its not something that can be solved. He will never achieve his potential because of the SEN. It just mattered with this subject because I can see he will start to drift lower and lower unless something is done to enable him to demonstrate his knowledge and understanding, and it affectss his self confidence

10 minute appointments seem excessive. Yes, some kids/parents might require that, but the 5minute appointments we get at ds' school are plenty.

If you need more than that, there are really more serious issues that should be discussed out with a Parents' Night.

I'd agree that the 10 mins appointment slots sound very long. Surely they could have 5 minute appointments and see everyone

At dd's parents evening it was more the speed-dating approach. All the teachers sit at desks around the hall, no appointments, you just queue up to see any given teacher (or try to nip in quick to the ones with no queue!).

I don't think we spent more than 5 mins absolute tops with any given teacher, and with most it was a 2 mins 'yes, everything's fine'. As prettybird says surely that is plenty of time for either teacher or parent to raise a serious concern, at which point it can then be taken further outside of parent's evening.

Haven't read the whole thread but why has she only got 18 appointments? that is only an hour and a half assuming 5 minutes each.

10 minute appointments according to the OP choclover - general consensus on the thread is that that is excessive. 5 minutes is the norm.

10 min apts sound a bit OTT to me. 5 mins is fine IME. And in fact if they were 5 mins that would solve it.

It's a common enough issue tho - last year I taught 5 out of the 8 year 7 groups so I had a pool of potentially 150 students to see with 30 5-min apts in 2.5 hours.

I ended up staying for 3 hours, being there 15 mins early as well and grabbing students as I saw them and had a couple of mins spare. Still there were people I didn't see - everyone doesn't come to p eves but usually at least 50% will show up and want to see you.

In the end I emailed or phoned all those who had wanted to see me but not been able to. Hopefully they were all happy - I don't honestly know what more I could have done.

I got it wrong... it is 5 minute appointments, not 10. However, there still were not enough to go round all the children. Maybe she has 2 classes in the year??

Just back from ds' Parents' Evening: the 5 minute appointments worked well - although a couple of teachers were a bit talkative The school had meant to put up posters reminding people (both teachers and parents) to keep to the 5 minute slots (rather than have the bell going every 5 minutes) but forgot.

Interestingly, for the core subjects I noticed that some of them had started at 6.30 (rather than 7) to try and fit in all the appointments.

I usually start early. Still won't see all 64 year 8s or all 96 year 7s!
Sorry I can't see everyone, I try my best. I'd like to think that if you as a parent had a big issue you would already have contacted me. Just as if there was a problem that I had you would already know.

Interestingly and frustratingly, for the one subject that I had written a comment raising an issue (on the super duper new online booking system), the teacher didn't appear to have read it

He justified the fact that the other class was a module and a half ahead of this class by saying "they all get to the same place anyway" and "I've never had a class with such a wide range of ability"

The words, "So you're teaching to the lowest common denominator" may have passed my lips

He denied that but admitted he was just teaching to the middle. Even when we asked what we could do to support him by giving ds extension work so that ds keeps his enthusiasm for the subject (he's complaining about being bored), he just complained that it was the first time he'd taken kids through Nat 4/Nat 5. Eventually he said he'd have a think about what extra books he could give ds and another boy who is also not being stretched.

It's light years away from the attitude of the other teachers or of the school as a whole . All the other teachers without exception talked about ds (and the respective classes as a whole) achieving "X" result but that they wanted to push them to achieve more, to make sure that they had solid foundations not just for the Nat 5s but for the Highers the year after.

Dh and I were so unimpressed that we raised it with the headteacher when she asked how the evening was going (we had a wee gap before the next appointment). She's going to get back to me to say whether she wants us to put it in writing. (I'd already mentioned my potential concern with her in a low key way before Christmas when I'd seen her at a school event).

Parents evenings are chaos ime.

We had appts at our recent one. But nothing runs to time, you end up queuing, etc.

We'd got there 15 mins early and actually managed to see some teachers early but then got later and later. Some teachers by the time we got to them had gone home!