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.

One teacher turned up 25 mins late for his 5 min appointment with me, even though he had offered the appointment time. He'd mentioned in the same email that he is new to the school (and I suspect to teaching) and this was his first parent's nights.

I said nothing but DS1 (age 12) seemed to think that it wasn't an auspicious start!

Then when he did turn up, he clearly didn't know DS from Adam and had had never looked at DS's file (despite the fact that he and I had had an email conversation where I'd written to him to specifically ask for an appointment so he'd had plenty of time to at least find out who DS was beforehand).

This is an outstanding school that prides itself on its attention to detail. So, I suspect he'll either improve rapidly or not stay very long.

Our appointments are 5 minutes long and last year some teachers had too many to fit in so double booked some - meaning a 2.5 minute appointment . Needless to say they ran late, and ended up with a 2 minute rushed appointment, 20 minutes after it should have been in a room so croweded with people waiting for their appointment they were more or less sitting on your lap.

Completely useless for actually discussing anything.

Would have thought that with 10 minute appointments, they COULD double book some, or just accept that they need to stay a little later.

My dd is in first year and maths and english were allocated to the children having difficulties. I was disappointed we didn't get a slot but at the same time it's reassuring to know they are getting on fine.

Could your school be the same?

Almost definately Hairypaws. There are things Ds struggles with due to his SEN, and the teachers of the subjects most affected asked to see me. Then there was no mention of levels at all just 5 mins of tellign DS that he's not as bad as he thinks.

It's not acceptable but also not all parents go to parents evening so maybe it usually works?

var123 - the one teacher we particularly wanted to see and to whom we had asked specific questions during the booking question not that he read them also arrived late - the only teacher to do so. All the other teachers were there early.

As his was our first appointment, unfortunately for him it meant that the headteacher knows he was late, as I'd had to go back to the entrance area to ask where he was - and the headteacher asked what the problem was.....

I thought about asking where he was, but, TBH I felt sorry for him as I know how dimly the leadership team would view it.

When he did arrive, he didn't seem to know what he was doing and he struggled to take charge of the meeting. Its lucky for him that I was in nice mode!

Dh did have to kick me a few times! Unusually, it was him who was in nice mode and me in "won't suffer fools at all gladly" mode

Like an earlier poster said if you teach many classes you will never get to see all parents. I teach 5 year 7 classes, approx 135 children. If I spent 5 mins with the parents of each child, not taking into account separated parents who want separate appointments, that would be 11 and half hours without stopping to go to the toilet. We obviously don't have that much time for parents evening.