What is your experience of Parent's Evening in Secondary school?

[CrazyforCrochet]

Would other mums please let me know of their experience of Parent's Evenings please? It is my child's first year of secondary school and her parent's evening was a washout. Firstly pupils have to make the appointments themselves. Teachers post lists of times on their door and pupils have to book their parents in for appointments (5 minute slots). There are over a 1,000 pupils and each teacher teaches two year groups. Parent's evening lasts from 3.30 to 6.30 so if you work it out each teacher can only see half of her pupils. It is 'first-come, first-served' really - whoever has a class at the moment the teacher posts her appointment list on the door gets to book an appointment. In the end, my daughter was only able to get appointments for 4 out of a possible 14 teachers, for Art, French, Textiles and Geography. We really specifically wanted to see her Maths, English and Science teachers.

The Head said that parents would get an email report from any teacher you couldn't get to see, but this was just a couple of lines and not any different to a school report. We were very disappointed with our first experience of parent's evening at secondary school. I have written to the Head about it and she said she realised that all parents do not get to make appointments but that she was loathe to ask teachers to give up any more time. I also wrote to the Chair of School Governors who just said the same really. I spoke to other mums and they were also disappointed that they only got to see 2 or 3 teachers. I was wondering if it was just our school or if other parents have experienced similar, or if their school organises things better?

DS and DD are at different schools, and they have very different approaches to parents' evening.

DS's school has all the teachers at tables set out on a grid pattern in the main hall. DS brings home a sheet where I can express a rough preference for time (e.g. starting not before 6pm/not after 7pm), and a list for me to tick which teachers I want to see. School then feeds it into a computer program (I presume), and I get a list of teacher appointments at five-minute intervals, with an occasional gap, all within a one-hour time slot, and a plan of where each teacher will be in the hall. Timing is absolutely precise: a bell rings every five minutes and everyone moves on to the next table. It works brilliantly, unless you have something in depth or very confidential to discuss, but in that case they are happy for you to make an appointment to see the relevant teacher at another time.

DD's school is much more chaotic - children have to arrange appointments with individual teachers, there's no provision to prevent clashes, you can end up with half-a-dozen appointments strung out over two hours and no one runs to time so you get gaggles of parents and children clustered around a teacher who is still talking to one set, all trying to get in next so they don't miss another appointment.

I much prefer DS's school's way - why can't they all do that?

"when I wrote to the Head she said that they have 95% attendance for parents eve"
Maybe that's the problem! Even at dd's options evening I'd guess only around 50% of parents turned up . . .

noblegiraffe - I've found secondary parents evenings far more informative than primary. The teachers seem very good at giving the relevant details quickly and efficiently, and they always seem to know my dd (maybe this is not a good sign . . . ).

Mind you, I do live in the sort of town where when some pupils were misbehaving in RS, the teacher threatened to tell their grannies next time he saw them!

At ds's school its first come first served. You arrive & are given a map of the library building, then you queue up to whatever teachers you want to see. Each year group has parents evening on a different day.

I think the timings were 5pm - 8pm but if you don't arrive by 7pm you arn't guaranteed to see certain teachers.

I passed on the suggestions from all you lovely mums on here to the Head...... but she was dismissive of all of them...
a) She said they had looked into online booking but steered away from it as she said it does not factor in wait times between appointments and that core subjects get booked up straight away.

b) She said there was not enough space in the hall for all the teachers. (Rubbish - as it's a big hall).
c) They decided against using the school bell to time appointments as she felt it to be intrusive.
d) As for booking appointments she said it is up to parents to tell their children which staff they wish to see.
e) She said that a later finish such as 8.30pm is an unreasonable demand on teachers.
Very disappointed - I thought that all your experiences of how your school manages parents' evening bought up some great ideas! Feel like I've wasted my time in communicating with the Head.... but thank you again all you lovely mums for helping and contributing, much appreciated.
Ironically, the school has an "Outstanding" Ofsted report, but from what I've experienced so far, in this and other aspects, I don't agree :(

With regards to b), the hall might be big, but you can't cram teachers in like sardines, it's not a matter of space but acoustics. I do parents evenings in a big hall and it's like being in a nightclub, you practically have to shout at the parents and by the end of the evening your voice is gone.
And for e) if the appointments start at 3:30 and finish at 6:30, that is a very long time to be talking to parents. Finishing at 8:30 would be completely unreasonable. Don't forget these teachers have already taught a full day - after three hours of parents evening I am completely done in, I physically couldn't do another two hours.

Or online booking system imposes 5 min wait times between appointments so she can't have looked very carefully. The bell for the end of appointments is an old fashioned hand bell wielded by the receptionist (who no-one would dare mess with ). Not remotely intrusive. Sounds like a school that is so outstanding they don't feel the need to bother with pesky parents.

Humm, sounds like she's not really open to persuasion! Fwiw, at our school:
a) The system automatically imposes 5 min gap - so there are certainly systems that manage this
b) Our school uses 3 rooms - the hall + two other rooms - teachers are 'themed' - so all humanities in one room, for example. You defn need a child to guide you to their teacher though!
d) is the most unreasonable imo. I think that they need to recognise that some children won't necessarily be responsible here for a number of reasons - both ito avoiding difficult/not liked teachers and organisational skills, esp at the bottom of the school! This is a system that would be difficult for children with anxiety, ADHD for example...

My DCs' school is outstanding and I've attended over forty five secondary parents' meetings in recent years (one per child per school year) and never detected a pesky parent attitude. I very much doubt it's that. It sounds much more like a very poorly organized school. Ours has a separate evening for each year group and now uses online booking with five minutes per slot but some parents seriously abuse that which is a pain.

CrazyforCrochet Tue 14-Jun-16 13:49:08

"Most mums here seem to have had a more positive experience than me... when I wrote to the Head she said that they have 95% attendance for parents eve, but I'm amazed that parents turned up as they only had appointments to see 2 or 3 teachers."

What on earth is amazing about a parent who takes the slightest bit of interest in their child turning up to see even one teacher about part of their child's education?

I'm as lazy as they come but I have often gone in to see just two or three teachers. We have always had appointments booked by child, but I have been tough about reminding dc, and if there is a subject I suspect will be important they have been told to contact that teacher to discuss options if the appointments list is full when they get there.

I get why 5 hours appointments on top of a full teaching day would be too much for the teachers. A better way might be to try to persuade parents only to book with their top 4-5 priorities. Dc's secondary did a halfway house where you got to see the class tutor in one appointment to pick up on any issues and then the next term had the fullblown parents meeting. This avoided having an overworked maths teacher wasting his time telling 50 parents that their child is working very well and meeting all targets, and being able to concentrate on the 5 children who were struggling and the 2 who turned out to have a special gift.

At ds's school it is assumed that at least one parent will attend & will want to see every subject teacher so the correct amount of time is accounted for.

Same at dds school but it's s very small boarding school & parents evening co- I codes with exeat/performance demo

Ours went quite well. We have an online booking system. You select the time frame you can do and the teachers you want to see and then it arranges appointments for you within the time frame. Or you could book them individually if you wanted. I did the automatic one.
We turned up and saw the teachers and that was that really. No problems

1st DS's school: Parents evening over a whole week for the whole school. I evening for 2 subjects (English and Art Monday, Maths and Science Tuesday etc). You are allocated 6 minutes per apt and the parents tick boxes on a form for the subject they want to see and the approximate time. Times are 5pm-8.30pm. I saw 8 teachers over the week but took up a huge amount of time seeing them.

1st DD's school: The students ask each member of staff individually for a slot. Its 1 evening 3.30-5.30 with limited spaces. I saw 2 teachers only 1 of which I felt I needed to see and the 2nd one was because I had to drive 8 miles to school and didn't want to go for just 1 appt.

2nd DS school: All staff sat at desks in the hall over 2 evenings. Upper school appointments 1 day, lower school the next. You are allotted a 30 minute window and you turn up during your window and queue to see whoever you want to see. I got to see 7 teachers.

I'm still waiting for parents evening for my 2nd DD. Shes at primary so its usually in July.

Our experience:

We select a time which works for us (eg 4.30-5.30 or 5.30-6.30)

We get a letter back telling us which teachers we can see.

Teachers' tables are arranged in hall and gym

We arrive, look at our list then the games begin!

DH and I are old hands at this (10 years of doing this). We decide who we want to see. Look to see who has a short/no queue and see them. We sit down, are told that DC is "lovely" (DD1 & DD2) "quiet" (DS). We get told that they are "doing well" (DD1 & DD2), "needs to speak up more" (DS).

No useful information is exchanged. We leave the hall and go home. We have demonstrated that we are concerned parents. The school has demonstrated that they have some vague idea about who our DCs are.

I am sure some schools make this a meaningful experience. Just not ours (school currently on notice to improve, my cat could manage it better)

My DC went to a very large comprehensive 1200+ pupils. I found it worked very well BUT you had to twig how it worked. In theory pupils booked slots with the teachers themselves. As DS was a bit dim he booked appointments in this kind of ridiculous order:

English 18:00
History 18:00
Maths 19:15
Science 20:55

As I lived close to the school I ran with it for the FIRST time and went between home and school several times that evening!

It did however not take me long to twig that parents pay no attention to what time their children have booked. They just rock up to chosen teacher and sit with them, if several parents were waiting for the same teacher a polite "what time do you have" was said and priority was given to the parent with the earliest appointment, or the teacher would acknowledge the next child on her list (our school encouraged children to attend parents evening with their parents).

All very civil and far more effective than having parents hanging around for hours whilst teachers sat with empty chairs.

Added to this, in a school this size parents evening were held in various classrooms throughout the school as well as the hall to manage it all in one evening. Parents were signed in and given school map to find their way around or student helpers were available to guide you to the right room if you hadn't brought your own DC.

Having some of meetings in classrooms your child studied in also gave you the opportunity to review their workbooks which were available and look at the work displayed on the walls.

Big secondary, 10 form intake per year.
Online booking system.
About 12-18 appointments available from each teacher.

No availability at all from about 4 hours after the system went live.
Presumably the first parents to get through booked to see every teacher in every subject.

However, each time I have emailed, I've had a relevant, substantial, well informed reply within a short time frame. Always the same day.

We have an electronic booking system, we have poor internet access, by the time I managed to log onto the system ( 3 hours after it opened ) several teachers had no appointments left and others only had appointments at the start and end ( so I had to stay at school for hours ). Overall I was extremely disappointed. I also got 2 line emails from teachers with no appointments left.

Ours is a big school, approx 2400 students. Each year group has 1 parents evening per year which are run on seperate evenings. At this evening, they book to see subject teachers. So we have a Yr7 evening, a Yr 8 evening, a Yr 9 evening etc. Teachers obviously only attend the evenings where they teach that year group so no teacher has to do every parents evening. But some teachers will teach 3 or 4 classes in a year group so those ones will become fully booked very quickly.
Evening runs from 3.30 - 7.30 with 5 min appointments with breaks for the teachers too, though some choose to work through their breaks to see more pupils but that's completely their choice.

Those that get fully booked are happy to call home to any parents that want to speak to them but couldn't get an appointment.

They use www.schoolbookings.net for parents to make their own appointments, it's a simple system that on the whole works very well. Though as with any system, those that book first get the most choice of slots.

As well as the year group parents evening, there is 1 day earlier in the year when the whole school closes for teaching and that's when you book to see your form tutor in 10 min slots. The whole school gets seen on the same day (well, day and evening). It runs over 1 evening 3.30 - 7.00 and then daytime slots 9-2.30 ish the next day. It's always a bit controversial shutting the school for a day to do it but it seems to work for them. To see over 2200 students in a day is a pretty big task, however you organise it. Same online booking system is used.

They also get 3 reviews sent home, (just levels in each subject really and any concerns), one per term, then a full report at the end of the summer term.

a) She said they had looked into online booking but steered away from it as she said it does not factor in wait times between appointments and that core subjects get booked up straight away.
Ours give a warning if you try and book back to back appointments, it tells you, you must leave at least a 5 min gap. And it sounds like your core teachers get booked up at the moment anyway, so they're not losing anything.

b) She said there was not enough space in the hall for all the teachers. (Rubbish - as it's a big hall).
So use classrooms. Ours have 4 teachers per room, much easier to be heard. With approx 80 teacher per parents evening, no hall is going to be big enough

e) She said that a later finish such as 8.30pm is an unreasonable demand on teachers.
That is a very late finish, even with last appointments at 7.25, many teachers aren't finished until 8pm anyway. However between 3.30 and 7.30 they do get 3 x 10 min breaks and 1 x 30 mins break so they are not talking solidly for the whole time.

Goo luck with trying to improve things, sounds like it may take a lot of people complaining before anything gets changed though.

Ds1' s school send a list of appointment times. It's a large school they have a different parents evening for each year group. Ds brings home a list of the various teachers & my allotted time. If they a particular teacher is struggling to fit in all parents then you will get a note to say Ds is doing well, on target & no concerns etc. But apparently if you don't attend you get a call from the head of year to find out why & invite you in for a progress report. I've never dared not attend 😀

I think some of my son's teachers have it sussed. They control their sheet of times/names for the parents' evening. They've not allowed him to make an appointment because they don't need/want to see us. It's usually the ones who've 2 or 3 groups in the same year where it's clear they don't have time to see everyone, so they decide who they do want to see and make the list available only to those. Seems to work well. It's a bit pointless for both the teacher and parents to waste each-other's time and an appointment slot if all's well.