Parent teacher conference online appointments

[Changingnames2020]

After another dreadful PTC yesterday, much of it spent in a queue of parents (no appointments) - I'm on the verge of writing to the school to suggest they set up an online appointment booking system.

This is something my DC's previous school (abroad) offered.

If your school currently offers this, do you know what the system is called?

Or has anyone used a free online web based appointments system which would work for a PTC?

Thanks

Behaviourwatch I believe. Hth

This is what it looks like

Ours is by ParentsEveningSystem and seems to work quite well.

We book ours online and still have to queue.

We are supposed to rely on our child to make an appointment for us. Then they don't have enough slots for everyone anyway. I managed to see only 4 of dd's teachers last night as couldn't get appointments with the others

Ours are booked online (not sure what the system is called) but it doesn't really make much difference to the queues. Some teachers/parents still over-run, and there's the usual conundrum of whether to hang around and wait for the late teacher to finish or to go off to the next appointment that starts in 2 minutes' time.

Ours are done by the child booking appointments with the teacher. This means also the teacher can take the planner and book an appointment for any parent they wish to see even if the pupil 'forgets'.

The school considered an online system but feared that the involved parents they least need to see might book all the slots before the less organised and maybe more beneficial to see parents got a look in.

The system has worked well over the years for us, I've normally been able to see all the teachers I want to at vaguely the right time. (250 in year group)

T&T that's probably true. I log on the moment the bookings are open and I'm sure there are people that need to see the teachers more urgently than I do.

We book ours online...
And then we look at the list, arrive at the first person, see they're 6 deep in a queue and go round until we find the next one (or nearest one) on the list who hasn't a queue of more than 1. Repeat until you're just left with the ones you really want to see that you have to wait a bit.

We book on line. The system is accessed via the school's parent portal which runs on a system called Insight. But I don't know if it's actually part of the system or just linked from it. Five minutes appointments with five minute breaks enforced between them so you aren't allowed to attempt to teleport from one teacher to the next.

Parents evening runs like clockwork. Appointment times are enforced by a staff member running a bell every five minutes. It's a bit like speed dating but there are no queues.

From what I'm reading here, proper management on the evening is at least as important as having an online system.

We don't have appointments. Teachers are available between a certain time & you join the queue for who you want to see. You are warned that if you arrive after a certain time you won't be guaranteed to see everyone but if you arrive before you will.

For the last 2 years, ds' school has used parents-booking.co.uk

We have 5 minute appointments and the system doesn't allow you to book 2 consecutive appointments (ie it allows a minimum of 5 minutes to get from one appointment to the next).

You can let it auto fill your appointments or choose your own schedule. I choose my own schedule (putting in bigger gaps for the later appointments in case previous ones had overrun/were late).

It is still dependent on the parent and/or the teacher respecting the 5 minute slot (and also parents not jumping the queue ).

You can also add in comments when you make the appointment for the teacher to see if you have an issue you want to raise (only used that once and the teacher didn't even bother reading it ).

The school can also see who has booked, so that they can (and do) contact those parents that they really feel that they need to see - which may or may not be on the Parents' Night itself.

Prior to this on-line system, it was done by your child having a scrap of paper timetable that they took around their different teachers and tried to get appointments. So they were in control of who you got to see

I've given up on appointments, ours is tomorrow and I've 25 teachers to see between the 2 of them, as well as a presentation on options to attend, it's not set up for 2 in one year! Last year I was there for the full 3 hours and still didn't get to see half the teachers I wanted to...

I'm not sure what system they use at DSs secondary school but it opens at 7pm and it feels within seconds all the appointments get booked. Actual evening itself works pretty well with you seeing most teachers at the right time.

Confuzzled - iirc, one of the bits of feedback the school got was that people with two kids (whether that be twins or just close together - especially in Scotland where you can theoretically have an 18 month spread in the year in practice not normally more than 15 months) should be able to override the "no 2 appointments back to back" restriction.

Thank-you for all your suggestions.
AChicken - your system sounds like what we had at previous school with that 5 min buzzer / bell ringing but it works well to remind long winded parents / teachers.

Ours is 'Parents evening system'.
Works well and easy to use.
Although as our slots are only five mins each, I always
leave gaps of about ten mins between when booking in case of teachers running over.

Ours is online and favours the organised, I was a little bit late - it opened at midnight and I don't have an appt with the English teacher even though ds struggles and is having extra English - most of the parents won't need to talk to the teacher as much as we do but that's the system.