Parent teacher evenings: how many does your school have?

[sarahs999]

Just that really. I’m thinking arrangements at our DS school are woefully inadequate - once a year.

That's fairly standard. That once a year for parents equals 10+ per year for some teachers in most secondary schools.

I know I only see dd1's teachers once a year.

As a teacher I only see each child's parents once a year, but I teach 8 classes so I do 8 parents evenings each year. If I had to do 2 for each class that would be bad for my classes because I would be spending so much time talking to their parents the quality of my teaching and marking would go down.

Once here too. (We get 3 reports and can contact teachers by phone/email)

One per year plus three reports with grades for attainment and things like behaviour, classwork. If i had concerns i would email the teacher.

Two a year - one with tutor and one with subject teachers.

One per year.

A as a tea it means I do 6 evenings per year. I think this is fair.

Tbh most kids don't really need parents evening, the ones you want to see never turn up!

Meant to add, termly progress reports with grade and effort. Also a written report once per year too.

Once a year here too (plus meet the tutor early y7).
Reports termly but no words, only numbers.
However you can contact teachers easily if you want/need to.

Also there is a 'stamp in the planner' system for every lesson, so you can easily see if there are any issues developing wrt behaviour/homework/whatever.

Why is one per year 'woefully' inadequate?

Once a year is plenty for us. Most Individual subject & Form tutors are available by email, can resolve most issues that way.

One for each year group per year, except two for y7. Plus one form tutor meeting. They feel like they are all the time!

Teachers’ pay and conditions mean that they should only have one calendared meeting a week. In a secondary school with 39 school weeks, if you remove 7 of these for Parents’ Evenings, faculty meetings which are needed quite regularly - say 15, year team meetings - say 6, then whole school CPD meetings and training - say another 5, then you factor in Year 6 transition evening, Year 8 or 9 options evening, sixth form open evening, whole school options evening, etc etc there isn’t enough time to put in an additional Parents evening for all year groups.

Once per year here too and, as a parent, I think that's enough. If there are any issues then I would contact school as required rather than wait for parents' evening.

Once a year is fine imo. With report grades twice a year, that's termly feedback.

We get a short report in the autumn term, a parents' evening in the Spring term and a longer report at the end of the academic year.

It's also a mad scramble to get appointments (now made online), 4 mins per appt

I don't think it's very much contact, but we can email tutors, HoY, subject teachers if we want.

Once a year, although you only see the form tutor who doesn't actually teach your child so possibly a bit pointless really!

One or two per year, depending on the year group. Y7 get 2 (one with form tutors, one with teachers). Y10 get 2, AFAIR, to track progress through GCSE courses. Other year groups get 1.

2 progress reports per year (effort, attainment, concerns).

2 or 3 (I can't remember) 'full written' reports during KS3/4: one in Y11; 1 in Year 9; I think 1 in Y8.

So essentially, 3 written reports per year (2 short, 1 long) plus 1 meeting OR 2 written reports per year (short) and 2 meetings.

Written reports should be binned. Waste of everyone's time...

Once a year for both of mine.

Once a year at my son's grammar. Twice a year at DS2's primary, but they are literally 4 minute slots then they are v keen to usher you out to see the next waiting parents.

At DCs secondary school there's a progress review each year with their form tutor which happens for year 7 nearer the beginning of the year and other years at different times.

Also a full on parents evening once a year.

And several reports each year.

Ours has a 'meet the tutor' evening at the beginning of Year 7.

Otherwise it's one parents' evening a year for all year groups, which I think is enough.

Parents and teachers can contact each other by email if there are any issues during the rest of the year.

Primary - term 1 and term 3. Secondary - term 1

Written reports should be binned. Waste of everyone's time..

Noble, do you mean the numerical / graded ones, or the full text version?

I would agree that the latter are more effort to produce than they are worth (or rather, doing them really, really well is worthwhile, but doing them any less well is useless - and doing them really well takes time). Numerical / graded ones are useful - IME as a parent - in a 'general' way, but not in a 'the fine grade they are working at at the moment is X' type of way.

The ones with written comments, not just a tick box/grade job. It's probably different in primary when you know the kids and can write personal stuff about them, but as a secondary teacher it's just a copy and paste exercise for most of the class and an exercise in diplomacy for the really difficult kids.