Do teachers really want all parents to go to parents eve ?

[Howlongtillbedtime]

In this day and age of email contact with teachers (secondary school) is parents a evening an outdated pita for teachers ?

I have a child in yr 9 , parents eve is coming up , I have dutifully booked a few appointments but am I just wasting everyones time ? Do teachers really want me to turn up and spend 5 mins hearing all is ok ? We get regular progress reports and a yearly full report and if anything was amiss we have email .

So my question is will the teachers be grateful if I cancel or think I am a parent that doesn't care about their child's education?

Mistigri

Very much so! You'd be surprised how far positive encouragement can go.

Assuming teens don't want praise makes quite demotivated students.
There will always be exceptions however but in my experience they are in the minority.

What do people do if they feel undervalued at at work? I wouldn't stick around if I thought my efforts weren't appreciated!

Thanks all , mixed responses and I think I will still go but still feel unsure about it. My ds would definitely rather spend his evening doing something else and he chose his options last year so that doesn't need to be discussed.

Years of teaching. The parents I want to see are the parents that never ever come. It's no surprise that those children are always the disruptive ones who never do homework and who smoke at the gates.

So are people saying the only time you need communication from secondary teachers is end of year levels?

I'm staggered. Do Ofsted think this? How come parents evenings are so important in primary then 1 or 2 years later when masses more is expected of children with far bigger life consequences zero interaction is needed until it's too late at the end of the year.

I've gained masses from attending,I make sure I see all important teachers. We both work full time so arranging hoards of other appointments during the working day for 3 children is not possible. Kind of resent the message that only those whose kids muck about and don't work hard should be entitled to interaction from teachers. Why can't those of us that push our kids and raise them to respect teachers get the same benefits?

I don't teach in the secondary sector.I am clueless re the new GCSEs,what is expected,how my children are actually doing, how they behave in lessons and what more they could be doing. Parents evening is the ideal time to discuss all of that.

From a child's who came from a large family. I always enjoyed going with my parents. I enjoyed them hearing I was doing well and having that time focused on me.
It's obviously a time for concerns to be discussed etc but even if it's just praise and recognition I would of thought that was good for a child who is trying.

I'm a secondary teacher and personally I hate parents evenings so I'd rather not see most parents and I certainly don't judge those who don't go.

I have heard many teachers who do judge absent parents though.

If your dc is doing ok and isn't bothered about going then you could just email the teachers and say exactly that and if there are any issues to let you know. I would love it if most of my students parents did that. But I'm sure I'm in minority.

I've got a string of parents evenings coming up and I'm feeling grumpy about it!

This is interesting, in dds secondary you don't get to see any of the actual teachers who teach her anyway! You get 10 minutes with the form tutor, who only sees the kids for 10 minutes a day during registration and therefore has no real idea of how well she is or isn't doing in each subject. Form tutor basically rattles off from a report which we've already seen anyway. So from my point of view, parents evening is pretty pointless. If i have any issues with any of dds lessons it's up to me to try and get hold of the relevant teachers at some other time.

Parents evening is fantastic for my hard working but not academic DD2. To hear teachers saying directly to her and us how hard she tries and that she is improving gives her a real confidence boost.

Lower down the school I always try to see core subjects, plus subjects DD is interested in / might do for GCSE. Once GCSEs hit, it is everyone.

(Though I remember once not seeing a GCSE maths teacher for DD1 as I knew exactly where she was at and I knew the teacher knew that I knew it too, so I just sent a message saying 'happy with progress' instead.)

(I've never seen a PE, Music or Art teacher)

^Assuming teens don't want praise makes quite demotivated students.
There will always be exceptions however but in my experience they are in the minority.^

I generally trust teachers to praise kids when it's merited. And I can praise my own kids without needing a teacher present.

I do go to parents evenings when there's a reason to - my kids are both academically inclined and well behaved so there is rarely a need to get involved, but I sometimes show up to say thank you to particular teachers who have gone beyond the call of duty.

At my DCs school they run one consultation afternoon/evening for seeing the form tutor for all years. Then they run 5 consultations with subject teachers, 1 for each year group. School shuts early for each of these (by one lesson and lunchtime), and subject teachers have booked 10 minute appointments available for all students in that year group. If a teacher (usually English or Maths) has too many classes in one year, they may get another teacher who teaches one of their classes to take that class on.
If you can't make it then there are phone calls etc.
And teachers do request or even block book appointments for parents they really want to see.

Peng

Probably it depends on lots of factors. Next week and the week after I have year 10 and year 11 parents eve. I see 2 of those classes of 32 kids each only once a week, due to shared classes, so I've only just learnt the quiet ones names!

I'll be filling airtime with generalised crap mostly. Anything specific I'll have already discussed with the student anyway during my individual feedback in class, and if the parents are that bothered they can have that conversation with their own dc themselves.

On top of that, parents evenings are usually a bit tense with a few parents getting cross about non specialist cover teachers or wrong sets or unrealistic targets or something else completely out of my control.

My sons do well academically but we do attend every parents evening. I like to think that teachers want to balance out the good and the bad so that every interaction with a parent isn't your child is disruptive in class etc.

But then the school itself has several open evenings each year encouraging parents to understand how lessons are taught, how the children are challenged. They actively encourage parents to be involved in their child's learning and they reward children with postcards in the holidays and letters telling us how well our child is doing in a particular subject.

I think the praise is important and it is good for a child to hear their teacher say how great they are.

I only read bits of the thread, I had the same question not so long ago, as I generally think parents' evenings are a waste of time at secondary school if things go well and I never feel like going, but I am always happy I went in the end. If anything it makes my children feel important and valued, I have too many children and I work full time so they are always comparing notes about the attention they are given, so I have to thread carefully!

I always go. I’ve always found it very useful to get a teacher’s view on how DC are doing. The only time I have missed is last October for DS(15) when I had a 24 hour sickness bug. I told DS to apologise to all of his teachers for me, saying I was unwell. He told all of them that I was too busy throwing up in the toilet to say goodby that morning so I wouldn’t be there. What a charmer.

All of DC’s teachers have seemed happy to see me and while they are good academic performers, there’s always been something highlighted to me that needs worked on (but not important enough to warrant a phone call).

I just don't get why you'd pass up the one chance a year to get to sit with your child, with their teachers (who they spend a lot of time with) and listen to what they're working on, what their strengths and weaknesses are, why their teachers are proud of them, what they can do to improve. It baffles me

Lots of parents work and can't make the meetings, it's that simple. I wonder if the teachers who judge absentees also judge their colleagues who can't get to their own kids' parents evenings because they're working?

And it may well also be that if a child has been a pain in the behind, and other parents know about it, they don't want to run the gauntlet of other parents and would rather have a tel discussion or email update.

I think the praise is important and it is good for a child to hear their teacher say how great they are

The last parents evening I went to was like this, ds was doing really well and every teacher had something lovely to say. But it can't be very nice if your kid isn't doing well and all they want to do is moan about them - whether it's lack of ability or lack of effort. I can understand why people don't want to go if their kids aren't performing well.

At our school some teachers make clear no need to see them if all ok especially in the lower years (less so in year 10/11 when it gets more important or if an option issue in year 9). We go overtime but have got more selective about which teachers we see focus on weaker subjects, weaker teachers, or where we have specific questions about some aspect.

I think when a parent cannot go to a meeting for genuine reasons is very different to seeing it as unimportant. Also many working parents make meetings! My DDs school had nearly every child with at least one parent there. Large numbers of parents worked. You don't get grammar schools with low turn-out of parents!

The meetings are not for moaning about a child. They are about how the child can do better and improve at that subject. If there are really big issues, these should be picked up by staff outside parents' meetings and parents invited to come into school for a personal appointment. Even the brightest children can improve at something or be advised to read more about the subject or get other advice. Meetings are rarely wasted. Some parents seem to think that doing Ok is good enough. It rarely is.

As both parent and ex-teacher (secondary) - yes, go! Some teachers will find it easier to communicate w parents than others, sometimes there is more (or less) to say - but show your face, introduce yourself, make a personal connection. Both you and teacher have a vested interest in helping your child to be as successful as they can be.

As a parent of a Yr7, I feel we get told so little that it's more than about time we got a chance to access the teachers.

That said, parents eve is on the calendar for after 1/2 term and as yet no info or booking or anything available. So we don't know how it works etc. This sort of thing tends to mean that at least one parent doesn't know when to be free and might be working.

We had parents evening last week. All of the teachers seemed genuinely pleased to tell us how well DD is doing and how hard she is working. She is in yr11 and spends most of her time in her room, so it is a useful to be told that she is working rather than spending hours online.

*Some parents seem to think that doing Ok is good enough. It rarely is"

Really? Not everyone is massively ambitious or wants to stretch themselves all the time. And a good job too, because not everyone can be a leader of a company - you need the lower echelons too.

OK is absolutely fine for some people. For others it won't be, they are ambitious, want the best universities, the best jobs etc.