Year 7 Parents Evening - Unavailable slots for core subjects

[User32243535]

Sorry, but this might turn into a bit of a rant.

DC (Y7) attends what is meant to be a well respected grammar school. But at the moment, I am struggling to comprehend how they have developed such a lousy system for arranging parents evening appointments.

DC is our eldest child so we were not acquainted with this system before and didn't see it coming. Basically, we received a report and then according to the report, we were advised (via dc taking a sheet around to their teachers and booking a time slot) to arrange a meeting with the necessary teachers.

DC is a scatter brain and this hasn't helped with making the arrangements but on eventually contacting their teachers for Maths and English. dc was informed that there were no available slots left. Sorry, but Maths and English are core subjects and we care about our dc's education, I am fuming that we are not able to discuss these subjects with the relevant teachers (parents evening is held on just one evening).

DC doesn't have huge difficulties in these areas but reading the report there are one or two areas for improvement and I think it is important to discuss these two subjects in particular.

Anyone else experienced similar? The system of arranging slots on a piece of paper seems outdated from the outset. I e-mailed the head teacher regarding my concerns about dc not securing appointments a few days ago and I haven't received a response and I'm not able to discuss with anyone as the school office is now closed (dc has just informed me of the situation, which I believed would be resolved today.) Quite frankly not impressed with the schools communication either right now in regard to replying to my e-mail. Grrrrh...just so frustrated!

As a parent and a teacher, I find parents' evenings a highly inefficient way of informing parents about progress. Not because of the appointments system (which, whatever form it takes, is not going to magically create more time), but because an email would be much better for lots of reasons...

More concise, easier to be honest without fear of confrontation, easier to think of questions and remember to ask them, no queues, no hanging around, no younger siblings getting in the way, no time constraints, no lateness, feedback available to be saved for future reference, no worry about prioritising which subjects to bother seeing, total privacy from other parents, less stressful for parents who find talking to teachers intimidating or worrying. The list goes on.

I absolutely agree that the best way forward for Parents' Evening would be to identify those parents who teachers NEED to see and make proactive appointments for all of them, then if any other slots are available (probably for a minority of subjects) they can be made available to others.

The message being 'If we don't need to see you, your child is doing fine'.

Timing reports appropriately before parents' evenings would obviously help here - so you would either get a report with progress, attitude etc information that said 'no appointments needed', or one that said 'appointments needed for X, Y and Z'.

that would mean that the limited number iof appointments available could be kept - and be longer - for those children where a face to face discussion was actually worthwhile.

IME people often make appointments just because they're going to parents' evening anyway and might as well. A bit of gate-keeping could restrict it to those who actually do need appointments and reduce workload.

Of course: that is true for all subjects, from Maths and English to Music and Textiles.

However, as I say, for my DC's school there are 3 main 'camps' at parents' evening: large 'core' departments, steadily busy; small 'core' departments, hugely over-loaded; small 'minority interest but key for some' departments, relatively quiet

(So if you are saying that the MFL teacher is only busy because parents might have decided they 'might as well' make an appointment while seeing the 'really important' subjects of Maths, English and Science, then the same argument would apply to e.g. Music, Computing, DT, Art, PE. However, it is only the MFL and History teachers who are massively overwhelmed at parents' evenings IME - because they teach core subjects that are regarded as core by a very large number of the school's parents. the Geoghraphy department is, for some reason, larger - though less popular at GCSE and beyond-and this mitigates against the issue to some extent)

And yet, despite all this frantic parent-seeing in KS3, still not much take-up at A-level?

Well, she had 36 5 minute slots on the evening I saw her, for a rather niche language (she doesn't teach the 'first' school MFL to A-level) and happened not to be busy in the one I passed her during...

I think she has a full class - so 18-20 at A-level, for an unusual MFL - in a sixth form of 180 ish per year? As a conversion rate from about 60 taking it at GCSE, it's not bad

I think very unusual!

My dc schools have had this system but I have found that it completely breaks down after the first half an hour or so, parents don’t turn up, discussions overrun etc.
So I just used to ask dc to tell teachers I was coming and put in notional slots.
In reality I would wander round and jump in where teachers had no one sitting with them or just one o person waiting. I’ve also just sat there at the end of the session to wait to see the teacher. However if this approach doesn’t work I would ask for a phone call, email or separate meeting and follow this up if it isn’t forthcoming.

If you prioritise seeing the teachers of the social subjects, languages and sciences you will get a very well-rounded idea of how your son's core subjects are faring.

A lot of responses on here mention that you only really need to see the teachers of subjects your child is struggling in.

I completely disagree. Yes you may not need to see every teacher, but one or two in subjects your child is doing well in or enjoys would allow your child to benefit from a bit of praise rather than all “problem areas/focus points”.

I myself am someone who thrives off praise and it is nice for your child to have positive feedback given directly from teacher to parent. Don’t make parents evening too heavy and negative - positive reinforcement works too!

I actually love parents' evenings as a teacher. More so than as a parent in fact. Ideally I would see every parent. Doubling the number would eat into a hefty chunk of directed time though, and I'm not sure that would be the best use of the hours. Although goodness knows I've experienced enough pointless training days in my time.

The one that causes most difficulty to me as a primary teacher is the need for separated / divorced parents to have separate meetings with the class teacher, at separate times and preferably on separate nights (we have 2x2 evenings - so 2 different nights within a few days of each other, then the same set-up about a term later).

There are 36 slots of 10 minutes, over the two nights. With 32 children per class being the norm, if 4 sets of parents want / need to come separately, I am full. At one time, I used to book out 1 session in the middle to catch up lost time or, if all went brilliantly, to go to the toilet. I now usually find that every slot is full and some parents who are coming together can't book because separated parents have booked 2 slots for a single child. On the one hand, it's brilliant that non-resident, separated parents still want to be fully involved in a child's school life, and in a few cases, the safety of all means that the parents CANNOT be in the building together, let alone attend in the same slot. On the other hand, spending 20 minutes discussing the same child twice isn't an effective use of time if other parents are being deprived of a parents' evening slot altogether.

I would also LOVE the secondary setup of most teachers in a single large room, or an open set of classrooms. The primary setup of individual teachers closed in a classroom with 1 or 2 parents, sometimes at the far end of a spread-out school, can be quite intimidating and one can feel quite vulnerable if things start going wrong. I loved doing parents' evening with a jobshare for that reason - always another witness, always someone there to go and get help.

No! You don't want to be in a single large room, cant!
I'm in the hall with about 30 other teachers, the noise is awful, you can barely hear the parents you are talking to and have to basically shout at each other. I can barely talk by the end of the night.

I think the worst option is a classroom with only 3 teachers in it. As a parent waiting in the room, you can't help but overhear some of what is being discussed.
In a large hall there is enough general hubbub that conversations feel more private.

I suppose it's swings and roundabouts - when the last appointment of the day, long after dark, turns nasty and you're the furthest class from the reception area where senior staff are, I might trade that for the security of others around me ...but not for the noise, I agree!

In my last school - very interesting intake - we used to put stars on or timetables which meant 'this is a really good time for the head to come past the door to see how it is going and, if necessary, wander in, smiling warmly, hand outstretched to greet the parents and usher them out...'

User332. The school sent you a report and then told you to book slots with the teachers via a paper system. The school know not all parents can be accommodated so they pass that problem onto you and then expect your DC to fight to get an appointment. I've been there User. What a useless system. We didn't see some core subject teachers for 3 years. One teacher made DCs literally fight over his appointments sheet in the classroom. Disgraceful. Schools' senior management need to get their thinking caps on and try to find a better system. A - M one night and N - Z on a second? Offer an email if no slot is won? Parents will soon be told if they or their offspring step out of line, so schools need to realise they have a duty too. We particularly loved the generic sentences on school reports.

Sorry Keira, but only paid until 7.30 and yet had to stay until 7.55? Many people work in jobs where they work longer hours than they are paid for. But you are correct re computer bookings for parents' evening - the parents getting the slots will be the "quick off the mark, tech available" parents and they will do that year after year, getting ahead of more disadvantaged parents.

Schools really need to think of new ideas.

One teacher made DCs literally fight over his appointments sheet in the classroom

Astronotus I think you have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'literally'. Sounds like it has been a long time since you have ever been in an educational establishment.

Only paid til 7.30 after being in school from ~8am, doing a full day of work, then having parents evening which over runs by 25 minutes then going home and marking/planning for the next day for ~2 hours. Many people may well work more hours than they are paid for, but that doesn’t make it ok. You only really needed to add ‘and I pay your wages’ to score top marks on ‘that’ parent bingo - really unnecessary.

CarrieBlue. I never said "and I pay your wages" and I never would. Please don't put words in my mouth. She said she worked 25 minutes extra and did not refer to any other work undertaken after that. Are parents not allowed an opinion on the organisation of parents' evenings, only teachers allowed to comment? There are parents on this thread with positive comments as well. I thought this was a discussion.
Julie8008. Yes, I am not an English teacher, or any teacher for that matter - thank goodness!

I am a teacher and I really enjoy parents evenings ... I like to meet the parents of the children I teach. It's a great people watching place.
Sadly I don't always get to see all parents

noble yes I have. The only way I coped was by grabbing every 5 minutes that I could. I took a pile of books in a bag and took them out one by one, choose a task that's bitty and doesn't need deep, concentrated thought.

In terms of 'lots of people work more than 25 minutes late' that is obviously true but the workload in teaching is something else. Anyone who thinks it's an easy life give it a try . The job I have now is better paid and an absolute doddle in comparison.

Astronotus - if you really think teachers only work 25 minutes ‘extra’ on a parents evening then you really

Sorry, posted too soon.

....naive about how much work teachers do every day for your children. I’m glad you would never complete the bingo card, but maybe consider that your dc is at secondary school now and take a step back.

Most schools operate parents evening the same - it’s not an exact science but it works for most of us. I’m still amused that this thread has run for so long with various ways schools can change when the only thing that caused the issue was that the OPs DS has organisational issues. So rather reflective of some modern parents rather than work on fixing that they blame someone or something else.

only thing that caused the issue was that the OPs DS has organisational issues

Er no there weren't enough appointments for everyone who wanted them