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 The system of arranging slots on a piece of paper seems outdated from the outset.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!

Brighton...this should be exactly how it works...parents evening over two evenings plus an on-line booking system...Great...you have confirmed to me that my rant is totally relevant and that this system needs to change.

1 - schools are limited to one meeting a week for staff. If they have 2 parents evenings for each year group they would then have to cut out all faculty / year team meetings.

2 - online systems are expensive. Grammar schools in particular are seriously strapped for cash. This would not be a priority.

Just email the teachers you haven’t got appointments for.

And in any case, even if there were slots you could electronically book, there would still be the SAME NUMBER of slots. You would just be relying on the organised parents to book themselves in.

Toomany

Off the top of my head re my dc's school- the whole school sponsored walk could go( look at other fundraising ideas), non essential trips e.g. Skiing and enrichment week(cut a day off it).......

It’s after-school meetings, not all random events, that are the issue here. Schools can’t cut a day off a term to run parents appointments.

I love the suggestion of scrapping a whole school sponsored walk with a blithe 'look at other fundraising ideas' just so that little Jonny's mum can get a 5 minute face-to-face with a maths teacher instead of an email.

FFS, talk about entitlement.

Ah so we're going down the attack the poster for being entitled route.

Ideas were asked for. It was a suggestion. As I pointed out our parents evening provision is superb in one school, kind of ok in the other. It wasn't in reference to my little Johnnies who are catered for but as a possible suggestion for others.

As it is there are all kind of fundraising events schools can look at. I was simply saying that if my school wasn't keeping parents happy with parents evening provision that is an example of an area I'd look at. Ime the vast maj of parents would happily have a change in fundraising if they'd have a better chance of seeing core subject teachers once a year.

Aaarrggh! This is like Groundhog Day - why can't people just email and call teachers if they can't get a face to face interview? Numerous folk have explained why additional Parents meetings cannot be slotted in and how electronic systems don't create more appointments!!! Is it just me?
If a face to face interview is what people want them call up and ask for one!!!

Bloody fucking bastarding hell.....
And @Toomanytealights if you're a bloody teacher (think you said that!) you should bloody know better about how these systems work. Ffs man (as my S4 lot would say..)

Ah so we're going down the attack the poster for being entitled route.

Only if they're behaving in an entitled manner. Y'know, like suggesting that a cash-strapped school cancel a presumably successful fundraiser because some parents seem to want the entire parents' evening system rearranged around them and their desire to physically see the teacher.

You've got to look at is as you can't please all the people all the time.

Schools have to consider parents, teachers and Ofsted. If the majority of parents can see the majority of teachers in the given time and arrangements are made for those who can't, then you've got to consider whether it is worth pissing off the majority of teachers to placate a minority of parents.

Ah so we're going down the attack the poster for being entitled route.
Here we go. We could tell this was coming from the second "here are the logistical issues" was rerepresented as 'boohoo schools don't care about partnerships with parents'.

Off the top of my head re my dc's school- the whole school sponsored walk could go( look at other fundraising ideas), non essential trips e.g. Skiing and enrichment week(cut a day off it).....
If it's during the school day then it's a day of term where cancelling the walk would still mean lessons.
Most trips overlap with holidays in some way. When thry don't the extra hours staff work does NOT come out of direcred time. They don't have to run residential trips. Like extra curriculars and revision sessions and all the other things you think should be cut for your 5 min meeting, it is not directed time. They are ran on good will.

Enrichment weeks are often done in place of other PSHE type things through thr year, again cutting enrichment week would just mean a day of normal lessons so teachers still would be teaching.
Unless if course you are advocating cutting term dates down so you can have a 5 min meeting?
In which case yes, you sound twice as entitled as you did to start with and very naive on the issues affecting schools.

Teachers are a shared resource. Hence why kids don't get 1:1 tuition in schools and why not all parents will be able to see them on a parents meeting of a time limited duration....there are ways round the latter as has been outlined eleventy billion fecking times. You're being obtuse now @Toomanytealights. Are you an NQT perchance? Or in private education?

queen
Exactly. Shared resource.
There are many ways round it but that only works if people are reasonable and don't take the view 'but I want a face to face meeting with each teacher so cut other things which benefit more children because i want what i think i am entitled to'.

1. Email staff for an update/ call
2. Ask for a round robin to go out and meet face to face with fhe head of year/tutor for an overview.

No NQT I have ever worked with in state education would come out with half of what TooMany has said mind .

The OP hasn't put it very well but as a few people have said, its been a long time since many people were anywhere near a secondary school and have prob forgotten/don't understand how it works...
I did not realise how pointless many teachers think Parents evenings are. I thought I would have to make an effort to see all the dc's teachers (this was yr7 though!).

It would be far more useful to me to get a written report once a year from each subject teacher and then us following up with those teachers directly (email) if there were any problems.

At present we get 3 termly reports with levels on/attendance etc just numbers. The final year report does have a bit of pointless written information in it but only from the year tutor, telling us things we already know! e.g. that our DC attends this club and does this project!

The head of year/senior tutor in the yr group then signs it-
Pointless.

I don't just want praise for my DC's. I want to know where there are areas of weakness-there's always something to work on...
I realise that teachers find it very difficult to spare the time though. How would this work?-Is it still asking too much? (genuine question).

On the face of it 5 minutes a year doesn't sound unreasonable.

But how many kids in each year group do teachers have? Presumably something like computing could be all of them. Maths it might be 30 or 50.

pootleperkinandposy22
My school does 3 monitoring reports a year which are numbers and then one written report a year.
Usually we try to get the reports out a few weeks before a parents' evening so parents can prioritise who they want to see.

As you say, it doesn't take much to follow uo with a call or an email.

I think OP has been fairly reasonable in their questioning and seeking clarity or advice

A 5 min appointment once a year is hardly tuition.

There are all kinds of systems which seem to work well on the other thread with several assuming parents will want to see all. A few seem to close early so hardly a ridiculous suggestion.

So where does that curriculum time get made up to just close early?

This is the thing with your posts. Nobody on here is saying the current system is perfect, but so far you haven't told us seriouslu what could get cut to accomodate your additional parents evenings for all 7 year groups (plus extra days on all tutor ones) other than schools should just take a couple of days off term or close early to deal with the fact that a minority of parents can't seem to get the idea of an email or a phone call. It's ludicrous.

Even if we ran with it. If we just closed school to create extra hours then we'd have:
7 days off for 7 year groups
3 days off for the extra time for tutor evening years.
Yup. 10 days. 2 weeks shorter term dates.

Oh ok. That sounds silly. So we'll say half a day to free up the time. That's still a week's lost teaching time because someone's too precious to make a phonecall.

@Toomanytealights you've taken my care moment about tuition completely and utterly out of context. Please go back and read what I wrote and contextualise it, for your own information if nothing else. But the totally PA eye rolling emoji amused me, however.

I don't believe for a minute that you're a teacher by the way. You're Billy Bullshitting loads of ridiculous ideas and have evidently no conception of the modern world of secondary education. I smell 💩

Care moment?? Comment was what I meant. Ffs man....

Because I dare to disagree with you.

The point is Maisy there are all kinds of systems,clearly individual schools are adjusting and catering to what their parents want. You are assuming those wanting a 5 min face to face opportunity once a year are in the minority,I suspect not. Surely the way to go is for the op to politely complain. If she's on her own such is life,if not then surely the more that do register their disappointment the more likely there will be a change to the system.

@Toomanytealights not because you "dare to disagree with me" but because you've misquoted me and taken the comment out of context 🙄 simples. You're as much entitled to your opinion as I am mine.
Still don't believe you're a teacher either.

At my dcs school they have the same system .But teachers book out appointments with parents where the child are falling short of their target.If you don't get an appoint ment with a teacher you want to see you email the school and the teacher phones you.

Well you crack on then I'm really not bothered and it wasn't completely out of context you inferred a 5 minute once a year appointment was as ridiculous as 1:1 tutoring due to teachers being a shared resource. They are a world apart,one is attainable as other schools manage it the other obviously isn't.

There is not a single school of my ken @Toomanytealights where every single parent is allocated a five minute slot with every teacher at Parents evening. It's unattainable as there simply isn't enough time to go round - as teachers are a shared resource.
Capice?

Just because some schools made big adaptations “because it’s what their parents want” does not mean it’s right for the education of all the students.