Parents' evening y8

[orchidsonabudget]

Only 5 mins per subject. How are we meant to find progress etc in such a short space of time?
Any advice?

I actually had mine for my year 7 and we picked 6 subjects. I find it great and all mine where done between 3-4 minutes.

@orchidsonabudget

Only 5 mins per subject. How are we meant to find progress etc in such a short space of time? Any advice?

The teacher starts with the important and then after they ask you if you have any questions and so on

Get straight into the conversation. If you have a key question, ask it up front. If you don’t, then just ask ‘how is my DC doing? Are they on track? What could they do more of to improve?’ That’s all you really need to know at year 8 level.

The teacher will (should) tell you if they have any issues. If the teacher is waffling and you want to ask something, then Interrupt - they are learning how to do this too and aren’t always aware of the clock ticking.

Personally I preferred this, as it really cut to the chase and saved loads of time.

Thanks

This is standard practice in all the secondaries that I have worked in (four) and in my DC’s school. Many of the teachers will teach more than one class of Yr 8s and some will teach more so most teachers will be doing three hours’ worth of appointments on top of a full working day. Many secondary classes have 32-33 students. This is one of the reasons why most secondary schools report progress grades to parents at least three times a year - it’s not the only time that you will hear about your child’s progress. Would I be right in thinking that you didn’t have a subject-based Yr 7 Parents’ Evening last year due to Lockdown 1? If you still have queries after tonight then email subject teachers your questions or speak to the form tutor/ head of year who will have more of an overview.

Agree with the others. Have at most 3 points / questions per subject. e.g.

• he says you go too fast sometimes
• can you recommend a guide to use at home
• are there any issues with level of detail
• says she gets distracted by some of the other class members
• is really enjoying your subject

Bloody hell. I teach 5 classes of year 8 which means almost 160 kids. There are 2 parents evenings. After an afternoon in a different school, I have 30 minutes to leave, drive home, set up my laptops, get a drink, visit the loo & start. On one of them last month, I had appointments from 4 til 7.30 every 5 minutes. I managed ONE 5 minute break when a parent didn't appear.

My subject is optional after year 8 so I normally only say to kids to book appointments if they are considering carrying on with it. But the message rarely goes home, so I have the double-whammy of parents saying "how are they doing?", me answering "fine, are you carrying on next year?" them: "no". A kid who does want to carry on is then deprived of the appointment and I get all the flack from the parents whose kid is continuing, but who wasn't quick enough off the mark to get an appointment.

Make sure you know which teacher has each subject so you don't waste those precious 5 minutes faffing about. Have their latest report to hand. Ask your kid to show you what they have been doing in each subject. Then you will make the best use of the time. Sensible questions include: what can they do to improve? Are they on track? Is their behaviour acceptable?

Are you doing it in person or virtual @orchidsonabudget ?

I worked on the basis that 5mins was long enough for the teacher to share 2-3 things that DC were doing well, 1-2 things that they could do better and give us a chance to ask any questions.

If there had been any major issues up to that point I would normally expect school to have raised it with me already. If issues were brought up in the parent's evening slot then I'd be hoping to find a convenient time to talk them through in more detail.

It's a quick check in, a chance to meet the teachers briefly and in our experience the teachers were well prepared to make the most of the 5 mins.

Virtual parent's evening was a revelation. Everything ran to time, conversations were private and we didn't have to queue up behind Nebuchadnezzar's parents who took up 15mins with the (in demand) maths teacher discussing the best way to solve a simultaneous equation.

We've only ever had 5 mins per subject, in person or virtual. It's been absolutely fine and if for some reason there are more queries, or if we can't get an appointment with a particular teacher, we're allowed to email the teacher afterwards (although I've never had to) If any more than 5 mins was allowed, the teachers would be there all night!

You can convey a lot of information in 5 minutes.

It took us 2 seconds to sit down, the teacher then says X is doing well, on target for Y by the end of the year, no issues with homework and participates in class. Me - is there anything he can be working on? Teacher, he could read about World War I conditions as we are covering that next term.

Teacher asks child, have you any questions, any concerns? Are you thinking that you may take this subject as an option?

That is basically how it goes. In fact his maths teacher from year 9 onward literally said "I set the tasks, he completes them easily, I give him more challenging stuff and he copes well. He is polite, quiet and does everything I ask homework wise and to a good standard. He doesn't need to work on anything, he is above where he should be." And repeat for 2 years. He says the same thing about Ds2 as he had him as well.

I am sincerely hoping the format of our last parents evening continues - it was a dream! Done virtually via SchoolCloud and five minutes a slot. You’d be surprised as you can actually cover off a lot in 5 minutes and if it needs greater discussion you can make an appointment/ email at a later date.

It was so nice to not get held up by other parents not sticking to their slots and overrunning.

We had one online last night with 3 minutes per subject then straight onto the next one. Was just enough time but we didn’t have any concerns to discuss.

@Zodlebud

I am sincerely hoping the format of our last parents evening continues - it was a dream! Done virtually via SchoolCloud and five minutes a slot. You’d be surprised as you can actually cover off a lot in 5 minutes and if it needs greater discussion you can make an appointment/ email at a later date.

It was so nice to not get held up by other parents not sticking to their slots and overrunning.

I completely agree. As a parent, if there was something that I was really concerned about, I wouldn't be saving it up for my 5-min slot at parents' evening in a crowded hall with people queueing up behind you.

We found that the teachers all seemed more relaxed and we covered quite a lot in 5 minutes.

It's got to be the way forward. Immeasurably better than the in person version, in my view.

I couldn’t agree more! Although, sadly it was my DD last parents evening at high school. She is year 11, so obviously quite a lot to discuss with regards to current attainment and how to improve her predicted grades. But 5 minutes was perfect! I had made notes prior to make it easier though.

Is this your first parents evening at secondary school? 5 minutes is absolutely standard, and is fine for the vast majority of appointments. It’s nothing like primary school and actually the expectation is that you won’t say very much as a parent at all. Write down if you have any burning questions. I normally comment on behaviour, effort, attainment, homework, then ask the parent if they have any (quick) questions, then done.

I loved it. Thought 5 mins was perfect. It flew by. If there are bigger issues you don't save it for parents evening.

Parents evening is a check-in to make sure everything is going OK, small pointers, tips, bits of advice, checking up that all is good. Also a quick chance for you to cover any issues/foilbles your child has/has had and might need tiny bit of encouragement/support.

Done.

I don't want to ever go back to waiting in a queue and bells/buzzers and chaos generally and trying to find a parking space locally. Keep it this way!

We only get three minutes. I DREAM of five minutes.

I want to know:
What is going well?
What could be improved?
How do we help them achieve that?

5 minutes is plenty. Virtual parents evening is a dream.

It's ok to have difficult conversations quickly. E.g. Art: 'DD2 is really struggling with the 4 week project homeworks and 99% of the stress in our household comes from trying to get her art homework done. She finds it almost impossible to self evaluate it because she finds it so difficult to do in the first place.' Teacher: 'Oh no, sorry you're struggling DD2. Shall I differentiate your homework for you, making sure you don't have to self evaluate?' 'That would be so helpful, thanks.' 'Ok, but if I forget, make sure you say that I told you I'd do that at parents evening.' Less than 2½ minutes.

Generally, if there are big problems, you'd know about them anyway.

5 minutes is plenty for most pupils. The one disadvantage of online parents evenings is that you can't spend a litle longer with the odd one where it would be useful and then catch up by being a bit quicker with the easy ones (and in the old days before online booking you could make sure that you had a gap after any you really wanted to have a bit more time for).

What you can't do in 5 minutes is to have a conversation about the parent's experience of that subject at school, whether the curriculum is fit for purpose, etc. You have to focus!

If you have more questions, follow up by email.

I once had two year 10 groups, and had to give them three minute appointments. One parent, whose son was not the best of students, arrived and said there was no point in a 3 minute appointment. I suggested we see how far we could get, and arrange another time if necessary. We both managed to communicate all we needed to before the next parent arrived, and I think it was inside the three minutes too.

We've just had the same format and generally found 5 minutes was ample.
We managed to get in "Dd wants to take this as an option next year, would you support that?" and to hear a little about progress, behaviour, how managing with virtual lessons.

Unfortunately we weren't quick enough off the mark to book in for every single subject, but it generally gave us a good flavour.

I would definitely like to have the same format in future.

If your booking works like ours, I had a strategy, which was to book first for subjects like art and music where the same teacher teaches several classes. In a 3 hour evening, there will be 36 slots, so even if you're last to book a subject like English/maths, where each teacher usually has just one group, there should still be some choice. My DD was usually able to tell me if her teachers taught more than one group in their year.

(And actually, if you book for every subject, you often hear something fairly similar for each, so if the subject isn't a worry and you don't need to ask about options or anything, there's no harm in missing the odd one out.)