Virtual parents evening

[ODFOx]

After years of parents evenings where everyone is clustered into the school hall waiting to pounce on the next teacher on the list while scowling at the parent who takes 9 minutes instead of five and upsets the whole system, we attended our first virtual parents evening this week.

The system gave us 5 minutes with each teacher and worked out the most efficient booking order for us.
On the night each 5 minutes counted down and the meeting cut off and connected you to the next on the list at the appointee time.

In short it was brilliant; much less stressful than the old way and very focussed in the time allowed.

Are all schools doing this and how have you found it?

As far as gauging how well he is doing from his scores, what type of scoring system is it? if it's in percentages then all you need to know is what is the class median. If it is in letters i.e A*-E then it's self explanatory. I don't want to sound patronising so I'm going to guess neither of these is what you are talking about. Your ds should also have an idea of how well he is doing in each subject? failing that, you mentioned a teacher emailed. Can you email the other teachers and discuss it that way or email his form tutor who will definitely be in the know about your ds's overall performance and be able to explain the results?
The bottom line is it's never going to be possible to discuss in more detail with 9 teachers in 45mins, so you may have to find an alternative means of which emailing might be a possible solution for you. At our school, we are able to email the teachers during the day, they don't always get back but often they do and its a great help when you can't get down to the school.

Yes to school cloud, we didn't see all teachers but worked efficiently (Year 8). Only thing I would like was a bit of a break somewhere in it so DH and I could discuss what we'd just heard instead of being straight into the next subject

@Tonty
I've got a number, the predicted GCSE grade for each subject. I don't know what he is doing well with or what he needs to work on within any subject. DS just says 'good' if I ask him. I guess the parents evening is only a month away, though I'm just going to have to ask DS which two teachers I don't need to see. I just mean if he has a test in a topic of a subject and I had the score and the GCSE grade equivalent then I would know how he was doing and what he needed to practice. I just have a number for the entire subject.

We found it much better, particularly for secondary school. Didn't need to sharpen my elbows to be seen. The only downside I guess is with live ones if you missed someone then they can sometimes squeeze you in a different time, but if their system goes down it would be harder to reschedule. Some teachers are quicker at joining the meeting than others, some jumped straight in with the feedback whereas others looked as if they had been pulled through fifteen hedges and were completely disoriented.

@kowari The predicted GCSE grade is a good place to start. The 5mins allocated in the parents evening will be enough for the teacher to tell you specific areas he may be struggling in, I usually scribble some quick bullet-pointed notes as well. What about homework? how is doing in those? between homework scores, block tests and the predicted GCSE grade given, you should be able to have some idea areas of that needs extra attention. Can you ask your DS to also show you his books so you can look through?

Does your school give termly reports? at ds's school they get grades per subject every half term and some of the teachers (not all) all more notes to it re: recent tests then we get a full report end of term.

@Tonty I'm not given any homework or test scores. I've occasionally looked at DS's books but I think they are mostly just for his use. I think the teachers look at and mark the assessment items and I don't see those. Homework is online on a student account, I'm not given any scores. I only have Edulink and there are no grades on there. We get three reports a year, two with grade numbers and effort numbers, then one with a couple of sentences per subject as well. I'll just see how the parents evening goes.

I don't mean given to you but your ds will have his own assessment scores. I think when you have your parents meeting I would ask each teacher for their email explaining you need more information but cannot physically come in.

As a teacher I like it, but normally I get a chance for a quick drink in a gap and a chance to look over my notes, while parents are on the move . No chance for that when you're booked solid for three hours!

Yes ots worked well, not least because you don't have other parents overhearing what the teacher is telling you. I'm sure tge teachers liked it more too.
Our school has asked if we'd like to continue with the online meets, even if in person parents evenings are allowed.