Parents evening....

[breakdown19]

How is it even possible to get a decent idea about how your child is getting on with 5 mins per year per subject and even then not all the subjects....

You spread your subjects across disciplines - and pick anything you have a particular concern about.

After the first few meetings, they tend to get very samey anyway - and I have a child with learning difficulties that make essay subjects much harder than maths-y ones. They will give you an idea about behavior, progress, attitude, any issues. It does work.
5 mins × 8 subjects is a lot more time than you would get with a primary appointment.

Yes true but I think we got 2x 10 mins per academic year in primary ?
plus a chance to actually see the teacher, look at books at parents evening: plus i can always grab a quick word if needed after school because of the way pick up works

Sorry I realise I prob sound like one of those parents and I promise I'm not
Ds is y9 and I suddenly realised that I only have another 10 mins of feedback before his a levels 👀

As a teacher if I had concerns about a child I would have been in touch well before now (assuming a sept-august year).

The only schools I've come across where this wasn't overwhelmingly the case were pretty rubbish.

So, is the school generally good in your opinion? If yes then you don't need to worry. If no then you have bigger problems than picking who to see at parents evening.

At primary school the teacher probably only had 30 children in their class. At secondary school that teacher will be teaching several classes. If you do the sums then in three hours the teacher can only get through 36 students with five minutes each. If everyone had 10 minutes then they could only do 18 students in three hours.

You use the five minutes to get a snapshot of what they need to work on (make sure you ask the right questions in the right order), then what they are good at and then the general stuff at the end. Five minutes is more than enough if you structure it the right way and anything that needs more time should probably be being dealt with differently anyway.

This is dependent on the school. If you need more time, you can always come in on a normal school day to discuss your concerns with the Headteacher or email/phone the class teacher to discreetly ask about the report.

Yes, it's tricky at secondary. Virtual ones have made it easier. Although the time is shorter (4 mins for us) you definitely manage to fit in more appointments because it runs like clockwork.

However some teachers teach an awful lot of students. Take music for example where they teach nearly every student in the year (so maybe 140?). That's just too many to meet. Maths teachers may just have one or two classes per year because of how much contact time maths gets etc.

However, I always say to my parents that if they have anything they'd like to discuss in more detail then they can drop me and email. I also often send emails to parents if there is something they need to know (depending on what it is of course).

We have termly target reports, a long report as well and have a rough idea of test results so have an idea of where he is. You can say a lot in 5 minutes and after a few of them you get a good idea of what they are like at school.
However in this information overload age and emails etc I doubt my parents had this amount of feedback on me when I was at school.

Think of the practicalities. A secondary teacher may teach 7 or 8 classes. Sometimes they teach more than one class in a year group.

If they teach 8 lots of 30, that’s 240 children.
5 mins per 240 children = 12 children per hour = 20 hours spent on parents’ evenings.

If you receive 8 appointments as a parent, that’s 40 mins of 1-2-1 input on your child. You wouldn’t get that in primary school. For you to be given 10 minutes per appointment, you’re looking at 1hr 20mins per child in total. You have to see the bigger picture.

A lot can be said in 5 mins. It will mostly be the teacher talking and telling you things. If you have a quick question, there will be time for that. If you have lots of questions that are unlikely to be answered in the standard meeting, you need to arrange a separate appointment on another occasion. If you need a lengthy conversation, the parents’ eve when hat teacher needs to speak to possibly 30 or more parents, really isn’t the time for that lengthy conversation. Video calling won’t allow you a lengthy conversation anyway, as all slots are scheduled and cut off after the allotted time. Generally speaking both parents and teachers find it useful….there’s no opportunity for other parents to delay your slot, nor for teachers to get behind. As I said, if you need further discussion, then make an arrangement (by email) for that. It cannot be the case that you need a much more detailed chat with every single teacher. If there are SEN issues, the SENCO should be co-ordinating the provision rather you needing to arrange it individually with each teacher. If there are wider pastoral issues, the Head if Year should be involved.

I wish the teacher could submit to someone a list of whose parents they need to see, then the parents can be contacted as a "please book a slot" type thing. I'm sure not all teachers need to speak to all parents.

It's even less with online meetings if the teacher has a connectivity issue. We got a princely 1.5 minutes on maths last year because the teacher took 3.5minutes trying to sort out his connection.

Bernadette, some schools do that. However, it never works to only allow teachers to choose who to see, because all parents have an equal right to feedback, and not just those of children who are struggling. There would be an outcry from parents of other children, if they didn’t get the opportunity that other parents do.

It’s not a perfect system. I think people have to recognise the bigger picture of how many students need to be seen, that in most cases it’s possible to get decent feedback in 4-5 mins, and also that if there are particular bigger issues that need discussing with an individual teacher, an appointment outside of parents’ eve should be possible in some format.

Other things that can help parents understand how their child is doing, are to look at their books or online work regularly. It’s surprising how many parents never look at the work and feedback given on it. Lots of parents also don’t read or look at reports and attend parents’ evening with no idea if what the last report said or highlighted. In the end,parents’ evening is just one method of gaining info about progress, although it clearly is an important one. I can see it’s really frustrating if you can’t get a slot with a teacher in a key subject, especially as they progress up through the school into exam years, or when choosing options.

It's crap. I had one last night as a teacher of all 3 classes, so 93 students. I had 57 possible slots so was never going to be able to see all parents. My subject is optional after this year so I really only wanted to speak to parents whose kids want to continue or who are wavering so I can help them decide. Then also those who are doing badly.

Instead I had the ultra-keen parents book a 5 minute slot. I told them their kid is doing fine. I have taught them 18 times since September, so I don't know them that well anyway. I then have 4.5 minutes of general chit-chat which is a total bloody waste of my time before the appointment times out. Then I have irate emails from the parents of the kids who want to take my subject but because the parent logged onto the system 10 minutes late, all my slots were gone.

This parents evening came at the end of a full teaching day plus a lunchtime duty. I was in school at 8am and left just after 7.30pm. In another month there will be a short report on all 93 kids (plus the other 62 in the year); there was one at Christmas too. If the child has an IEP I also do 2 further written reports on them each year.

I have had 2 kids go through school. I found the parents evenings utterly boring. All I wanted to know was: are they on track to achieve their target grade? If not, why not? What do they need to get back to their target? What could we do to help? Yes, it's nice to hear them get praised too.

A parent evening appointment is surely not the only chance you get to see how there are doing. Do they not get either a resort or termly tracking report against expected grades?

I would be very upset if the first I heard about difficulties in a subject was at parents evening.

Ours is still online and to be honest it is significantly more efficient plus I can do it with a glass of wine 5 minutes was plenty per subject

@breakdown19 Primary school is different because they usually have one teacher for all their subjects and 10 minutes covers just maths and English, not all the other subjects they do.

Secondary is always a 5 minute slot even for face to face. Lots of parents book to see every teacher. We never did, never saw a music teacher, PE, art or drama as we knew neither child would take it to GCSE.

For year 11 we have 2 parents' evenings, one after November mock grades are out and another one just before February mocks.

However we chose a school who is open to communication. You email the year group, it gets sent on to the teacher you wish to speak to and you outline what you wish to discuss. They then ring you within a couple of days.

I would contact the school with any specific questions you have. Our school sees it as a bonus if you are engaged in your child's education so over the years we have had several conversations with teachers about how to improve grades rather than waiting for parents' evening to roll round.

Don’t you get reports through the year too?

So, you are getting about 50mins feed back then? Maybe more, at 5 mins per subject.
Primary school Parents evenings used to be 5 mins, full stop. Even 2, or even 3 times a year that is a lot less.

But as pp have said if there were any issues, the school would be in touch outside of parents evenings.