Year 7 Parents Evening

[Drywhitefruitycidergin]

How important is it to speak to all the teachers for all subjects??? Zoom 5 min slots 4 min meetings.

If it's online, mostly they will talk to you! I'd always try to talk to as many as possible.

I have found it works really well. If you have questions for certain subjects, have them ready

Honestly not hugely essential, although it'd be nice. Just make sure you have the main 3 subjects, a language, a humanity and any other subjects your DC is interested in or perhaps struggling in so needs support. Don't stress if you don't have a few, as sometimes they don't have enough slots to fit everyone in

We have a limit of 8 teachers at our school. I focus on the ones who teach subjects my DS will do at GCSE and leave out the ones he isn't really interested in and will drop after Y9.

I think I saw them all in Year 7 online for my youngest - the system just generated the appointments for us. My eldest’s Year 7 parents evening was in person and there were a couple of subjects we knew she would be dropping as soon as she was able to so we didn’t queue up to see those teachers. If it’s online I think I would just see them all.

By all teacher for all subjects do you mean your child is taught by e.g. 2 maths teachers?
We definitely only speak to one teacher per subject. We don't talk to all subjects. As above we tend to focus on any subject that appears to have issues, ad those he is likely to take at GCSE.
Ours is next week, and I think we have made 8 appointments

It really isn't. If there is a problem. They would contact you anyway , parent meetings are so old fashioned really

Thanks everyone - I've decided to book them all except PE coz it's not available because it was worrying me in case there was an issue I wasn't aware of although dd says everything's fine.
There should be life lessons on this sort of thing....

If there is an issue, then the school will very likely contact you.

If you have specific concerns about PE, then you should be able to contact DD's form tutor at any time and ask them to find out how things are going in PE. They can then either link you up with the PE department, or get some feedback and pass this on to you. This is a totally reasonable thing to do, and the form tutor won't mind!

However, honestly, secondary school teachers don't use parents evening to raise major concerns as the time is just too tight, and often you don't see the parents of students causing concern anyway.

By all means see everyone because it's nice to have a chat, but don't feel you have to!

BTW, if students are taught by two teachers for a subject, usually only one will do the parents evening to maximise the availability of appointments for everyone.

My policy was: core subjects, any they particularly liked, any where there were issues. (Though once I didn't see maths, just sent a message saying really pleased so won't use up a slot).
Didn't bother with non core subjects that were just ticking along. Don't think I ever spoke to a PE, Art or Music teacher across both DD's time at secondary.

To get best use of time ask your DC if there are any issues, and attend call with a maximum of 3 point/questions. Sometimes she says you go too fast / Is she writing enough / Really enjoys your subjects / Is she doing OK / Really struggles with homework takes her an hour / (and in y8 - thinking of this for GCSE).

If you don't want to hear the teacher just telling you what they have been doing then jump in with your questions. Some teachers have a prepared patter that takes up all the time if you don't watch out.

I don't think it is useful to see a teacher 'just because' as there may be parents who really want to see that teacher and non core teachers may have multiple classes to try to cover.

If your child already has favourites to take as options in later years I'd advice you talk to them aswell as core subjects.