How does your school organise parents evening

[sincitylover]

.... because I have just attended the second one at my ds school (year 8) and its so chaotic and disorientating.

About 80 teachers sat in avery badly lit,very hot sports hall with no privacy. There are 180 pupils in his year so you can imagine what its like. The acoustics also terrible.

We saw one teacher but I then felt quite ill and spaced out. (I often feel the same in supermarkets). One person queue jumped us too.

I feel so badly for my ds but its just so badly organised!

They did try to have an appts system but apparently some of the teachers wouldn't take appts.

We do receive regular written reports and next time will ask my exh to go instead.

Interested to see whether its par for the course in large comps to have parents evening like this.

I do care about my ds education. And possibly sound like a fragile little petal but after a day at work by that time I am done in and exhausted.

also the longest queues were of course for the core subjects and tutors.

Just keep thinking there must be a more pleasant and productive way

We got appointments - DS had a sheet of paper to take round all his teachers and get them to fill in a time. Then the teachers were sitting round mainly in the dining hall and gym - no real privacy, but TBH I would hope they'd arrange to speak to you separate from the parents evening if they had anything awful to say.

Most were over-running their appointments, so in fact we had to sit till our turn, even though that was up to 20 mins or more after it was meant to be - we moved up one queue because the parents ahead of us decided to skip it and go see a teahcer where they were more bothered about catching them.

Frankly, I've never seen a system that wasn't pretty much chaos!

The pupils get appointments with teachers (so far, she's chosen the main subjects ...) and we turn up, appears chaos but runs smoothly.

However we don't always get to see all teacehrs we'd like because sometimes the appointment slots are 'sold out'

OP's system sounds like the one my parents had when I was at school. Everyone queuing for ages to see just one core subject teacher during the entire evening ... whilst RS and PE teachers sitting there twiddling thumbs

I am on my third child at secondary and the poor school is forever trying to find ways to cut down on the noise, heat and chaos of parents evening.

At the last one they spread the teachers out in different parts of the school ie english and maths in the dance hall and the others the main hall. DS has his year 8 parents evening next week and I have my plan of action ready. Firstly don't wear a coat, take a bottle of water and go to any teachers with small queues at the beginning to clock up some ticks on the appointment sheet (we do have appointments but they are not rigidly adhered to) and finally protect your position in the queue at all costs or someone with a DC who needs a good telling off by the teacher for 20 minutes will get in front of you.

Also be thankful that your school actually gives you the opportunity to meet your DSs teachers and they haven't gone over to one of those dreadful academic review days. Your DC have a whole day off school and then you go in during the afternoon for five minutes to meet the form teacher and have an update from them about all the subjects. My friends with DCs at schools that do this complain about the fact that they would like to meet the Maths teacher and decide if their child's moans about them are genuine because they are a bit weird or of child is complaining for no reason

At my DCs' huge comprehensive (280 per year) it seems to work fairly well, but they do half the year group on two separate evenings... so only 140 potential sets of parents and their child.

We get given an appointment card with 10 minute slots. We normally request to see about 6 or 7 teachers but I know some parents who like to see many more than that and a few who don't feel the need to go at all.

They are held in classrooms with perhaps three teachers in each room, usually all the same subject. So privacy is quite good... I've never overheard or been distracted by what is being said to other parents.

If any slot begins to overrun, then DP and I will split off to see teachers on our own if necessary (that's if we are both in attendance, but sometimes DP can't get away from work).

You get the odd bit of queue jumping, but tbh, the teachers always have a running order in front of them, and I've seen them send people away with red faces on occasion.

To the OP, I'm not sure if the way your Parents' evening is run is par for the course or not, but I would find it quite stressful and would probably just send my DP because it wouldn't bother him at all!

But I agree, it's certainly far from ideal, I mean, why do all the teachers need to be in one hall? And not using an appts system is just ridiculous... there is nothing more frustrating than when some parents insist on having twice as long as everyone else!

DD's school does a similar thing to all those mentioned. Her first one, in Yr7, I was dreading, because it looked like chaos! But with the aid of a printed map and strict appointment times, we saw about 9 teachers within an hour. Not bad, I thought.

This year, may be a little more dis-organised, as it's yr9 and I suspect lots of people will over-run, talking about options.

We have had our open evenings at school this week and yesterdays was Yr9, that ran over by about 90mins!

Ours does appointment times but we don't stick to them, just queue up to see teachers who have the smallest queues. I always expected chaos but it never is. Teachers are arranged in departments in dining room, hall, library and one of the computer suites.

Ha ha ha ha ha

Parents evg last week.

Teachers are in their classrooms, with some in the dining hall. So, you get into the cramped, crowded, sweaty corridor and see little clusters of parents around each door. You have no idea who is in the room because parents are obscuring the notices on the walls.

They run what is laughingly called an Appointments System, with each teacher having appointments with different parents every five minutes. So you are supposed to find the right room, talk about your prodigy, and then hurtle off down the corridor/across the playground in five minutes. HA! Was total chaos after the first five minutes.

Also, I have twins. Their appointments were at the . Appointments started at 5pm and were supposed to be over by 6pm. We left at 7.30.

Gimme a drink!

At my Oz school there are 5-minute appointments and senior management instruct us not overrun. They tell the tell the parents the same. The parents take the signal to move on with good grace, I must say.

sincity - identical system at DC 's school - inner London comp.
We have one a year like that and an academic review day - even more of a waste of time .
I nag DC to give some thought to his " targets " before he goes .
Comes back - can't have that target ,it's not on the computer !

Ours was well done - the school organise the appointments, 5 minutes each, teachers all over, you get a map, plus nice prefects to help you when you are lost, at the end of the time a short bell rings. That's your lot

we've got ds1's next week - half the year has parents' eve one week, then it's the other half's turn the next week

a few weeks before we get a letter asking us to say which teachers we want to see - we don't have to see them all and the letter says that if you have no concerns and your child's reports are good then there's no need

on the night we get very strictly adhered to appointments - 5 mins per subject and 5 mins in between each appointment so you can get from one to the other - at the end of the allotted time a bell rings and everyone moves round

It's pretty efficient with lots of tea/coffee/soft drinks/biscuits on hand to keep you going

The bell is a good idea. Some teachers/parents just waffle on and on.

I like the bell idea! Our kids are at primary, and even after only one or two appointments some teachers are running 20min late.

Hmph all of you moaning - at least you get to see the teachers . We have as described above only 'academic review days'. Complete and utter waste of time. The form teacher can't answer any questions about the subjects, says she will find out and that is the last you hear of it! AND they can't even keep to time for them. Gah wasn't like this in my day mutter mutter

WEbwiz- why is it the Maths teacher who ia a bit wierd?! On behalf of Maths teachers everywhere ,most of us are lovely!
I think mosr schools parents evenings are a complete nightmare. There is always one teacher with a massive queue who holds everyone up. I always found lots of my parents were late as in queue for this teacher and then general scramble at end.
Best tip - get there early and if necessary ignore the appointment times noone sticks to them anyway!

Thanks for all your comments.

I know I could handle it better if we could go to the teachers in their rooms or if they were not all in the one big hall.

Well will send exh next time and see how he fares.

And yes Violet its a large inner city comp.

At both my DC's schools, the arrnagements are as described - i.e pupils make appointments with teachers, you then scramble to see them - mostly in one large hall.
Re privacy - with the amount of background noise nobody else can hear much of what is being discussed anyway.
I would second Webwiz's advice - also turn up early, try and get your dc to space out appointments, grab any teacher who doen't have a queue even if it's not your turn.

It gets better in yr 12/13 as you only have to see 3-4 teachers.

At my DD2's school they also have 'academic monitoring day', where the children miss a day off school, I have to take a day off work, and we get 5 mins with the form tutor, who reads the other teachers comments off a record card & can't answer specific questions. Total waste of time for all concerned (as I always put on the parents questionnaire).

Does anyone find AMD's useful?

Sorry mnistooaddictive I wasn't thinking of Maths teachers in generalit was actually a very specific maths teacher who when I met him I "got" what DD1's problem with him was. DD2 has four maths teachers (she does maths and further maths A levels) and they are all lovely people - actually come to think of it one of the further maths ladies who specialises in Mechanics may be classed as slightly odd