Ten parents evenings a year - this is fucking stupid!

[10istoomany]

It's infuriating because the logistics it causes me in childcare is horrendous, but aside from which it is surely not reasonable?

The problem is that the PE doesn't technically start until 4:30 and goes on until 6:30, so two hours, but there's an hour and a half of trapped time in there.

Don't teach then!

Sadly, this is the solution many are choosing. Better if we all said no to silly, unpaid extras.

silly, unpaid extras

Are parents' evenings 'silly unpaid extras', though?

of what OP has said, they are possibly by far the least unreasonable extras.

Prizegiving - absolutely a silly extra. Open evenings - likewise. Many of the after school revision sessions - benefit probably marginal at best. Full text reports, over-lengthy staff meetings / twilights... often silly.

Whereas talking to parents about the responsibility teachers and parents share, that of educating their children - I would say that would be, by comparison, a reasonably sensible use of teacher time IF well-used and well-structured.

cant you’re primary, you teach the kids all day every day and know them really well.

At secondary, there isn’t that much to say about the kids twice over.

Once, yes. Second time, they’re pretty much the same kid.

I actually quite like parents evenings. But it’s when they’re either not scheduled intelligently (year 11 parents evening the week before mocks for example, or year 9 parents evening the week after they’ve made their options choices ) or because they’re duplicated you just end up with the same lovely kids coming with their lovely parents each time to be happily told how lovely their kids are and you don’t get to see the ones you actually want to see. Or when you teach an options subject in KS4 so have 15 students but you’re not allowed to block off any appointments so you end up having them spread out over the full three hours with massive gaps in the middle. I run all our school performing arts events, so have probably 15 of those evenings per year. So that’s up to 27 evenings/late nights. Plus speech day/prizegiving etc. I have 10 late nights scheduled at work in the last 4 weeks of the summer term. Plus two late finishes (5.30/6pm) per week, every week as standard. As I said upthread I’m leaving at the end of the summer term and have found another job elsewhere. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if my work life balance doesn’t improve in my new part time-zero extra responsibility role (moving from full time head of faculty to just part time teacher) then I too will become one of the statistic of teachers who has left the profession entirely. I’d quite like to spend a bit of time with my own children!

noble In my DC's school at least, where there are 2 parents' evenings it seems to be for a specific reason:

e.g. Y7 has a simple form tutor 'settling on' evening + a full subject one. Y11 and 13 have two each - the Y13 one is early, in the run up to UCAS, the second towards the end of the Spring term to monitor progress towards exams. AFAIR Y9 has just one, just before options have to be submitted.

Many, certainly higher up the school, are preceded by numerical progress reports, so there are obvious 'priority people to book to see' and 'obvious issues to discuss'.

I've certainly never felt I am 'seeing someone for a second time but being told nothing new', because it has usually felt like there is a good reason for holding the meetings when they are, if that makes sense?

And maybe I have been lucky - or just have noticeable children - because I have always felt that the staff do know my children wel (obviously not as well as I know my own class, that's not to be expected, but certainly enough to discuss them and their work in detail for 2 x 5 minutes within a year, and say different things). The only time that I had an issue was a Maths teacher who, despite DD being one of only 6 girls in the set, couldn't identify who she was without her class list with photographs ... but that was a one off in a cumulative 12 years of secondary parents' evenings (7 for 1 child and 5 for the other so far).

preceded by numerical progress reports

Yeah, presumably you know my opinions on those? Parents evenings are often spent saying ‘ignore those numbers, that one’s generated by a computer and that one can obviously change over 5 years’.

Y7 ‘meet the tutor’ isn’t the same as a parents evening. If you have normal tutoring, it only hits a few teachers. If you have vertical tutoring it’s only a handful of kids.

You can’t discuss anyone’s work in detail in 5 minutes!

of what OP has said, they are possibly by far the least unreasonable extras.

I agree in principle. I do way, way more than I'm paid for and I too value parents evenings done properly.

But OP is doing too much, seemingly unpaid and outside of contract.

No is a full sentence in that situation.

2 a year group is ridiculous. The parents you actually need to see are the ones least likely to attend.

Ive PE with 120’students shortly in a three hour evening. Yes that’s not going to happen! And we will have a dept. meeting beforehand too.

Also pretty fucked off at the 30 hours of cover ive done this year.

Not an academy. No union rep at all in school though.

20 hours of cover, not 30. All foreseen. This week’s cover is someone who is off on a planned absence put in months ago!

The ‘don’t teach, you’re in the wrong job’ posters have no idea what MATs have done to the profession and they are laughably ignorant as to the crisis in education. Soon, their children will be taught solely by NQTs in classes of 50+ with no resources. Let’s see how happy they are with how well their child learns then. If they knew, they might think better than to hound existing teachers out of a profession in unbelievable decline.

@cantkeepawayforever you mustn’t have gone to the teachers who taught your children once in a fortnight. Year 7 and year 11 parents evening in my first year at one school were both within the first half term. Year 7 I’d seen most of those kids once maybe twice for an hour. Unless the kid was super naughty I barely knew their name. So I’d say it was pretty pointless at that point.
Year 11 was better as I’d seen them ten times or so plus only had one class instead of seven different classes of yr7’s. However, so early in the school year was unhelpful really.

We have 7 PE ( 1 per year) and then the usual open evening, 6th form open evening, options etc. I am not expected at prom, presentation evening etc though.

Parents Evenings are a pain logistics wise but I have to sit down with DH in September with the calendar and he sometimes has to book holiday for it. It's annoying in the extreme. And in the main, the parents you need to see most (i.e. the utter pain in the arses) don't turn up.

But they're usually contracted DT. Mine were, even on my days off I had to go in but at least they had the good grace to pay me for those.

You need to add up your DT and get unions un., Or leave. Honestly, I'd be looking now before this gets worse.

Never mind the CV, it's not the right school for you, walk away.

I agree with PP - the school sounds awful and you need to leave.

You'll still have to do parents' evenings at other schools, and not be able to see your children on those evenings, but that's par for the course for a lot of jobs, teaching or not.

It's not the parents' evenings that are the problem, it's all the other stuff, and the fact that they've timetabled other meetings etc in the same week as parents' evenings. You're being massively overworked, and the stress of that is taking its toll on you.

I worked in a school for 2 terms, then left because it was shit (and not as bad as what you're describing). I then worked at another school, also for 2 terms, and again left, because that was also shit (still not as bad as you're describing. While I was at the second school, a job came up in a lovely school that I'd done supply in (bog standard state school, but lovely kids and very well-managed), so I took a job there, and I'm happily settled at this school now.

Lots of schools are shit, they don't deserve good teachers, so try to get a job in another school.

There's no harm in applying - the schools you apply to will decide whether your CV is a bit dodgy, and you've no idea how dodgy everyone else's CV is - a lot of teachers move around these days due to the appalling management in a lot of schools. You never know, the school you're currently in might be well-known amongst head teachers as being a horrible place to work.

Exactly. I moved to a lovely school and whilst I'm ambitious and want a HOD role I'm very aware that I have a good head, a lovely department and the staff are great. If there's a PE there's no meeting that week. There's simple things like thank you from SLT said regularly. I sort of landed on my feet and I'm very grateful after time spent in St. Knobhead's academy for the Too Cool.

Nice schools are out there. Get looking.

A lot of MATs don’t recognise unions, far less agree to the working conditions agreed by them. MATs are free to set their own working conditions.

leftfootforward.org/2019/04/schools-out-unions-threaten-strike-action-at-uks-largest-academy-trust/

How does that work Haggisfish? Had a quick google and there are supposed to be only very limited reasons why an employer refuses to recognise a union. I saw an example of Lidl refusing to but being forced to - they lost their appeal as well.
Unions don’t set working conditions but they could be of support to someone like the OP in ensuring that she wasn’t forced to work reasonably beyond her contract.

BTW I look through my ds's school books, read his home diary and get a pretty good idea how I think he's doing. Problem is too many parents don't bother and just expect teachers to do everything.
(I'm a dinner lady at a primary school and the amount of time we spend teaching KS1 kids how to use a knife and fork not there fingers which in my opinion is a parents job.)

A lot of MATs don’t recognise unions, far less agree to the working conditions agreed by them.

Unions don't set pay and conditions- your contract does. Most state schools still employ on standard pay and conditions (the burgundy book).

The issue is that crap managers try to cover their inadequacy by having staff do more silly nonsense. I agree this may be more common in MATs but that doesn't make it more lawful.

I know both of the above but op will undoubtedly find herself managed out if she tries to get union involved. Crap management, unrealistic workload and head in sand by middle leaders who will be drowning themselves. Only real option is to move school.

What Haggisfish said.
I work for a MAT (for now) and I feel your pain OP.
It's not like 'normal' school.

Your school sounds like the one I used to work in. Totally understand how you feel about having resources you have purchased yourself destroyed (pens so there is work in the books, posters so your classroom looks good and is supposedly a reflection of your teaching), buying sweets etc as I did all of that too. It's soul destroying. I left three years ago and do supply which I love. No parent's evenings, data, performance management, politics etc. I've actually had to turn work away as there is so much. If a school is not to your taste, you don't have to go back. I walk out of the door at 3.30 and don't think about it again until the next morning.

Fauithless
Year 7 and year 11 parents evening in my first year at one school were both within the first half term.

As I've said a couple of times, I think one of the things DC's school does right is the timing of the parents;' evenings - not too early in the year, and for proper reasons, like coming up to options choices.

noble]
You can’t discuss anyone’s work in detail in 5 minutes!
You can't have it both ways. You have said that even as a Maths teacher - ie with very regular lessons with each child per timetable cycle - you haven't got enough different to say about the child for 2 separate parents' evenings so you are basically saying the same thing. Then you are saying that 5 minutes isn't enough for detail. So surely you can find two separate 5 minutes' worth of the detail you do have to give a parent each year?

i can see that for a subject like music or drama, with very few timetabled lessons each cycle, a teacher might have little to say about a KS3 pupil, especially early in the year if the school timetables the sessions badly. However, for maths, where you have multiple lessons each week, unless the parents' evenings are really badly sited in the year - ie both in the first term - are you genuinely saying that you don't have 2 lots of 5 minutes' worth of different information each time??

I know that numerical reports are not infallible. However, since the concern that you first expressed was that you didn't have enough to say about a child for 10 minutes a year split into 2x5 minutes, surely they generate enough conversation to carry you through?? I only meant that e.g. if a GCSE teacher said progress grade was around a 5 last time, and around a 7 this time, I'm going to ask slightly different questions from the meeting for the subject where the progress grade has gone down from a 7 to a 5. Not that I absolutely believe in either one - just that a move up generates different questions from a move down...