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.

I have 9 parents evenings per year... Many of which go on til 8pm (4 hours long, no toilet breaks !) . I also have to write reports for every class at some point in the year. So I do feel your pain. But if it's in the directed time it's allowed to happen....

Maybe look into a different career if it's not suited to your life?

Oh come on you know it is not that simple. I sometimes think I should just find a bridge to lob myself off. At least the kids would get some money that way which might be of use to them. As it is, we are all just treading water.[-

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.

You are thinking that way more thought has gone into those grades than actually has. If a parent asked me ‘why did my kid get a 5 this time and a 7 last time?’ My real answer would be ‘did they? Guess I was in a bad mood when I did the second set of reports’.

About going into different details over two parents evenings. I don’t know your kid in detail. You can’t know the two hundred kids you might teach in detail off the top of your head to discuss at parents evening. To record that much detail so that you could refer to it and regurgitate would be a horrendous workload.

So no, 5 minutes isn’t enough time to go into detail, but then again I don’t have that much detail to go into.

I don’t know your kid in detail.

Ah, OK. As I say, I either have very noticeable children, or have been very lucky in the vast majority of their teachers - they have always been able to discuss recent performance, good things and bad things they have done in class or written work recently (whether work, attitude, behaviour, discussions etc), refer to strengths and weaknesses and discuss something specific to work on. Often have work with them to refer to to illustrate their points, or have mark books which I presume refer to specific tests / pieces of work (so the Maths teacher might say 'particularly strong in the work we've been doing on geometry' or whatever), but which are clearly not 'just for parents' evenings' as they build up over the year - I suppose that for secondary, as you don't keep all their workbooks in school, teachers have mark books to keep records of work / marks?

As I say, DD did have 1 Maths teacher who didn't know who she was, and one who seriously underestimated her because he was fooled by her quietness in class. Otherwise, across all subjects over 12 'child years', we've been lucky.

Tbh, I have always been surprised by how well the teachers DO know my children, even though they obviously see so many pupils per week. Those who have taught them for multiple years obviously 'get' them increasingly with time, but even those who have taught my DCs for a year or two have pretty much always shown good knowledge not only of their work but of their interests and characters.

This is why I'm currently a primary teacher with 15 years' experience working as a 1:1 SEN TA. Financially it's a huge struggle (my partner only earns around £24k pa) and I have two kids half of the time (so no maintenance and zero pence from wealthy ex husband) but for now I don't want to go back to the stress and the pressure of working additional hours every evening and at weekends to be told it's "part of the job".

Oh I have a mark book cant and could say stuff like ‘DC is particularly strong in geometry but hopeless at algebra’ from looking at my markbook (we don’t mark books but we do mark end of topic tests), but that doesn’t mean I know your DC in detail, it means I’ve kept records on them that I’m looking at as I’m talking to you.
That information could equally be communicated to parents on an automatically generated leaflet, it doesn’t need a 2nd parents’ evening for a further update.

Novble, maybe we are missing each other's points here.

As a parent, I don't have your markbook. Because books aren't marked in the same way as they are at primary, I can't see from looking at DC's books how well they are doing. I am not in class, so don't know whether they contribute, are silent, or are disruptive. You may not feel you are telling me anything when you transmit information from your markbook or your in-class observations to me, but you are.

So for me, in the years that DC have had two parents' evenings, I have found both of these useful, particularly because they are well-timed to have different purposes (settling in / options or A-level choices / focus for revision) and because I don't know whether DC are good in geometry and poor at algebra. I find a teacher's interpretation of this 'they did OK relative to the class in algebra despite the relatively low raw mark. They all found the subject hard and we will be revisiting again before the exams - check the revision timetable too, because although I think they needn't come every week, I think they should come for algebra, circle theorems and graphs' much more informative than an automatically generated printout of the mark book would be (though of course with numerical reports I get a summarised version of your markbook anyway, and we get those before the parents' evening).

The two meetings are different a) because they are well-timed to have different purposes and b) because the children have obviously covered different topics in between. So 'They did excellently when we were doing drawing, but are finding painting much more challenging' in art, or 'Much more engaged since we started X book' in English, or 'We've come back to algebra and recent marks show they're much more secure' in Maths.

I would also say that the 3-4 hours of a parents' evening is surely much less hassle than full written reports, which we do get every few years - those years without 2 parents;' evenings, IIRC? I know that for primary, I would FAR prefer our two evenings per term of parents' evenings face to face in the first 2 terms of the year than the final written report that we do in the third term, as they're so much more efficient in terms of information transferred per unit of time spent!

though of course with numerical reports I get a summarised version of your markbook anyway

You really don’t.

1 parents evening I can say how your child behaves in class. A 2nd parents evening is rarely going to communicate new information about this. The quiet kid is still quiet, the keen one is still keen, the rambunctious one still needs to calm down.

The markbook stuff - I can give a very good impression that I know your child personally, and their strengths and weaknesses. However, I’m just looking at my markbook to remind myself, then talking around the numbers.

Given the speed dating nature of parents evenings, and from what we know about memory, the parents aren’t going to remember the details. They might remember a theme, (‘too chatty’) but not that little Johnny needs to work on solving quadratics. So what’s the point in communicating details through such an ineffective method?

If parents want to know the details (the contents of my markbook), then neither a parents evening, nor a numerical report are the way forward.

Noble, in the secondary parents' evenings I attend, parents with notebooks are pretty much the norm - and tbh they are very common in the primary meetings I do.

I always take and use one because DH can't attend, so I am not relying on memory. Others annotate the numerical reports. It's personal choice.

We are both describing personal experience here, which won't be universal - and also our personal views, mine that I find parents' evenings useful (from both sides of the table), yours that you don't.

As you don't think numerical reports OR parents' evenings are useful, what do you think would be the best - and most time-efficient - way of communicating to parents how their child is performing and their next steps, given that education is a partnership between parents, children and teachers?

I hope you're not serious op about sometimes thinking you should throw yourself off a bridge. Might you benefit from anti depressants? Not because i think you don't have reason to be down but they can be helpful even if you do have a reason. I've been on a low dose since my dh died last year and they've helped. With regards to at least your kids would get money, they wouldn't get life insurance if it was suicide. Your dh also wouldn't get widowed parents' allowance as Theresa May scrapped it after 80 years, despite it being based on the dead parents' National Insurance contributions which they'll never benefit from in the form of state pension.
I agree 2 parents' eves is too much. We have one which is plenty. My dc school also scrapped subject teacher comments on reports. We only have one comment a year by the form tutor now which is fine. They brought in this change after the school set up a MAT!

Leaving this here for you noble. Completely irrelevant to thread but I know how much you admire the life and works of Toby Young.

www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/04/24/toby-young-trolled-greta-thunberg-privileged-takedowns-swift-brutal/?fbclid=IwAR1gah5b6aSkVsMSw0l5Mhr7Uv_983yG8Mph9shk5OIbkdk-7K1nTv8Hgpk

Mmm how unfortunate you are so discruntled in your chosen career. Parents want to meet teachers who are motivated and engaged with the teaching process and there children. By the vitriolic tone of your message that can’t be so! How many of your colleagues feel the same I wonder? Maybe it’s time for a career change? But you may miss the time off with your children in the holidays. I always find the summer break massively demanding on my work/ home life balance. But that’s my chosen career! It is what it is!

I've not RTFT because I don't need six pages of 'in my industry...'

You need to ask for and check your directed time budget. We are employed, and our salary calculated on, working 1265 hours spread across 195 days. If your leadership can't demonstrate to you how it's staying within the 1265 then you need to ensure that they do, including union of need be. Either the calculation is right, in which case tough, or they've assumed that every member of teaching staff is naive enough to not know this basic employment fact and they are taking the mick. Or you work in a weird private setting in which case ignore me.

parents with notebooks are pretty much the norm

In my 14 years of dealing with the mainly middle classes, they’re not. And even if they are, that’s still crap isn’t it? You’ve got 5 minutes to talk with the teacher (4 really because coming over, sitting down, getting up and leaving takes time) and you want detailed information, but you will inevitably miss some of what is being said (or waste appointment time) because you are trying to scribble notes that you may or may not understand later. And you are well educated - what of the parents who are not?

If you had important detailed information that you wanted your pupils to take away from a lesson, there is no way you’d ever organise it like a parents evening. Oh, and stick the kids in a noisy hall where it’s really hard to hear each other too.

So parents evenings are good for putting faces to names, a broad brush ‘needs a kick up the backside’ ‘pleasure to teach’, answering quick questions. The human touch. But for detailed transmission of information about how DC are actually doing, it’s rubbish, and that’s why a second one would be a waste of time.

what do you think would be the best - and most time-efficient - way of communicating to parents how their child is performing and their next steps

Putting my markbook online. Topic test results, plus highest, lowest and class average.

Oh piggy that’s brilliant. What a nob.

Your directed hours are crazy. Unless you're in a private school, you're getting an incredibly rough deal.

1. Normal hours until 4.
2. Weekly twilight until 5:30.
3. 10 x Parents' Evenings

That puts you way over 1265 hours (which I'm guessing your MAT doesn't adhere to, but it might be worth checking!).

Are you in a union?

Sometimes I have 12 parents evenings a year to attend. On my day off. I don’t get a choice as to whether to attend them as I work for a private school so don’t have the same rights. Plus reports. Plus week end fairs/bbq/having to attend all school plays/prizegiving/open days on week ends/inset days on days off/going in for exam results days etc. I have to attend the same number of out of school time extra activities as full time members of staff yet I only work 2 days a week. My union tell me this is relatively normal in the private sector [part timers to have to do all the extras that full timers have to do despite getting a part time pay].