Parents evenings - how often and how long?

[Howisitparentseveningagain]

Secondary here. We have 2/year group/school year at KS3 and KS4, and year 7 is split in half, so four for them. That's 12 already, and then 2 more for post-16. 14x3 hours = 42 hours a year, or one every three weeks in term time. Is it me or is this slightly bonkers?

I'm Primary, but, speaking from my dcs' schools, at secondary it is one a year (plus one of their schools did a "come in and meet" session about this time of year in Yr7...... from memory it was HofY, SENCo, Hof Pastoral Support and form teachers though, not subject teachers.

That is indeed bonkers.

DH teaches in a private school with really small year groups and they also have two per year group. He hates it. They never have many appointments on each night, which sounds nice but makes it feel even more like a waste of time. That said, the only meeting he ever has is a department meeting which is scheduled into their timetables! They have one Saturday Open Morning.

How is your school doing on its Directed Time budget?? I teach in a very big school (Year groups 400) and we only have one parents' evening per year group but they are ridiculous.

We have 1 per year group.

Looking at our directed time budget there’s no way we could put in another one per year group without going over. Do you have very few after school meetings or something?

Apparently I am still 24 hours under my directed time They have become very explicit about where all our time goes, but I feel it's massively working against me. We do have a disaggregated training day, so that gives them another 6 hours to direct us.

Thanks for confirming this is a bit crazy! In the 7 weeks of Autumn 2 I will be in school in the evenings at least 5 times, and I only do four days! The HT's stock answer is that we're under our directed time and "this is the reality in schools up and down the country" which I will hopefully soon be finding out for myself

The disaggregated training day should be spent on INSET though, not parents evenings.

Do you have after school meetings the same week as parents evenings too?

That speaks volumes about your school's attitude to CPD and staff training!

God, honestly people need to challenge that sort of crap.

I'm challenging it by looking for another job! Whenever I have raised issues like this with SLT they can't seem to stretch to listening, let alone acting on it. There's just no point!

My DD's secondary (y7-11) has 1 per year group per year, plus a 'meet the tutor' for new y7s. As a parent I think it's sufficient. I can email a teacher if I have specific concerns/queries.

We have one per year group but head is threatening to up it to two.

@Howisitparentseveningagain

Your head is having you on. I would find the time to go through that directed time budget with a fine toothed comb.

I have found that any head so obsessed with directed time budgets is not thinking of staff well being. It is dreadful to be always assuming your staff are gipping you.

Saying that- we do have two for KS4 and sixth form. But then we don’t write long reports.

My head hasn’t mentioned directed time once in two years. He seems fairly certain we’re all working hard.

@BelleSausage my thoughts entirely! I really feel we're getting the mushroom treatment (kept in the dark and fed shit). I cba to go through the directed time again - it does add up but the implication that we're having it easy really pisses me off!

I would think that puts you over the 1265 hours. Break, tutor time, lessons, PPA, Inset, meetings, Parents' Evenings, open evenings, trapped time between school and Parents' Evenings all count. School should have provided you with a directed time budget. Ask your union for advice.

Hadn't realised trapped time counts as well! We've been given personalised directed time budgets, and it really seems like we're still under

My school has 7 parents evenings of 3 hours and they start an hour after school so we are allocated 28 hours of directed time.

It seems you should have a lot more than 42 hours allocated!

We have never been given DT budgets at my school but they have just discovered we are over. Mainly because they accidentally created trapped time. To be fair, desperate scrambling around is now occurring to give us the time back again!!

It's often used as a threat by SLT , I have noticed 'well, this is your directed time, so you should be xyz' , rather than selling it as a good thing which protects the teaching staff.

So if I add all the trapped time that comes to another 5 hours, and that's just for me (only do 4 days). Will be contacting our rep!

Not doubting trapped time is a popular wheeze for a certain brand of SLT- the shit ones.

They should absolutely be counting that.