Parents evening at primary school

It took me a while to realise you're a teacher.

I would be extremeley unhappy to just get 5 minutes. It's just not long enough, which is why you're always over-running presumably? So why not give parents half an hour each but have them less frequently? At my son's school we have a parents evening at the end of the Autumn term, a written report end of Spring term and another parents evening at the end of the summer term.

I have my second one coming up next week, Number 1 started reception in September. Last time I took the last apointment slot at 7.20pm due to work and I was waiting a good 40 minutes before I got seen. We do get 10 minute slots - but this is obviously not long enough if the teacher is runing that late. But to be fair to her - I did not feel rushed and was happy to wait for the reasurance my child is not a) an oik or b) a lonley recluse.

I guess with 1st term resepton there is not that much about there progress with work to talk about so I will be interested to see what next week brings.

Sounds a bit rough on you having to do it in the evenings! We have them in the afternoon - the children go home at 2pm and we do appointments from then until we feel like stopping. We can choose our length, I normally choose 10 minutes, although other teachers choose up to 20. I just feel like 10 minutes covers everything (janna - half an hour would be a nightmare, don't know how you could talk about one kid for so long! ?). We have a parent meeting in October, send a short report home after Christmas, followed by another parent meeting. Then a summer report (full length) with no other parent meeting.

My sons school is simular to your - 5 mins in terms 1 & 2 and an open evening where parents and children go around class together. I think it works very well.

I'm also a teacher but in secondary. The many problem I find is parents turning up at all. I'd say I get 30-40% of parents making appointments (10 minute slots, one evening for each year group throughout the year) and then 20%+ of them don't turn up. Last year I taught 300 students and therefore it was very difficult to contact all these parents with an individual report of their childs progress (although they did have one written report a year).

Primary schools have a legal obligation to provide a minimum of two consultations and one written report per year, but it is down to the school to decide how these are distributed. A common format is autumn and spring consultations, end of year report in the summer.

Our consultations are ten minutes, which is plenty, and a lot can be said in that time.

Janna, I would be interested to know where we would find the additional 15-16 hours to do consultations for an average class of 30?!

? Another teacher, not a parent here, but you sound like you do loads! At our place we have a parents evening around october time, apart from me in reception who have parental interviews in the first week of term in September, then this terms parents evenings are on Wednesday and Thurday nights 3.30-6 and 4-7pm and in the summer tern we have an informal open evening where the children get to meet their new teacher. We only do one written report a year in Summer. (I am sure 3 written reports are outside union guidelines but don't quote me!)

Our interviews this week are a 10 minute slot and if the parents don't turn up, unless I need to see them we don't chase them up. We did start trialling having a parents meeting in September where all the parents attended a meeting explaining what would be happening during the year and could then talk to the teacher afterwards, but the evaluation sheets from the parents said it was too long to wait till the March evening to find out any problems, which I agree with. We do have a pretty open door policy at our school though especially in the earlier years. I am so not looking forward to parents evenings this week, luckily no tricky parents this year though!

We have the same system as you but get 10 min slots

With our daughter we are in and out in 2 mins, as she is a high achiever and she’s a prefect so behaviour is never a problem

With our son though we always go over time, he struggles with school and although he has not been formally diagnosed is dyslexic so we have a lot to talk to his teachers about.

It does seem like a waste of time seeing our daughters teacher but as we are there to see sons teacher anyway it doesn’t hurt to stop in for a quick check up on her as well.

We do only get reports once a year though.

We have ours to go to on Wednesday evening. We get 10 minutes but usually we go in, they go through what they've done, tell us there are no problems and that's it!

I just know that they're going to comment on the fact that we're a bit rubbish at remembering to sign things ?

I'm not sure when we get reports but we get two (I think) parents evenings. We have a 10 minute slot and his teacher does her best to keep to time. It's our second one next week so I may have more to add after that!

I've no idea, you'd have to ask my son's teacher. It's over the course of 3 evenings and only happens twice a year. Perhaps they just get on with it and do it extra?

We get two - one in the Christmas term, the other next week in fact! Supposedly 10 minutes - and that's what they were last year and the year before.

This year, I'm not very happy with them - previous years have been fine. Last terms one, I was due in at 7.35 - got in at 8.20. And got about 3 minutes - I don't think she was even sure which child she was talking about by that point. Her husband was glowering in through the door as well! Such a change from previous years - but then she is a bit of a Lizzy Dripping!

I think I'd prefer two written and one face to face - but would that be more work for the teachers?

We have 2 consultations each school year and send home school reports at the end of the summer term. Our parents evenings are held in the hall altogether (safety in numbers- bit of a choice area) and the head teacher rings a bell every 10 minutes so that we can try to keep our appointments on time.

I haven;t seen my daughters teacher since October and a parents evening is well overdue. I need to speak to her teacherabout her progress as I'm concerned she isn;t pushed hard enough, I personally think my daughter has a photographic memory but her teacher might have other ideas (and how do you go about testing for such things anyway??). I also worry about what attitude I'm going to get from her (the teacher) as the last time we spoke I ended up putting a formal complaint about her attitude and the way she spoke to me.

Interviews are given in 10 minute slots and they are noramally kept to the 10 minutes - if we need any longer we're advised to make a further appointment. I'm not sure who said it but we do afternoon and evening apppointements which I'm pleased with as I'd be really miffed if only afternoon slots were offered. My husband likes to come to the evenings as well and wouldn;t be able to if only atfernoon slots were offered.

School reports normally come back at the end of the school year just before they break up for the summer holidays.

When I was in mainstream we did 5 minute appointments which were done over 2 nights twice a year and then reports in the summer. This was the case in both schools I worked in. It was always done starting about 10 minutes after the kids left at the end of the day.

Now I'm in special we do 2 parents evenings and then one open afternoon plus our annual reviews. Now because we have a max of 9 children in our class we do 15 minutes each and our annual reviews are about four or five thousand words so about the same as writing reports for 30 kids.

Like others, we have an Autumn and Spring session of consultations and reports in the Summer. We have to stay at school from 3:30 - 7:30 on two nights; it's physically exhausting but I don't mind it. Our slots are approx. 10 mins and I do try very hard not to over run too much, however, I would find it extremely difficult to go on for half an hour about any child.

Essex mum, I am happy to see parents at any time...why don't you just arrange a chat after school? Also, it's worth bearing in mind that a child's performance at school is often quite different to what parents see at home.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I'm not sure about half an hour with each set of parents but I think 10 minutes would be better than 5. I also have problems with parents not turning up to appointments - always the ones you desperately want to speak to. I would hope that if parents had any concerns they would come to see me straight away rather than waiting until parents evening. I think parents of children in the infants have a lot more contact with teachers than juniors so it's much easier for us.

I liked the way Adam's primary school did parents evening. You got a slip home asking if you wanted to see the teacher (they gave a written report or telephoned parents who didn't want to come in that they wanted to see - his HT said there was no point wasting spaces on people who didn't want them). If you did you chose which of the days you wanted - there was 1 afternoon session and 1 evening session, in P7 there was a 3rd session because they knew more parents would have more questions. Then you ticked a box to say if you wanted 5, 10 or 15 minutes to chat with the teacher and they provided space for you if you wanted to note any specific things you wanted to speak to the teacher about. The teacher could also say they'd like to see you for 15 minutes if they had lots to say. Apparently since they brought it in they've seen a lot less appointments run over time.

At Leila's first parents night last week it was a waste of time. The teacher was running 40 minutes late, could't get us out of the door fast enough, couldn't answer simple questions about how she was doing without checking her file (with photograph on the front) and left us wondering if she still didn't know the names of the children in her class despite having them since August.

I like the idea of parents identifying anything specific they would like to talk about with the teacher. I also know that I have much more to discuss which some parents than others. Not sure I could do a telephone conversation - I find face-to-face much easier.

We had our parents evening tonight too - 10 minute slots but it was a target sharing time - we had to write something for English/Maths/Science with their current target and their predicted end of year target - no books to look at. We are also having an open afternoon on Friday for any parents to come and look at work in classrooms.

I had 3 no-shows which I now have to chase but I did manage to stick to time as a result of them not turning up. We also do parents evening in October and then informal open evening in July just after reports have been sent out.

I like the theory behind the way my daughters school does it, but it toally depends on the teacher imho.

You get a slip home with the 2 dates they are holding appts on, one with early appts one with late. You choose a time frame (7-8pm for example) then you get an exact time back. We always have the late appts so my H can be there, which always means we are about 1/2 hour late. Which tbh we expect now thats not the issue! Its exactly like you described, CG, you get in the classroom and are basically told "yep shes doing great" Obviously i dont want there to be issues, but it feels like they dont even know who she is (she has 2 teachers who split their days, which doesnt help)

Last year her teacher was fab, they had the same system but she just seemed so much more interested in E and we didnt go home thinking what a waste of time it was.

My son's school have parents evening twice a year, I think it is 10 minute slots.

We go each time but basically know what is going to be said. The teachers are very approchable at son's school so will see you after class without appointment (I just say, "can I have a quick word?" -and they always have time, or they may say "can I have a quick word" as you are picking child up, if there is anything either us or they want to discuss) - so when it gets to parents evening, there are never any real issues or surprises as they are sorted or discussed at the time of issue.

From a teaching POV (and I was secondary, so a bit different) sometimes five minutes is way too long and sometimes hours wouldn't start to scratch the surface. A lot of the time, parents' evenings are useless I think. When I taught drama, I'd potentially have 100 sets of parents wanting an appointment in one evening, to discuss a child I saw for 50 minutes once a fortnight. Madness.

As a parent, I've also found that they depended on the teacher, particularly at primary level. Having a son with dyslexia it was always a valued chance to talk through how things were going, but what we got out of it varied so much. My particular gripe was that we'd be promised the earth and nothing would change, or that we'd have to sit on baby sized chairs and be spoken to as if we were 9 as well by a teacher who'd clearly forgotten how to relate to adults.

In secondary, my especial favourite was receiving glowing reports from subject teachers who clearly had no idea who my son was, as he was school phobic and they hadn't seen him for months. I went along to try to get some work, or at least some idea of what he was missing, and was told by his alleged IT and Geography teachers that he was "doing brilliantly" and by his English teacher that he'd never be in a GCSE group as his ability was too low. He's currently producing A* coursework at home, by the way ?

I think the whole thing is generally a pain in the arse for teachers, and a waste of time for parents.

Have just done the parents consultations for my 2 schoolies - they offer a choice of 3 days to go in - some of the appointments can be offered during the day [from 2-3 typically] then the others run on from that - none very late tbh

i always go for the in school time ones tbh - there is no way H would get back for the after school ones so i might as well go for what is convenient for me. I know that the teachers would be fine with H making an appointment to see them if he had concerns [we don't]

they offer 10 minute appointments which with my children is plenty.... again i am certain that if there was a problem they would ask us to go in to see them at a different time - they wouldn't wait til parents evening [i know this cos i know parents who have gone in for additional meetings etc]

30 mins would be too long imo - yesterday i had the opportunity to look thru christophers workbooks before i met with the teacher or i could have looked thru them afterwards.... i suppose if that was done in the meeting it would take 30 mins or so.

I would worry about the teachers getting home if the appointments were 30 minutes ? after a day with up to 30 small children i think they deserve some good r&r ?