Parents evenings for Secondary school age children.

Spendless

Do you ask your Secondary school aged children to make appointments for all of their subjects (in the lower years, not after they've taken options) or are you happy to just see certain ones?

It's my eldest's 1st parents evening since starting secondary school soon, and he 'lost' his appt slip (in reality he'd dumped it in a heap, when changing books over and I'd tidied it to the area we keep for school stuff -and neither of us realised what had happened for several days) and when it was found a lot of appointments had gone, so I've got several subjects I'm missing, some of which I'm not too bothered about as I know full well DS will drop them at the earliest opportunity, but others I'd have liked to have spoken to his teacher about. Unsure if there's another one before the end of school year.:cool:

I know when I was at school I used to 'forget' to ask the teacher for an appointment if I knew they wouldn't speak very favourably of me. Haven't mentioned this to DS though. :shhh:

whitewing

My son saw on our calendar that we already had stuff written in on the parents evening dates so he decided amongst himself that we weren't available to go and informed the school accordingly. I was suspicious that he had gone to such efforts and informed school we would be going. There were issues that he hadn't wanted us to know about, and which we could address. We couldn't get appointments for everyone but we did actually see them all anyway as we weren't rushing off.

CH27

I never bothered with PE, music, drama or art.
My son wasn't interested in them & I didn't see the point in asting the teacher's time.
I always made sure I saw maths, english & sciences.

If you want t see a specific one then just approach them n the evening if they are free.

devildog

On the evening I used to go with the intention of seeing them all but some used to drop off the end!! Don't know what your school is like but the one mine went to the appointments went out the window completely and we would just slot ourselves in when the opportunity arose(even when we had an appointment we were never seen anywhere near the time allocated). In sixth form(when there were a lot fewer teachers to see) my youngest used to lead me to teacher where they were doing OK, the not so good subjects were sandwiched in the middle and the best subjects were left to the end(end on a high note ).

Lunar_Eclipse

We had our (annual) Y7 parents evening just before Easter.

I had planned to see 4 of my daughter's subject teachers, but ended up seeing several more, when it turned out I was the only parent in her form who hadn't booked an appointment with her English teacher. I knew she was doing very well and had no concerns, but I was influenced by other parents, particularly when a fellow mum said 'what type of parent do you want the school to think you are, interested or not?'

I think in your situation, I'd go to the appointments you've managed to book, see if you can slip in for a quick chat to any others you really want to see on the night (there's usually someone who doesn't make parents evening) and e-mail any key teachers you're keen to touch base with afterwards if you didn't manage to speak to them on the night.

My most worthwhile meeting, by a mile, was with the Head of Year. One of the things we discussed were the results of the baseline testing all students undertake at the beginning of the year. It was very useful to see where she falls in the yeargroup (they're all ranked!) and thus what the school's expectations are of her general ability.

I wasn't expecting much from the evening, given that we have half termly written reports and she tells me all her test marks and grades, but it was much more valuable and insightful than I was expecting.

tyllwyd

For my DDs parents evening this time I made sure she had a list of the subjects I definitely wanted appointments for so she could concentrate on getting those. But as other people have said, in our school parents evening it can be quite chaotic, and if you can wait around you might be able to find the chance to slip in and see teachers without appointments.

Becles

Our school is just a drop in session. All the teachers are available for a session, and you just stand and queue to see whichever ones you feel the need to.

I usually go and see maths, english, sciences and their form tutor plus any teachers where the children are struggling in lessons, then things like PE, art and design subjects etc., depends on the length of their queues. Eg: I'm not going to spend 20 mins standing in a queue just to be told they're rubbish at art when I know they're both rubbish at art and my eldest dropped it in Year 10 and the middle one is looking forward to dropping it!

Seanymph

I see them all.

But now I only have SS at secondary I can happily confirm that consistent across his subjects is not a description you could apply to himn - best to check with everyone.

mrcow

I'm happy to see parents even if they don't have an appointment (science). If I'm free or at the end of the eveing, they are more than welcome to come and have chat.

It is important to see as many members of staff as you can. Make the most of the time offered. Even if everything is fine, it's important to know that.

pavlovs_dog

devildog wrote: »

On the evening I used to go with the intention of seeing them all but some used to drop off the end!! Don't know what your school is like but the one mine went to the appointments went out the window completely and we would just slot ourselves in when the opportunity arose(even when we had an appointment we were never seen anywhere near the time allocated).

This is the very reason why I ignore our school's policy that we MUST make appointments with our pupils. It is a waste of time in lessons that I could put to much better use. I get all of my pupils to write 'any' in the time column for me and I see as many as I can.

LandyAndy

I always tried to get appointments for all. Why wouldn't you? On the other hand it is such a free for all that the appointments only really serve to tell the teachers when they have seen everyone who specifically wants to see them rather than setting an order. We would often drop in on a teacher out of order (or who we didn't have an appointment for) if we saw they were free. No teacher ever said 'I can't see you, you don't have an appointment'.