Parents' evenings
Parents' evenings are a crucial way for teachers and parents to interact and be constructive, as well as open, about the progress — or lack of progress — that a child is making at school. However, with factors like time pressures, limited staff numbers, or anxious parents, these evenings can sometimes be challenging for all involved. Taking the right approach and being sensitive to parents' concerns is necessary to help parents' evenings run relatively smoothly and to reap valuable gains from these rewarding opportunities.
While some schools have replaced parents' evenings with regular home reports, emails between parents and teachers, or individual face-to-face appointments, most school venues are sticking to the familiar evening formula.
Tried and tested: techniques for successful parents'
evenings
Teachers and schools can take the following steps to ensure the smooth
running of an organised parents' evening and to make it an arena for honest
discussion and productive criticism that will help motivate children and
positively affect their learning experiences:
- Teachers can find out from parents how their children act at home and how they approach homework. Teachers can also make suggestions to parents on how they can help with their child's learning — for example by referring them to valuable online resources such as the homework area of the Standards Site.
- Teachers can use recent examples of a pupil's work to illustrate how that pupil is excelling or having difficulty in a certain area.
- Teachers should avoid giving out reports at parents' evenings, as many parents may find that this does not give them enough time to prepare useful questions. It's better to send the reports out at least a week before the parents' evening.
- If possible, schools should organise evenings towards the beginning of the year to allow teachers to let parents know what will be going on, and to enlist their help in approaching any problems that pupils may have.
- If possible, schools could also arrange two separate parents' evenings for each year group divided by subject, to maximise time available for interviews.
- Schools should give parents a choice of which teachers to meet with, prompting them to focus on a subject where they are concerned the child is having difficulty. If parents can't get to the parents' evening, schools should let them know that they can make an appointment for another time.
Mind your language
Many schools have pupils whose parents speak only a language or
languages other than English, or who struggle with English to the point that
letters and other correspondence from school are ineffective.
The Standards Site has a range of downloadable publications on
parents' evenings, meetings with teachers, school reports, children's
homework and other topics in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi,
Punjabi, Somali, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese. These may be helpful to such
families.
Team players
Parents' evenings should emphasise the importance of teachers'
and parents' shared role in a child's education. While parents and
teachers can occasionally come to loggerheads over a child's behaviour or
progress, or even the best way to teach certain subjects, parents should
ultimately respect the fact that teachers are professionals and do know what
they're doing when it comes to raising a child's grades from, say, a D
to a B or an A.
Misunderstandings can arise from the fact that some parents can be generally unfamiliar with the teachers, the education system, and even with the school itself. Parents' evenings are one way schools seek to redress this problem.
The TeacherNet article 'Encouraging parents into school' suggests a number of ways that schools can step up the relationship between parents and carers, including:
- sending out a regular newsletter that's eye-catching and easy to read
- asking parents what they want and what would encourage them to come into the school
- running competitions, with parents supplying prizes through their work connections
- setting up 'back to school' nights where students tell parents what they've learned
- inviting parents and carers into school to watch lessons or, when possible, to take part.
Perhaps the best way to run parents' evenings smoothly is to build a school culture that lets parents and teachers know they're on the same side. Links with 'difficult' families can be forged in such a way that parents and teachers can easily contact each other if and when problems arise. When it does come to the evening itself, all parties will be clear that the information given within the limited time frame is a general sketch of a child's progress, rather than a full outline of how they are doing within the whole school system.
Useful links
ParentsCentre
This site has a downloadable 16-page brochure called Making the Most of Parents' Evenings for primary
and secondary parents.
The Standards Site — Parents'
evenings
This site provides downloadable letters and invitations for schools to send to
parents, available in a range of languages.
DirectGov
The Government's portal for information for parents on their children's
education, rights and safety as well as advice on a range of issues including
health in pregnancy, adoption procedures and childcare.
Case studies
There is a number of case studies which feature schools working with parents,
including a few tips on meeting them at parents' evenings. See the case studies database.
The National
Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations (NCPTA)
The NCPTA represents more than 6 million parents and teachers through over
12,500 individual PTAs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It aims to
provide effective partnerships between parents and teachers and to develop
learning opportunities both in and out of school.
This article was commissioned by TeacherNet's editorial team, independently
of DCSF policy teams.
Last updated: 31 July 2007
