Impossible to see all parents in time available. Blame the management who insist that every parent's concerns must be addressed but only give 5 minutes. I may teach 150 kids in one year group and have 180 minutes available to see them per year. I am given 5 minutes and told to leave 5 minute gaps. I can manage 18 appointments. Given that some parents won't take the hint when I try to wrap up the conversation and others repeat the same things over and over, and others want to tell you all the child's idiosyncrasies, anecdotes and troubles PLUS other parents try to push in without an appointment and play the really worried about ... card it's a very tough task for the teacher. After 30 years I am quite good at it now, but you should try it before you get too down on the teachers. BTW I do 7 parents evenings per year plus 3 open evenings, plus new year 7 evening, 2 awards evenings, 2 concert evenings, 1 or more school production. The parents evenings and open evenings are contracted hours. The rest are unpaid.
I have been on the parents side of the desk and know it's rubbish for them too. It is a logistical impossibility.
As an aside: Imagine if a GP had to see all their patients in a given time period. They have well over 2,000 patients each, on average.
At 10 minutes per appointment it would take them 334 hours. My surgery has 4 hours per day, 5 times per week. So it would take a GP 17 weeks to see each one.
I am not down on the teachers though. I have not blamed the teachers at all here. I am blaming the system.
Would also query on the impossibility issue too. Clearly not impossible for some, because some get all their appointments in. Heard one parent last night walking past saying 'just one more teacher left to see and then we're done,' so they got to see all their teachers. And this was around 6.15pm.
You have to argue how it is fair that one parent gets to see all their child's teachers and another parent misses out on nearly half of theirs.
It is easily rectifiable. Obviously a parent who has their appointments allocated between 4-5pm is going to get to see all their teachers. A parent who has appointments allocated between 6-7pm is not. We have never, ever been able to see all of our child's teachers. Last year was worse. We got to see just 2 out of 7.
Spoke to at least 3 parents last night though who got to see all their teachers. We have never been given a early slot, so I guess it is the luck of the draw, but at the same time this is our child's future.
It is the system that is wrong. Our last appointment was at 6.55pm, but the teachers were all packing up and leaving at 7, so we had absolutely no chance at all.
Very simple solution is to split it over 2 days. You then have double the amount of parents being given earlier slots were there is no backlog because you are first in the queue.
