At least once a year, primary teachers have to prepare for a parents’ evening when parents will visit their children’s school to learn about their progress. Are they a lot of work? Absolutely. But these evenings are also a wonderful opportunity to sit down one-on-one with your pupil’s parents or carer (or both) to discuss their child and how they are making out in the classroom — socially, emotionally and academically.
We all know how crucial parent involvement and communication are in the classroom. Getting the most out of these short but crucial conferences is imperative to the smooth running of your classroom — you want to make parents feel heard and also get their buy-in so they can help their children learn and you can be partners in a child’s education.
So how do you make sure your parents’ information evening is a success? And for that matter, what do you say at a parents’ evening?
The team of teachers has put together some of the tips they have learned from their years in the classroom to make your evenings more successful this year for you, your pupils and the parents and carers too. Read on for a bit of a parents’ evening script that you can adapt for your needs!
What Is a Parents’ Evening?
Perhaps you know this already. Then again, perhaps you’re an early career teacher, and you are looking for a primer! We have been newly qualified teachers still learning the ropes, so we’ve got everyone covered here (feel free to skip ahead to the tips if you feel you have this section covered).
A parents’ evening is a meeting between a teacher and the parent(s) or carer(s) of a child to discuss the pupil’s progress in school. Most primary schools will book in two of these evenings a year, although some may have three.
The first parents’ evening is held in the first term (usually!), and it is a time for parents to meet their child’s new teacher and learn how they are settling in. If there is a second parents’ evening, it will usually be held later in the year and parents/carers will learn more about their child’s academic progress.
These programmes provide an opportunity for a teacher to share information about the pupil’s academic performance, behaviour and overall well-being, as well as for the parent(s) or guardian(s) to ask questions and provide feedback.
How Long Are Parents’ Evenings?
This is a question you may field from parents and carers as they schedule these meetings, so it’s best to prepare ahead of time. The exact amount of time will vary from school to school based on the amount of time allotted for teachers to meet with parents, but expect to have only 10 to 20 minutes allotted to each individual family.
How to Prepare for Parents’ Evenings
1. Give Plenty of Notice
Once you know when the evening will be held notify your pupils’ parents. You may be able to give them a timetable on the first day of school by sending home a parent note, or maybe you can put up a sign-up sheet in the classroom so parents and carers can book in the time that is best for them. When the date is getting close, don’t forget to send another note home with a reminder!
If you have people who did not book in yet, a Google form is an easy way to offer the remaining slots to the other parents and carers.
2. Get Organised
The more organised you are, the better! Gather together any data you want to share with parents into manilla folders or a similar filing system and sort your folders according to the order that parents are set to appear on your timetable, so it’s easy to pull out their son or daughter’s information.
3. Be Welcoming and Plan the Environment
Put yourself in the parents’ shoes. They are often concerned and a little bit anxious about what might be discussed during the evening. Create an environment that is inviting, comfortable and welcoming.
When they arrive, ask how they are doing or maybe ask about the family. You might even want to offer them a snack. Most of all smile!
4. Remember the Compliment Sandwich!
Have you ever used the ‘compliment sandwich’ when sharing not-so-good news with a colleague? It works for parents’ evenings too!
You may need to bring up tricky issues about a particular pupil’s behaviour, work ethic, or level of skill, and the sandwich effect will help soften the blow. You start with something positive and encouraging, then you talk about the issue you need to discuss, followed by something else encouraging or positive.
This lets parents know that you see the positives in their children even while presenting them with your important concerns.
5. Set up a Play Station
As much as most schools advise parents to leave their children home with a caregiver, it’s not always possible for parents who cannot find (or maybe cannot afford) care.
Prepare a place in the classroom for children to select a book, play games or even just to colour. These colouring pages can all be printed and set aside for students for those days right before Christmas when it seems half your class is already on holidays:
Are you holding student-led parents’ evenings this year, you may welcome pupils into the classroom but still find that younger siblings need diversions. A classroom section with activities to keep them busy will help!
6. Use Evidence
When providing feedback during a parents’ evening, make sure you discuss both children’s strengths and weaknesses, providing details for parents or carers. This is a bit like the sandwich concept, but it goes a bit deeper!
For example, if you are talking about writing, you may start with how the pupil enjoys writing and is improving all the time. If an area they may need to work on is ensuring they use adjectives to make their writing more interesting, show an example to help explain what you mean.
7. Anticipate Possible Questions
When planning for the evening, think about what each parent may want to talk about or possible questions they may ask so you can have your answers ready.
For example, if you know that Arthur has been having issues with his friends at playtime, and you have spoken to his parents before, they will likely want an update as to what you have noticed and ideas for some more possible strategies or solutions to help him. Make sure you are organised for these questions and have some ideas!
If you don’t know the answer to something, it’s OK to let the parents know you’re going to have to ask around or look it up.
Teach Starter Teacher Tip: Keep a notepad at hand to jot down questions so you can refer back to them later on.
8. Avoid Using Terms That Only Teachers Know
As teachers, we love a good acronym, and different teacher terms thrown around can beconfusing for parents. Make sure that if you are going to speak in ‘teacher talk’ you explain what the acronym or teacher term means.
For example, you may be talking about an IEP with a parent who hasn’t been through the process yet. Make sure you explain what IEP stands for.
9. Communicate All Year Round
Nothing that you discuss at the parents’ evening should be surprising to the parents.
If you have communicated effectively with parents and raised concerns as they happen, the evening should represent a follow-up to discuss how things are going. Being open and honest all year round will help you have a good working relationship with the parents of your pupils.
Sending home regular class newsletters can help you with this. It means the parents feel involved and included, and it ensures they’re not just hearing from you once or twice a year. This meant that the valuable parents’ evenings can be spent talking more about the individual pupil, rather than what the whole class has been learning about.
10. Discuss Strategies
Discuss strategies, actions, or goals that you want to set for their child with tips and actionable strategies for parents. This can go a long way toward making parents more receptive to any criticisms of their children, as you’re not simply telling them what’s wrong. You’re helping them help their child.
If you are bringing up a social issue, discuss how you will help their child overcome this. If you are talking about an area academically that they are struggling with, discuss what you are doing in the classroom to help.
What are some strategies of things the parents can do at home to help their child? It’s good to talk about these issues, but you will want to provide the parents with ways to overcome them.
11. Finish with a Positive
Make sure you finish with a positive about their child. Some parent-teacher conferences may get a little difficult if there are a few issues to bring up. But, always leave the parents with a positive thought as they leave the classroom.
Looking to save time and simplify complex parents’ evening scheduling? Check out Tes Parents’ Meetings – a powerful booking system that helps you to plan and deliver in-person, online, and hybrid parents’ evenings, and more.
Banner image via Shutterstock/Dusan Petkovic
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