Parents' Evenings

Parents' Evenings are one of the best opportunities teachers have to communicate with parents, and enlist their help in motivating and educating children.

Remember that parents' evenings are a two way process. While parents need to know how there child is doing, there is also an opportunity for teachers to learn how the pupil behaves at home. For example, their approach to homework, and to make suggestions to parents on how they can help with their child's learning.

When organising a parents' evening, ask yourself what you hope to achieve, and work backwards from there.

Where possible, it is best to have the evening towards the beginning of the year. This allows teachers to tell parents about what will happen during the year, and gain their help in resolving any problems the pupil is having at school. You may consider using a "parents' timetable", showing parents when major pieces of coursework are due and other key dates.

One of the difficulties that parents and teachers have with parents' evenings is the lack of time available for interviews. To avoid this problem, it may be useful to have two parents' evenings for each year group, divided by subject. So, the subject teachers from all science and maths related subjects could attend one evening, and the other teachers of art subjects another. This means twice as much time can be spent with each parent, without asking teachers for additional time.