This week has
been a wrench. And the primary reason for this wrench is that lovely
late night extravaganza of Parents' Evening. First of all, i have no
idea why it is called Parent's evening. It is not their evening. It
is my evening that they are destroying. Parents' evening is a
difficult and distressing time for us all as teachers and so I would
like to give my advice on surviving parents evening.
1: accrue data this doesn’t mean generate
data. This means go in prepared: CATS scores (or lies as I
affectionately call them) SEN and G and T registers, levels, target
grades and all of the other stuff that you can use to distract the
parent from the fact that you don't have a clue who their child
is....
2: Prepare your filler statements. There
will be times when you have nothing to say. You need to have your go
to statements to use to make yourself look like you aren't a/are less
of a bumbling idiot. I suggest some of the following:
Teachers aren't meant to have favourites but....
The way teaching is moving is towards discussion
based learning
It is too early to predict GCSE results but...
Do you have any questions for me?
3: Euphemisms avoid complaints and anger.
Make sure you have slightly distracting/misleading/pleasant sounding
ways of telling the parents how much you dislike their children and
how badly they are doing. You can use these as lead in statements to
more brutal comments like 'In my opinion her/his best hope is that
they can find a benevolent pimp.' but this particular comment is
highly inadvisable. Try some of the following:
We haven't yet established our positive learning
environment.
[insert name] is still finding their place in the
classroom.
I think we can put this behind us and turn a
corner.
Sometimes they can be a little too keen.
I don't feel like they are embracing the
learning style I advocate.
4: Smoke and Mirrors. We have all
been there. That hideous sinking moment when a child and their parent
sits down in front of you and you swear to whichever deity takes your
favour that you have never seen them before. They know it, You know
it. You cannot remember their name and they could be any one of the
four or five frankly anonymous children in the classroom. Those
children that both complete all the work and fail to inspire you with
their answers. The squeezed middle that never say anything in class
but also give you no reason to say anything to them beyond the
average random-name-generator-of-your-choice driven question. I find
it happens once every PE. These are my sequential steps.
Book appointments this never works but it just
might pull off once in a while
have your sims open with photos. Then stall until
you match up. This is potentially risky but can work.
If these two fail you have to fall on my silver
bullet solution. Quickly try and appear like you are trawling through
a massive excel spreadsheet. Then complain about the length, telling
the parents that you're just pulling up the data. At this point use
some filler comment such as describing what the students are doing
this term. Do not make eye contact. It will give you away. At this
point, while trying to look exasperated, use this comment: 'I'm sorry
about this, my spreadsheet is ordered by surname and yours has just
slipped my mind. Can you remind me. I hate technology. This should
get you out your tight spot. You could complain about government
funding and how bad your laptop is at this point as well. At that
point you can fill the rest of the meeting with comments about the
data and then a courtesy comment about how their child is never a
problem in class but could be a little more outspoken and then you
are safe and free.
Thank you all, And to all a good night.
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