Parents evening: tips so you are prepared
Note: This is a sponsored post
Have you ever attended your child’s parents evening and walked away feeling like you still have no clue about your child’s progress? Parents evening is a chance to find out everything you need about your child’s schooling, enabling you to praise them for the positives and work on the negatives. Make sure you get the most out of this one-on-one-time with the teacher by using our easy tips.
First up
Find out as much as possible about your school before you attend the parents evening – you don’t want to use up all your time asking generic questions about cashless catering and term dates when you could be asking about your child’s personal progress. If you have any issues or questions about the school, take them up with the head teacher in a separate discussion.
Childcare
This is your chance to have a one-on-one discussion with your child’s teacher and you’ll find it much easier without the children eavesdropping. If you can, organise childcare for the evening so you can talk without distractions.
Talk to your child
Before the night talk to your child and find out if they have any questions or concerns. This is an important part of merging home and school together seamlessly.
Take notes
It’s all too easy to leave your parents evening and suddenly think of a question you wish you’d asked. To avoid this, write down a list of all of the questions you want to ask, before you attend.
Check your child’s work
If you can, take a look through your child’s work beforehand, some schools will allow you to do so just before your appointment. This can often highlight things you would like to discuss.
Bigger issues
Try not to store issues up in your mind until parents evening, if there are any big issues you need to discuss with your child’s teacher do so as soon as possible. By proactively discussing your child’s progress/issues you can ensure that any problems are solved before they become larger issues.
Siblings
If you have two children taught by the same teacher make sure you discuss them separately and don’t compare them.
Home life
Try to give your child’s teacher an insight to their home life, the way they behave and their individual characteristics can be important factors that will help teachers. This is especially important for younger children.
Be positive
A fairly simple tip, but one that helps nonetheless. Ensuring that your appointment starts out positively will help to build a partnership with your child’s teacher.
Image above courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!