Parents Evening Tips: How to get something out of them…

A few months ago, I shared a few parents evening tips on how to get the best out of them; and now its Beckie Whitehouse’s turn from Be Confident Coaching.

We have had parents evenings this week and I just thought I would share some tips for getting the most out of them. Fortunately we don’t have any major issues at the moment. We have had some along the way, but we deal with them as they arise and fortunately it shocked my son so much when I said:

“Mummy would really prefer not to have a phone call saying they can’t find you and they will call the police”

He was hiding you see…but he has never done it again!

So here are my tips, now we have got over that particular trauma!

1. Think about what you might like to check on, or ask before you go.
2. We ask the kids if there is anything they would like us to say or feedback on.
3. Any worries or concerns about work or friendships? Now is a good time to talk them through
4. Not sure about homework, the amounts, how much time should be spent on it or how much help parents should give, now is the time you can get this clarified
5. If your child needs extra help in an area you can find out how that’s going. We had extra reading for one term and now confidence is built and they no longer need it
6. It gives us an opportunity to look at their work. We dutifully do our spellings, but I never really know if they are tested or how they do so I can look at that, so take a look around the classrooms. Also see what’s about to hem them with their work in the displays
7. You can look in corridors and again in these displays, and there may be your children’s work or pictures in them. It’s lovely to be able to tell them you have seen it
8. It’s a great time to have a look in lost property …but I think our missing gloves were left at the park not at school and there were no sign of the missing trainers…. *sniff*
9. If you have time or would like to go in to help, you can offer it to the class teacher.
10. The head will usually be around supporting their staff and you can often get to speak to them if you would like to, so do make time for this if you want to do so.

We tell the kids how things have gone; the good and the not quite so good, and if there are areas they need to work on.

Just gently, so as not to over burden or worry them. For example our oldest doesn’t always read the question, so we give them just a little of encouragement to slow down a bit so they can do that more effectively.

More and more pre-schools have open days or evenings or time to talk with key workers. Many of these ideas can be used for those events as well.

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!

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