Parent Evenings
Kindergarten & Lower School

Every Kindergarten Teacher and Lower School Class Teacher holds a termly parents evening, for the parents of children / students in their class.

The meetings are just for parents/guardians, and allow the teacher to present a picture of the whole group to parents, to introduce what the class is learning, to talk about the child development picture and pedagogy, and to raise awareness in the parent body of specific issues alive within the various classes.

The Class Coordinator (or another parent volunteer) will usually be asked to take the minutes of such meetings to ensure that parents who were not able to attend have the relevant information to support their child. Minutes should be drafted and sent to the teacher for editing and distribution to the class parents.

High School

Every High School Guardian/Sponsor holds a parents' evening during the Autumn term of each academic year, for the parents of students in their class. The meeting is just for parents/guardians, and allows the teacher to present a picture of the whole group to parents, to introduce what the class is learning, to talk about the child development picture and pedagogy, and to raise awareness in the parent body of specific issues alive within the various classes i.e. behavioural challenges, mobile phones, inter-student relationships, etc.

High School classes may also hold an early summer term parent evening, usually to plan the class trip.

The Class Coordinator (or another parent volunteer) will usually be asked to take the minutes of such meetings to ensure that parents who were not able to attend have the relevant information to support their child. Minutes should be drafted and sent to the teacher for editing and distribution to the class parents.

​
Statement on Online/Hybrid Parent Evenings

Since the pandemic and the need for us to adapt to the restrictions imposed, we are often asked, as teachers, to host hybrid parent evenings (in person with an online option). During the pandemic, hosting parent’s evenings in which everyone was online, fulfilled a purpose, although online interaction is clearly not an adequate alternative to real life, in-person experiences.

Before the pandemic, it was not common practice to host parent’s evenings online in our school.

While we recognise hybrid parent’s evenings may offer a benefit to some, in our experience these rarely work well.

When hosting hybrid parent evenings, we have experienced:
  • Challenges hosting those in the room with those on the screen.
  • Challenges with the technology not working and detracting from the in person mood in the room.
  • Challenges with those at home not being able to hear everyone in the room.
  • Frustrated parents at the above, either in the room or at home.
  • Pre-meeting confusion or correspondence about whether the parent evening will be streamed or not.
  • On the spot requests to stream the meeting at the beginning of the parent evening which can fluster or delay the start of an evening.

As such, we are drawing a line about this practice and returning to all parent’s evenings being held in person only.
We hope that:

  • All parents and teachers are clear about the school’s stance on parent evenings and why we hold this stance.
  • More parents will benefit from the parent’s evening being in person, fostering real life community building, parent engagement and social connection.
  • Teacher’s are able to focus their attention on preparing rich and nourishing real life experiences or discussions for the parents.
  • Teachers and parents are not frustrated by the limitations of technology.
To support and make planning for parent’s evenings easier for parents, we will endeavour to:
  • Set parent evening dates, at least a month in advance.*
  • Send out agendas for the meetings
  • Ensure minutes are taken for the meetings and circulated to parents afterwards.
* We recognise sometimes parent’s evenings need to be called at shorter notice.

We have discussed this as a group of teachers and all stand behind this stance.

We understand that this stance may not suit every household or perspective, but we hope our parents can understand and respect the ethos and practicalities of our decision.
​
Jonathan Hobbs
On behalf of the teachers