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:
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:
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 |