Perils of the Parent’s Evening

There were times when parents evenings made me feel that there was a lot to be said for teaching in an orphanage ! When I first began teaching in the early 1970s these events were generally low-key and informal. However, it became evident that there needed to be some kind of appointments system and even an attempt to restrict how many subject-teachers parents spoke to. Our PTA monthly magazine published poetic guidance for the parents, set to the tune of “The British Grenadiers” :    “Come to the hall when ordered and line up nice and straight. If you turn up too early then you’ll just have to wait. Check appointments carefully as soon as you arrive But you’ll have to conform to the statutory norm that you can’t see more than five ! Some staff are quite long-winded and others taciturn. Watch the clock precisely, as you will quickly learn That you can’t spend half an hour with Mr X today – He may be great fun but when you have done, we’ll all have gone away !” Arranging the appointments was the responsibility of the pupils. In the days beforehand it was impossible to walk along a corridor or even start a lesson without some anxious child thrusting a piece of paper under my nose, saying “my mum and dad want to have a word with you.” Herding cats comes to mind. We quickly had to abandon the “five teachers only” rule as unenforceable. The appointments system collapsed in ruins more often than not. Very often I would get to the end of my list with a sigh of relief, only to a missing set of parents (it was nearly always the penultimate ones, for some reason) waiting hopefully at the back of a colleague’s queue at the far side of the hall, oblivious to the fact that they were due to see me fifteen minutes ago and I wanted to go home. Or there was the parent who, seeing empty seats in front of my table, would plonk themselves down and say “I’ve not got an appointment but I saw you were free and just thought I’d ask….”, at the exact moment that the parents I should have been seeing at that time hove into view. There were keen parents with clipboards at the ready, anxious to note down my erudite words of wisdom, starting with “Good Evening”. Others stared at me with something akin to distaste. I still remember the woman with no volume control         

whose opening remark was “Oh yes, you’re the one he doesn’t like”, in a voice that must have been audible half a mile away and which brought the subdued buzz of conversation in the hall to shocked silence. Then there was the parent who taught my subject in a different local school. He always gave the impression that he knew far more about the exam syllabus than I did – and he was probably right! However, I did not feel I could point out that he might be contributing more to his child’s GCSE project than was strictly appropriate. As I did not teach an “important” subject, I had a large number of classes just once or twice a week. I had more books to mark and more reports to write than more fortunate colleagues did. I “taught” more individuals than most. There were therefore more pupils that I was frankly not quite sure who they were, even though I might have taught them for a couple of terms. These were often the quiet inoffensive ones, with supportive parents who really wanted the benefit of my in-depth knowledge of their child’s potential. This became even more of a problem later in my career when it was decided that there would be social and educational benefits if the pupils were present at the interviews. Who were they ? My markbook did not always help. I would say hopefully something like “what have you most enjoyed in my lessons this year ?” and trust that the answer was not too explicit about my shortcomings ! (At least I coped better than a member of the Senior Management Team who once wrote a report on a boy with the unfortunate surname of ‘Heather’, referring to him throughout as “she” or “her”. Fortunately, this error was spotted by the form tutor when the ‘cheque-book’ style reports were being collated.) Having the pupils present at the interview courted another danger. More than once I found myself unwittingly starting a family row: parents ganging up on the child or sometimes mum v. dad. I sometimes suffered the fall-out from these explosions the next time I encountered the pupil in class ! At one parents evening a colleague suffered an unfortunate “wardrobe malfunction”. His trouser-zip failed  (See ‘Zip it’ story) early on in the proceedings. Thereafter, every time he stood up to greet a new set of parents, his zip descended and he risked exposing them to an unexpected flash of underwear – or worse ! He rapidly decided it would be better to remain seated. It became the custom to have a half-hour break in proceedings, during which time those attending had to listen to the Head of Year talking about school issues particularly relevant to the year group. The rest of us retired to the staff room to enjoy the Fish & Chips       ordered beforehand from a local chippy. This was fine if the system worked but on occasions it arrived fifteen or more minutes late. Parents having interviews after the break risked being exposed to wafts of salt and vinegar or the stifled burps of weary teachers battling with indigestion. On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, no food arrived at all: The Great Fish & Chips Disaster ! I had an additional problem with parents evenings when my two daughters were pupils at the school ! Should I talk to myself or tell my wife what I knew she already knew ? It also made me very uncomfortable when I had to attend the pre-Ofsted inspection meeting for the parents only. The next day my colleagues wanted to know what had been said and by whom – but that is another story !