Parents' evenings in lockdown

Parents' evenings were always one of my favourite things to do as a teacher. I always felt parents' evenings were a great use of my time, particularly for students that may have been struggling - a golden opportunity that often had more impact than any homework or assessment, despite taking a fraction of the time.

In the UK, we're now into our second lockdown and whilst this time schools are open, parents are not normally allowed into the school grounds, to reduce the chances of transmitting the Coronavirus. This means that the way schools conduct parents' evenings must change and thankfully, there are a number of great tools out there that can help.

Managing the evening

Sharing the link

Regardless of which option you choose, each teacher will need a single link to their online meeting, that needs to be shared with parents. Then parents will need to click on the link at the appropriate time, for the teacher to admit them into the meeting when they're ready. We've already heard some great stories about how well this has worked, and many schools are considering allowing remote appointments even after the threat of COVID-19 has passed.

Organising the appointments

With the meetings themselves covered, the final thing to think about is arranging the appointments and sharing your link to the meeting you've created. If you're lucky enough to have our parents evening feature, we've got all that covered - inviting parents to book appointments, monitoring attendance and crucially sharing the link to your Team/Meet/Zoom meeting is all a breeze (Login and go to Home > Live events for a video of how to do this). If you don't, then you could share your appointment times and link via email instead, but do have a read about our parent's evenings feature here if you have time.

Whilst online meetings are great, some parents may prefer the option of a phone call instead of an online meeting. You can use our booking hint feature to ask them to leave their preference in the parent note. When it's time to call the parent, just click on the appointment to reveal all the details you need, including the parent's phone numbers alongside the student's achievement, behaviour, homework and attendance summaries.

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