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Perils of parents' evening

It can be awkward when parents and teachers meet, but usually it is a positive experience for everyone, says Matthew Godfrey

This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 3 April 2002

TWO events in the school calendar that most pupils dread are parents' evening and the arrival of reports. Even model pupils feel some discomfort when two sets of adults, whom they see every day but who rarely see each other, suddenly start conferring about them.

For the pupils at the inner-city comprehensive where I teach, parents' evening is a double whammy, in that school reports and teacher-parent meetings are rolled into one. As parents arrive with their children, they are handed their report, which they take to a waiting area to read together. They then discuss it for 10 minutes with the child's form tutor.

Judging by the expressions on their faces, most pupils at our last parents' evening found it horribly embarrassing. But for some of them, it was the behaviour of their parents that was the most humiliating aspect of the evening.

My task on the day was to issue reports to the parents as they arrived. As one father reached the front of the queue with his daughter, he announced loudly: "You'll have a fight on your hands in a minute, guv. The ex-missus is coming and she ain't gonna be pleased I'm 'ere - says it's none of my business!"

I muttered some pleasantry in the hope that he would quieten down and allow his daughter's blushes to recede. But then he saw her name on the report: "That's not her name!" he called out. "She should have my surname on that! Who do I speak to to get that changed?" He snatched the report and stormed off to find his daughter's head of year, leaving her standing alone by my table.

It wasn't the only eye-opening moment of the evening. When asked, lots of parents admitted they did not know which form or year their children were in, much to their offspring's horror.

Several relatives had noisy rows as they sat among other families in the waiting area. "Where are you going?" shouted one woman as her daughter marched off, apparently fed up with something her mother had said. "For a walk!" came the loud reply. It amazed me how many parents sat munching crisps instead of reading their child's report while they waited to see their tutor.

Anyone visiting the school and witnessing this behaviour would probably have left assuming that its discipline problems, high levels of truancy and low academic achievement were largely a result of a lack of interest and support from the pupils' families - the stereotypical image of an inner-city "sink" school.

However, such a view would be in marked contrast to what the tutors were saying in the staff room during their break: "very positive", "extremely supportive" and "terribly worried" were all phrases being used to describe the parents they had met. The general feeling was that, whatever antics they got up to in the waiting area, the parents were in fact on the teachers' side, and were concerned about their children's progress - or lack of it - at school.

I often speak with parents when I am worried about their children's attitude or behaviour, in the hope that they will have firm words and the problem will go away. More often than not, this tactic fails.

Frequently, parents express despair about their children. "I don't bother asking her about school any more," said one. "She refuses to talk about it - she's just not interested."

Sometimes, lack of parental control is more disguised. One father, on hearing that his son's course work was overdue, looked sternly at his boy and said: "I can assure you, Mr Godfrey, you will have it tomorrow." That was five months ago; I have still not received it.

Lots of our parents, many of whom received a poor education themselves, are not confident about how to articulate or act upon their concerns.

But these apparently depressing exchanges with parents can be positive. They reassure me that I am not alone in my struggle to get the pupils motivated, and the parents are extremely grateful for the school's efforts.

One parent summed up the camaraderie between teacher and parent that can result from such conversations: "It seems neither of us quite knows what to do, Mr Godfrey - but I guess we'll just keep plugging on, yes?"

I had to deal with one disgruntled parent recently. "My lad will have all his course work in on time and will do fine in his exams," she said. "But no thanks to the school - I've paid through the nose for a tutor to see him through."

Her son, who will take his GCSEs next month, had just been introduced to his fourth English teacher in 18 months - me. All I could do was assure her I would do everything to ensure he entered the exam room with confidence, suggest the school could not be held responsible for the crisis in recruiting teachers, and sympathise.

Faced with these circumstances, and having tricky adolescents as children, it surprises me that our pupils' parents don't take their frustration out on the school more often. But their reticence should not be taken as a sign of indifference.

This is the eighth in a series of articles by Matthew Godfrey, a recently qualified teacher


Published in The Daily Telegraph on 3 April 2002

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