FOR A LOT OF parents and teachers, the annual parent-teacher meeting is looked on as more a mighty hassle than an invaluable point of contact. When they first started coming on stream in the 1970s, such meetings were generally held in the evening, with the kids tucked up in bed and the parents popping into the school for an interesting night out. However, since the 1980s, parent-teacher meetings are almost always held during school hours, which is difficult in the case of a single working parent, or where both parents are working.
Most schools try to arrange convenient appointments, but getting to the school from the workplace during the day can be quite difficult. Dearbhla commutes 20 miles to her office each day. Her three children attend the local national school. "The day the meeting comes up is a huge hassle for me. I think it is really important to go and see the teachers, so I arrange to get in for the first appointment in the morning, which is usually 9.15 a.m. "But I am supposed to be at work at nine every morning - so I have to negotiate time off with my employer and make sure to schedule meetings for work around school times. Which is fine with me, but our clients don't necessarily understand issues like family needs. "The meetings are held on different days for each class, so I've to do the same thing on three separate occasions. I usually just fly in and out as quickly as possible. "It's not the end of the world, but I feel like the meeting could be a lot more beneficial to both myself and the teacher if it were held in the evening."
Francis is a second-level teacher in a north Dublin school. "It might help some parents if the meetings were held in the evening, but to be honest, after you've put in a full day's work and prepared for the next day, few teachers would have the energy to engage in any sort of a constructive way with parents," he says. Quite a lot of work goes into preparing for these meetings, Francis says. "We have to look at the progress of each student we teach, evaluate it and present the information to the parents. The meeting is the first time we might have come into contact with a lot of the parents. "Dealing with so many people you've never met before can be unnerving, although personally I've never had any parents coming in and losing the head or anything."
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL David Fitzgerald, a frequent contributor to E&L, was seconded by the Department of Education to develop strategies which would enhance parent-teacher relations. "Part of my brief was to look at parent-teacher meetings," he says, "and I would say they are a very important part of the school calendar - in that they are the one time when parents and teachers come together formally. "I spoke to parents and teachers about them, and while ultimately I wouldn't be proposing a sea change, it seems that it would be beneficial to all concerned if parents put in some preparation for the meetings. "Time is a huge constraint, so parents should use the time well," Fitzgerald urges. "Before coming in they might think of questions they would like to ask and any information regarding their children they feel would be useful for the teacher.
"That sort of information could be around family problems, or personal issues regarding the child - but equally well it is very helpful for teachers to know about positive attributes. Anything which helps teachers build up a fuller picture of the child is very important."
There is a world of difference between parent-teacher meetings at primary and second level. In general, parents of primary-school children go in to see one teacher, but at second level parents might have up to nine teachers to see. That's more than most can manage, so parents tend to focus on the maths, English and Irish teachers.
As a result there can be very long queues for those teachers - and sometimes a parent doesn't get to see the teacher they would most like to talk to. Maire has two boys at second level. "One year I went up to the school and two of the teachers had left before I got a chance to talk to them. In fact, I could see one of them getting into her car. I had to get the principal to go and get her back out so I could talk to her! "I'm not really sure how useful the meetings are," Maire says. "There tend to be no surprises, and I often find I'm sitting there without much to say."
No surprises may be good news: parents usually know how their children are getting on academically and the meeting is often a just a place for confirmation. According to Linda, "my kids are all getting on fine these days, so I go up, the teacher tells me what I already know, and we just sit there smiling a bit gormlessly at one another for a while!"
In fact, many teachers would say that the parents they most need to see are too often the parents who find the prospect of a one-to-one meeting in a school environment very intimidating. Maeve O'Brien, home-school-community liaison co-ordinator with St James CBS in Dublin's south inner city, works to overcome such feelings. "Obviously a big part of this scheme involves working directly with parents," she explains. "The more marginalised parents are reached through home visits. We would go and chat to them quite generally at first, building up a relationship. Then we might discuss how their children were getting on, academically and socially.
NCE A RELATIONSHIP is established, some parents will come into the school to meet the teacher. We also run courses and schemes in the school which involve the parents, which provide opportunities for contact. "I have a feeling there is less urgency around the parent-teacher meeting at primary level, because it is not the one and only time parents and teachers get to talk any more. Schools tend to be much more flexible and parents are welcome to come in and talk to teachers throughout the school year."
Holding a meeting for all the parents at the beginning of the year, a general discussion on what the children will be doing, can also be helpful. The National Parents Council (Primary) has produced a video for teachers on how best to facilitate this sort of meeting. "This is a very important meeting to have, particularly for parents of junior infants," says the NPC
national co-ordinator, Fionnuala Kilfeather. "Sometimes there is a certain mystique about them and teachers can feel quite nervous about what might come up. "But the idea would be to have a general chat about the curriculum, behaviour expectations or homework. If the atmosphere is welcoming, and the parents see the school as a friendly place, that will help break down barriers which may have arisen. Members of a parents' association can also help. They can make informal contact with the parents in their community and invite them to the school. That sort of personal link often helps dissipate any fears."
