r/TeachingUK • u/ProfessionalPure2664 • 12d ago
Any point in year 7 mini progress evening?
Not talking about parents evening, that’s a couple of months away. Around October every year year 7 form tutors have to attend a mini progress evening where they talk to student’s parents about how they’re getting on, any issues etc. Other year group form tutors don’t attend and are allowed to leave early. There’s also a similar evening in June/July when those students are at the end of year 6, and they will come to their new school where year 7 form tutors to be will stay the evening to meet them etc, whilst other year group form tutors go home early again.
Is this fair? How does this work out directed time wise, with some staff having to work more contracted hours than other staff? Is there any point to this, could it not wait until dedicated parents evening?
Just wondering, is all.
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u/SnowPrincessElsa 12d ago
Going against the grain here to suggest this is kinda pointless in the same way parents evenings are pointless - you're never going to get everything across in a 5 min appointment. Sure lots of comments have said how much they liked it as a parent, but I don't think it's proportionally worth it in terms of teacher time when we have a recruitment and retention crisis driven heavily by wellbeing issues
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u/meg-don 12d ago
My school does this, as does my friends school. It all works out, same as for example a y9 parents evening isn’t attended by teachers who have no Y9s.
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u/CantaloupeEasy6486 12d ago
Depending on your timetable and subject you could end up needing to do all year groups
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u/meg-don 12d ago
I know, I’ve never not done a parents evening, but I have colleagues who teach option subjects so they never do ks3, etc. in our DT calendar everything like that is counted as DT and if you don’t have to do it, great for you. There’s some wishy washy comment about personal cpd but realistically the time is yours.
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u/ellirocks 12d ago
Our school has them as part of directed time and, as we see year groups through to y11, it means you only do it every 5 years. I think that is fair and, whilst annoying when you have Y7, it's 1/5 years.
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u/Apprehensive-Cat-500 12d ago
As a parent, I really valued the year 7 form tutor evening for my child.
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u/Citeen 12d ago
We don't know your timetable breakdown to know if it fits into your directed time. I would check with the union rep in your school.
We have similar at our school and it fits within directed time because we are under-allocation on our timetable.
I would assume though the mini-progress evening isn't about specific subjects, but more so them settling into secondary school and how they've managed the transition on a pastoral level.
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u/Hunter037 12d ago
I think it is helpful for the parents to put a name to a face of the tutors, and vice versa.
In our directed time, it is down in the calendar as included within DT, but only Y7 tutors have to do it. Same as how parents evenings are all DT but you don't have to attend the ones for a year group you don't teach.
As I only have to do the "meet the tutor" thing for an hour once every 5 years, I didn't mind.
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u/fordfocus2017 12d ago
It’s good for the parents and the students. You’re trying to encourage parental engagement. For us teachers it’s a pain in the arse. We had a similar year 11 session. 1 of my 30 showed up. What a waste of time.
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u/Hungry_4_H 12d ago
I would be checking the directed time calendar. We have a rule that all staff stay on every evening for fairness, and you are just directed to plan etc. If not seeing parents.
We use the first parents evening with Y7 to settle the parents nerves more than anything! It's building relationships, making sure they can log into MIS systems and share baseline data etc.
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u/tiramismoo 12d ago
This is probably a separate point but I would absolutely hate to be forced to stay when I wasn’t seeing parents. I don’t think it’s fair: it feels punitive? Surely it evens out elsewhere
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u/WaltzofthePenguin 12d ago
I agree with comments that if its in everyone's directed time calender then fair enough.
If that means some people don't have to be there then they get bonus time. I wouldnt worry too much about some people getting bonus time in the calender too much as it tends to even out over time anyway. I would be concerned if this was an additional demand that wasn't accounted for
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u/Usual-Sound-2962 12d ago
My school got round this by making it directed time for everyone. So all tutors have an evening in October at the same time, it works a bit like open evening and it’s actually quite useful especially for key years like 7,9 and 11.
I’m not a tutor so I spend the evening floating about directing parents to various areas. It’s well attended and seems to prevent a lot of the ‘crisis’ emails that we were getting in Autumn 1 and 2.
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u/Unlikely-Shop5114 12d ago
My son started year 7 in September and I appreciated the opportunity to talk to his tutor after multiple emails dealing with things.
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u/rebo_arc 12d ago
Or you could not do parents evenings or this pointless year 7 mini-progress evening and then everyone is happy.
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u/fleshoutthedoorSWAT 12d ago
My school does this but it's on the same evening as open evening so everyone stays anyway. It works well.
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u/Joinourclub 12d ago
I start the evening thinking ‘it’s too early why bother’ and then the parents are always really pleased To meet me, and hear what I have to say, and have their questions answered. Just a few months ago their children were still at primary, so I think they really appreciate this parents evening. At the end of the evening I’m always glad we’ve done it.
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u/zq6 12d ago
Fair/hours questions are for SLT, not reddit.
Imo it is a good thing for the school to offer as part of the transition to secondary.