Top Ten Tips for Parents’ Meetings

J is in Year 4 and M has just started in Reception.  Last night we went to their school for a ‘Welcome Meeting’ with their teachers before a more formal parents’ evening later in the term.  Today I am going to share my top ten tips if you ever find yourself in a similar situation:

1. Don’t take your children with you.  We thought it would be a good opportunity for our children to proudly show us their classrooms and what they had been doing so far.  We didn’t envisage a Reception teacher who doesn’t appear to like children very much, who looked irritated at their presence and winced at every noise they made. (Although I suppose she had been surrounded by thirty four-year olds all day; maybe our boys’ presence in her classroom after school hours was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back).
2. Don’t break the classroom toys.  Z was playing with a toy vacuum cleaner and as I moved it onto the carpet for him where it would be less noisy than on the lino flooring, it quite literally fell apart in my hands (don’t buy Dyson, they’re crap).  The teacher assured me it was already broken but her eye twitched as she said it; I suspect she was itching to give me a yellow card for bad behaviour.
3. Do challenge a stupid ruling about packed lunches.  We have been repeatedly told that the children are not allowed sweets or fizzy drinks in school with which I wholeheartedly agree.  However, they’re also saying that children on packed lunches shouldn’t be taking chocolate, even though children on school dinners get a dessert.  My child, my food, my choice of what goes in his lunch box.  Don’t patronise me about healthy eating, I don’t think a Penguin biscuit a day will lead to the slippery slope into obesity. ‘Nuff said.
4. Don’t sit on the little chairs.  You’ll never get back up again unaided.  You’ll resemble a turtle on its back with your legs waving in the air until you gain enough momentum to hoist yourself up or have someone come to your rescue.  Either way, it won’t be pretty.
5. Do make sure you’ve labelled your child’s uniform.  This isn’t me being a professional mum, it’s me trying to save you the embarrassment of sitting on miniature chairs with a teacher looming over you, feeling like you’re getting ‘done’.  It was like detention with the teacher waiting for the solitary person who didn’t use name labels to own up.  We were all looking around at each other, smiling sheepishly, wondering who was the villain responsible for getting us all in trouble.  The teacher told us in her sternest tones that she had spent twenty minutes trying to find the culprit when they got changed for PE.  If I could’ve been 100% sure it wasn’t me I would’ve been super smug about it but I couldn’t…so I wasn’t.
6. Do take notes.  Otherwise your brain may explode all over the pretty wall displays.  I didn’t but felt like I should have.  By not doing so I now have only the vaguest recollection of instructions about phonic sounds, tricky words, ‘rocket’ words, blending, guided reading, planners, homework days, PE days, spellings, how to wipe my arse… Maybe not but you get the idea.
7. Don’t take your toddler to the toilet sixteen out of the eighteen times he asks.  The other sixteen times he’s just going for the novelty of turning on the light, locking the door, flushing and washing his hands…or he has the bladder the size of a pea.  To risk him weeing on the classroom floor or not to risk him weeing on the classroom floor, that is the question…
8. Do enjoy the lovely interaction between your eldest child and his new teacher.  J loves his new teacher.  He said so on the first day and the honeymoon period is still going strong.  Apparently she’s funny, doesn’t shout but tells people off when they need it; a winning combination in J’s eyes.  Maybe I should try it…
9. Don’t tell your eldest child’s teacher how much he likes her in front of him.  He will be mortified and will never forgive you.  Oops.
10. Do take it all with a pinch of salt.  As a qualified (albeit lapsed) teacher I know that they have a gazillion targets to meet, policies to enforce and rules to uphold.  I know lots of teachers, primary and secondary and without exception they are hard-working, conscientious and under an awful lot of pressure.  As a parent, all the stuff to remember can be overwhelming, especially if it’s your first child starting at school.  My advice? Ask questions when you need to.  Resolve issues face-to-face as soon as they arise (most teachers have an ‘open door policy’ and would rather you talk to them than let things escalate).  Oh yes, and buy them lots of wine at Christmas…