What’s this? Another post about parents evening? Well, yes, there’s more than one in a year you know… There is a particular hell to the parents evening at this time of year. Why oh why is it now? Returning after Christmas always feels tough, as the Christmas holiday is not restful at all. All that enforced cheers, spending time with families, too much alcohol, too much cheese, not enough sleep,…

You may know that I am a hockey umpire and can sometimes be found ruining someone’s Saturday afternoon across the Midlands (or at least that’s what some players tell me!) The game is controlled by two umpires, who stand on opposite sides of the pitch. Sometimes you are umpiring with a colleague who you meet for the first time just a few minutes before the start of the game and this can make communication difficult. During my training, I was given some excellent advice; for the first ten minutes of the game, for every ‘easy’ decision that you or your colleague makes, make sure they know that you agree. This might be a quick thumbs up or a message on the radio. Why? Because it gets you used to communicating with each other, when there isn’t any pressure. This means that when something more contentious happens, you can quickly and clearly liaise to come to hopefully the right decision and communicate it to the players, which in turn gives them confidence in what you are doing.

For the last few years, due to Covid, all of our parents’ evenings have been online and there have been advantages for both staff and parents with that system. As you know, at the end of last year, we asked parents for their views as to whether these should continue as virtual events or if we should return to our face-to-face evenings. There was no consensus amongst parents – many liking the efficiency of the online evenings, but wanting a more personal approach. There is no doubt that a time and motion study would strongly favour the virtual events but I think this misses the crucial part about maintaining relationships. The situation over the last few years has meant that there have been few opportunities for parents to come into school and meet staff, and yet the home/school relationship is so important; it is simply not the same meeting with people over the internet. While I hope that for most families everything is going well, as I explained in my hockey example, establishing and maintaining that relationship is vital. This means that if something does happen, as it invariably does when you work with teenagers, we can all respond together in a considered manner.

It was therefore wonderful to see so many of you at our first parents’ evening of the year (Upper Sixth) at a face-to face event – as all parents’ evenings will be this year. This will not necessarily be the approach further into the future, but it is intended to offer something that has been missing in the last few years. I appreciate that sometimes parents may be a little frustrated if a teacher is running slightly late or with some of the other inefficiencies of the evening; however, excellent communication between home and school, even when things are going well, is vital and therefore, for this year, we think it is important that we get to meet in person. The dates for the evenings are on the school calendar and we always review school events, so I would be grateful for any feedback as the year progresses.

Andrew Wright Headmaster