Parents' Evening - Playful and Entertaining or Peculiar and Exasperating?

So this week saw me in full 'professional conversation mode' for nearly two hours, without so much as a wee-wee break. It's basically all you've got verbally, one after the other. If you haven't been to one, you sit at a table with your name in front of you and have the intrigue of meeting the parents (or carers and sometimes siblings too) of the children you have been teaching all year. It's interesting because you get to see how they are in their presence and that's usually much meeker plus if they resemble them (and how) which can be fascinating too. It was also rather amusing for some reason to see that a girl who had implied I was fat when in the middle of a 'situation' in class has a mother three times my size!

I think any parent would love to go to these and hear amazing things about their child's academic ability and perhaps even that they are a credit to them behaviour-wise. In the absence of that, just that there aren't any major problems is somewhat of a relief probably. That's the majority. However, there are a few exceptions. I had one student cry because her mother was banging on about how much she 'had invested' in her child's education only to be presented with a mock GCSE grade of 6. For those who don't know this is like a high B in old money. I also had one father blame me for the fact his daughter achieved one grade lower than in last year's mock in year 10. Then there was the father who wouldn't leave the desk until I had given his daughter my best pep talk on career and life. In a 5-minute slot that's not easy...but he wasn't moving until I did. I didn't tell him that he looked exactly like an older version of her in men's clothing and with short hair - that info was just for me!