Parent-teacher conferences can be stressful because we know how important working with families is to the success of our students. But those meetings don’t have to be scary. Keep reading for a few ideas for successful and easy parent-teacher conferences.
Parent Teacher Conferences: Scheduling Conferences
First, I sent home a form and asked parents to choose their top 3 times. We have 15-20-minute time slots available. I assign the times on a first-come, first-served basis. When I receive a form, I send a note home with that child’s name and the conference time. For anyone who doesn’t return a form, I assign them times based on the open times.
Here is what our form looks like. Click the images to use the template in Canva.
You can also use an online sign-up like Sign Up Genius!
Parent Teacher Conferences: Conference Forms
Coming up with that to actually discuss at the conferences is hard. It’s important to have your ideas written down so you can remember what you want to talk about you can give the families something to take with them.
The first thing I do at the conference is ask the families if they have any questions or what they would like to discuss. I like to give them the chance to lead the conference. This helps make sure they get any needs or concerns addressed. Then I use our student information forms to guide our conversation.
When having the conversations, don’t be afraid to be honest and discuss any concerns and challenges. Open communication is key. Make sure to start and end with a positive, and when discussing the challenges, make sure to offer solutions or strategies to help. Families want to help, but they don’t always know how, so when we can give them simple, explicit, CONCRETE ways to help, they’re more likely to do it. For example, when we talk about sight words, we tell the families to read the word, write the word, and spell the word. Three ideas that anyone can do at home.
The form includes student success, information about the student in class (social skills, personality, likes, etc), and concrete suggestions the families can do at home. These suggestions are specific to that student.
Available in our TPT Store & in our TKS Store. Only $5!
These forms are available in our TPT and TKS Stores. Simply click, type, and print!
We also have our Parent Teacher Conference notepads that make documenting parent conferences easy!
Parent Teacher Conferences: Sharing Data And Progress With ESGI
Families want to know how their children are doing so we provide them with current, easy to understand data. To make this easier, we use ESGI. These reports are so easy with ESGI because they’re automatically generated, and they’re so easy for families to understand because they’re visual. We can see the pie charts filling in and we can see the growth line going up. This makes it easy to show families the progress we’re making and the areas we’re continuing to work on!
We use the Student Detail Report because all of the assessments are in one place. They can also see the growth line and the letter grade that will show up on the report card. With ESGI, you can set up the grade scale to match your school/district grade scale!
If you’re not using ESGI, you need to be! It’s my number one classroom must-have, and it makes conferences so easy! Use the code SMORGIE to get a 60-day free trial and save $75 off your subscription!
Additional Resources for family communication: I use these family communication logs all year to document phone calls, emails, etc. I have these in a binder, and they are readily available during conferences as needed!
For more ideas and resources, check out these posts:
