5 Top Tips for Planning a Successful Parents’ Evening 

As an integral part of the school year, Parents’ Evenings are an important event in every school calendar. They provide the perfect opportunity for parents/guardians to speak with teachers and get involved in their child’s education, whilst also allowing teachers to strengthen the parental relationships and engagement with the school. 

With so many things to consider, organising a successful parents’ evening can feel like a daunting task. Here’s a few of our favourite tips to help the process run smoothly! 

1. Plan Early On 

As an event that involves so many people, it is never too early to start planning. From the beginning of the year, you may want to start to pencil some dates down, along with ensuring you can tick every box to let the event run smoothly: How will parents book their slots? How long does each meeting need to last? When will teachers take breaks?  

When it comes to Parents’ Evening, it’s important to think about every little detail. Make sure teachers know all about their slots, but particularly dates and times.  

Both teachers and parents might easily forget about the dates, so it’s good to remind them in any way you can. If you use a school communications app, you can send out a quick message or a push notification in a matter of seconds, helping to jog their memory. It also allows parents to add the event to their calendar. 

2. Raise Awareness 

Sometimes, parents and guardians can be hard to reach and a single text message wont be enough to market your school’s parents’ evening. To make sure your Parents’ Evening runs smoothly, you should remind parents of the event multiple times in the lead-up to it, and inform them of how the evening will run. A great idea would be to provide them with a checklist of what to do in preparation to it! You could include things like: booking their preferred slot with a teacher, adding the date and time to their calendar, and making a note of any specific questions they’d like to ask. 

If you send out a school newsletter, it’s a good idea to include information about your Parents’ Evening in it, starting a couple of months before the date. A school newsletter is a great way to engage with parents and guardians and make them aware of any announcements and events, all in one place.  

Most importantly, if parents and guardians are looking for information, the first place they will check is your school website. The goal of your school website is to provide them with everything they may be looking for. Therefore, it’s essential that your school website is easy to use and up to date. One of our top tips is to provide a term calendar where you can add all the relevant upcoming events. Having this sort of information online helps reduce calls from parents and saves time for your school staff. 

3. Be Kind to your Teachers

When planning your Parents’ Evening, it’s important to keep in mind the people who will be involved the most – your teachers. Speaking to so many parents in one day can be a lot, so it’s key to keep this in mind when scheduling slots.  

Be sure to include comfort breaks when planning out your meeting schedule and time allocations. Having 15 minutes to grab a drink and regroup can help your teachers feel more prepared for the next meeting, and prevents them from burning out.  

If you’re organising your Parents’ Evening on our booking system, it’s super easy to add breaks to the schedule. Through the app, you can also choose the number of meetings you’d like to add to each block. 

Check out the video below for more guidance: 

4. Keep Sign-ups Simple 

To get the most engagement from parents, choosing a time for their child’s parents’ evening needs to be easy. Using a booking system makes the sign-up process simple and super speedy. Forget about the long lines of parents signing up to speak to a teacher and waiting for their turn… Our app processes sign-ups in seconds, online. 

Once you’ve planned out your Parents’ Evening schedule, you will be able to send out a link to all parents which will direct them to the booking page. Make sure to clarify which teachers and classes are taking bookings. Parents and guardians can then view their bookings in the app, making it easy to refer back to at any time.  

5. Consider Going Virtual 

Planning your Parents’ Evening virtually is a great way to promote inclusivity. Busy parents may be juggling childcare or commitments at home, so having the option to dial in from a convenient location helps them to still get involved in their child’s education. It’s also ideal for those who have multiple key contacts in different locations, such as parents who travel for work, as they can join the meeting online.  

A virtual parents’ evening doesn’t have to be complicated either. Once you’ve chosen your preferred video call platform, you can use a school booking system to assign slots and send out meeting links through text messages or emails. 

No matter how you decide to run your next Parents’ Evening, communication and engagement between parents, guardians and teachers is key. To find out more about how Parentapps can help, why not book a demo with one of our friendly team? 

Already using Parentapps? Head to our support section for everything you need to know about setting up parents’ evenings.