Did you know that in a recent survey we conducted* only half of the schools surveyed use an online system to manage parents' evenings?
For primary schools that do not use an online system already, most organise their parents' evenings by using paper sign-up sheets. This often brings with it a lot of admin. Teachers need to put together a booking schedule and communicate this to parents so they can choose a time slot. This process is difficult to coordinate as parents have limited time, paper forms often get lost or forgotten and families that have multiple children will need to coordinate their appointment times which adds to the complexity.
In our online survey we also asked the same teachers whether they thought there was a better way to manage parents’ evenings than their current system. Over a third of schools said they could do with a better system (38%). Many said a digital system that coordinates the booking appointment schedules would be useful plus the use of a communication tool between parents and the school that oversees the parents' evenings administration.
Whether face to face or online magicbooking’s Parent Evening software works by the school creating an online list of bookable appointments for different class rooms/teachers on a selected day. The system can dictate the parents' evening starting and end time, appointment length and interval durations between each appointment, enabling teaching staff to book out time for breaks or time to change staff members. It works by inviting your parents to book online for their preferred time slot and is based on live slot availability. If your parents' evenings are held online then you can also add and share video links.
The parents can opt for a time slot that is convenient for them and book sibling appointments too to avoid time clashes. Parents can cancel or amend a booking slot subject to availability. The system will automatically coordinate bookings, notify parents when they can start booking, prevent booking clashes and confirm the parents' booked slot. You can send customisable reminders to parents via SMS or email so they don't forget their appointment time. Teachers can receive/view a real-time register of booked slots up to and during the event with the relevant parent/child details and it can be accessed from any device. During or after the event, the teacher can also mark on the register whether the parents' attended. A paper register can be printed in a PDF or Excel format.
You can reduce common admin and organisational pitfalls that occur with more manual systems. Find out more about our Parents' Evenings booking system.
*We carried out a survey in December 2020. The survey yielded the mentioned results quoted in the above article. For more information about how the survey was conducted please contact us.
