Let's be honest, many teachers dread parent conferences!!! I can totally relate, I use to feel the same way. When I first began teaching, parents intimidated me. But over the years, I've learned that building a strong, trusting relationships with your students' parents goes along way. That wasn't news to me, I learned that in my credential program and I've read a ton of articles with research that proved it. But I didn't know where to start. How in the heck do I build a relationship with parents?
I had students {90% were English Language Learners}who were not making adequate progress to reach grade-level by the end of the year. So I thought going over their report card to show they were failing would do the trick…wrong!!! To be truthful, standards-based report cards don't mean much to parents who don't understand what all the standards mean {collective nouns anybody}? I had to come up with another way to approach parents. Something that was meaningful and something they could take home and use.
So I created this Conference packet for us {myself and parents} to help us prepare for our conference. I wanted parents to be part of the planning process because I was tired of “talking at” parents and thought it should be a collaborative process between all of us. Plus, I wanted parents to feel like they were being heard and they weren't just heading into a conference to be given a report card and then it would be over. I schedule our conferences with Sign Up Genius to get organized and then prep. my conference forms so I can get organized.
The packet includes a parent questionnaire you can send home a week before the conference. I love this form because not only do parents have input, but it gives me an idea of what they want to discuss. I'm such a planner and like to know what I'm walking into {call it anxiety or control issues}, I can't help it! This form eliminates any anxiety for me because I know what to expect.
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| Winter Pre-Conference form |
At the beginning of our conference, I give parents this form to take notes on. I love it because parents can jot down that their little guy needs more comprehension support and math fact fluency and they can refer back to it when they get home.
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| Don't write on this, give that responsibility to the parents to take notes. |
Like I said before, the report card isn't always meaningful to parents because they aren't always easy to understand. Bottom-line, parents want to know where their child is and where they need to be. That is why I love this data sheet:
I broke it up into different assessments that I use in my class on the left and the results on the right. During our conference, I go over this instead of the report cards because it's easier to understand. Once we go over this, parents want {hopefully} to know what they need to do to help their child reach their goals. That's when I go over different reading strategies, math games, and sight word activities that parents can do at home with their kiddo.
I hope you find this conference packet useful during a hectic conference week. How do you prepare for conferences?
3 Responses
Thanks for this wonderful conference resource. I may look forward to conferences this time around. 🙂
Thank you so much for the incredible resources!
Marcy
Searching for Teacher Balance
Putting all scores and levels on one sheet is perfect. Thanks for sharing!
Liz
BeachTeach