It's that time of year again in a lot of schools....Parent Teacher meetings. The key to these meetings is to be prepared! Note Home: I usually send a note home abut two weeks in advance of the meetings asking parents to let me know a day and time that would suit. The options are for Monday to Friday, either morning or after school. I allocate times on a first come first served basis and send home a note in the students journal to confirm the day and time. I have always had a rather large class and it would be impossible to fit everyone in on the one day. I also find it very draining to have a conveyor belt of parents arrive in for their meetings. Timetable: I make a timetable of what times the meetings are at, the parents name and the students name also. I put a basic timetable on the door with a note saying to knock at your assigned time. This helps me to keep on track as it is so easy to let the meetings run over time. Templates: I have a link at the bottom of the blog to a template I use. I usually fill in this side and print a copy of the student self evaluation on the other side. I also make sure to have a sample of the students work on my desk to show the parents. during the week before the parent teacher meetings I sit and meet with each student and we have a student teacher meeting.They lead the meeting and fill in a self evaluation form while we chat. This is very important to me as I don't like to think that the students will be worried about their parent coming in to meet me. I am very clear with them about how they are getting on and what I will be telling their parents. Obviously things may arise that you need to speak to the parent about in private but for the most part the student knows how I think they are getting on.
Post-its: During the meeting I jot down anything I need to remember on a post-it. I then stick this onto the PTM template and will look at it later on. I find that I need to do this, especially when I have more than one meeting per day.
You can also find some very useful information about parent teacher meetings on the INTO website. Just click the link below: INTO Advice The NCCA website also have a parent teacher meeting template. I will add to this over the next few days but hope this is enough to get started!
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This is one of the best times of year to bring your class outdoors and get exploring. Over the past week and I have had each of my groups outdoors at least one. The activities that we took part in ranged from decorating a tree, planning a tree trail, collecting conkers and planting some sedum. We decided that for Tree Day we would decorate a tree in the front of our school. We asked the members of a skills exchange group if they would be interested in helping us. The Skills Exchange Group takes place once a week and is made up of a group of women that have an interest in sewing, jewelry making, knitting and crochet. We used recycled ribbon and broken jewelry to create decorations for the tree. The Skills Exchange group made some beautiful knitted bunting, a tree sleeve and some very colourful mobiles. The tree looked fantastic and both the students and teachers were very excited when they saw it. We also started a school nature table this week. On it we placed a piece of floral oasis with some leaves and seeds. When I looked at the table the following day there were some conkers on it. The following day there were more conkers and some leaves. With each day that passed the table began to fill up with things the boys found on their journey to and from school. They even found what they thought was a nest and began to fill it with conkers. It is great to see the boys taking charge of it, they have even started to make posters for the table. I wanted to show the children how some plants and vegetables can regrow. We cut the stalk off some spring onions and placed them in a jar of water. We marked the level of the water and dated the mark on the jar. The spring onions grow extremely quickly and are very easy for the children to see this growth. We received our Rowan tree from the Tree Council of Ireland. It was a bit bashed when it arrived but we still planted it. We are hoping that with some care and attention it will grow. This week I also brought one student outdoors to collect some conkers. We collected 13 conkers from one tree. We completed a few activities including counting the conkers, pairing them up and then counting them in 2's and then ordering them from biggest to smallest. Bringing students outdoors doesn't have to be as daunting as it may seem. Here are some sample activities you could do with whole class or small groups:
-Bark rubbing -Leaf rubbing -Collect leaves for art projects -Listen to bird song -Play eye spy -Decorate a tree -Tree trail -Maths trail Don't forget to check out my Pinterest board to see some more ideas! |
AuthorI have been teaching for several years and hope to share some of my ideas and experiences with you. Archives
March 2020
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