Teacher Tips for Successful Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent teacher conferences. . . love them or hate them, they are part of the job of a teacher! Here are some teacher tips for successful parent conferences.

I find that conferencing with parents is a tricky dance to navigate. For some families/students my 15 minute conference time slot is more than enough. Sometimes it feels like I just need to say, “Great job! Keep up the good work! Next!” For other students, however, I could easily fill an hour with conferencing time.

I love conferences and find it a great way for me to get to know my student’s lives better as well as serve as a resource for families. I am happy to share with you my bag of conferencing tricks I have collected over the years.

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Parent Teacher Conferences- Discussion Topics

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I start every conference by asking parents if there is anything specific they would like me to discuss with them. This way we can make the most of the conference time. Years ago, when I first had parent teacher conferences, I didn’t think to ask this, and there were a few conferences where the family realized they had run out of time and then quickly asked an important question right as I was ushering them out the door to start my next conference.

Asking parents if they have anything specific at the beginning of the conference helps to get everything out in the open. It also allows me the entire conference time to consider a question and build upon my responses, possibly adding more to whatever I may have initially answered at the beginning of the conference.

Academics

This topic shouldn’t be surprising, but I like to compile a page with my students most current scores. The most important thing I want to focus on sharing with my student’s families is:

student’s independent reading level
reading genre preferences
reading stamina
math abilities- do they know their multiplication facts? Can they successfully regroup when adding?

Be as specific as possible in what the student could work on. Parents can’t act upon the knowledge that their kid got a ‘B’ on their latest math test, but they can help the student review how to tell time (hopefully) or make sure they are reading at home.

Social/Emotional

How are the student’s executive functioning skills? Do they transition well to specials or do you need to give them five reminders after the entire class has lined up? Is their desk a hot mess or are they super organized?

Do they have friends? Any trouble getting along or including others? Do they struggle with impulse control?

These life skills are crucial to share and discuss, especially if you are noticing a student does not appear to have a well developed set or struggles in a specific area of executive functioning skills– time management, planning/prioritizing, organization, paying attention, task initiation, self-monitoring and managing emotions.

Health- Sleep & Diet

I make it a point to ask about my student’s sleep schedule and quality of sleep. It makes me sad that most of my students look at a phone or tablet up until bedtime after looking at it for many hours throughout the evening. I like to try to offer words of support to help parents fight this battle.

I had a parent share that they turned the wifi in their house off at a specific time of night. This really helped the kids wind down and get to sleep . . . until they started using their neighbor’s wifi password!

It is also very interesting to ask about student’s eating habits. Just like screen time, I like to use this as a way to help provide support for parents to give a little love for vegetables. I have learned some very interesting things about my students this way, like they consist off of a diet of junk food and apple juice.

We do student-led conferences in fifth grade, so when we are conferencing, toward the end of the conference, I will look at my student and ask them, “What fruits and vegetables do you eat at home?” They will then list the good, the bad and the ugly of their food choices.

Most of the time, nothing really comes about this question, but every year there are a few parents who have some problem feeders at their house and really appreciate the vegetable support.

Parent Teacher Conferences- Helpful Handouts

I like to send parents/families with a few handouts that they might find helpful and haven’t seen before.

Here are a few things I have acquired (mostly from TPT sellers) over the years for ways parents can support their readers at home.

Fridge Helper: A Parent’s Quick Reference Guide to Assist with Reading at Home

Science Car Talk

Parent Communication Handout

Support Student Learning at Home– Teaching with a Mountain View has a great blog article about ways to support students at home. She has also included a freebie in this blog entry.

Back To School Conversation Starters for Parents and Kids (Freebie)– This one is from my TPT store.

Jim Trelease Reading Brochures

Check out my other articles on ways parents can support their students at home-

How to Find Good Books for Your Students to Read

Magic of the Teacher Read Aloud

Engaging Students While Teaching Vocabulary Strategies and Greek and Latin Roots

Resources for Neurodivergent Students (Quirky Kids)

Sometimes it can be a challenge to find the right resource to help support parents, especially if their child has ADHD, OCD, is on the spectrum, has sensory processing disorder, or struggles with executive functioning (to name a few). Here are some great programs/resources I have found can be really helpful for families.

Problem Feeder/Pickey Eaters

Keeping Conferences on Schedule

I have used Sign Up Genius to schedule conferences the past few years. I like it because it easily inputs the elected conference time slots so there is no confusion over handwritten conference times. When we used to do handwritten sign up times, I once had a parent sign up for a time in the same slot in which another parent had already signed up!

I believe Sign Up Genius also has a reminder feature that sends reminder emails to families.

When setting up my Sign Up Genius times, I like to keep about 5 slots available for conferences and then have an open slot or two, which allows me a buffer so that my conferences are not back to back to back the entire night. So my conference schedule should look something like:

4:00-4:15- Conference

4:15-4:30- Conference

4:30-4:45- Conference

4:45-5:00- Conference

5:00-5:15- Conference

5:15-5:30 Break

5:30-5:45 Break

5:45- Conference

and so on for the rest of the night . . .

This allows me a moment to use the bathroom, grab a bite to eat and possible put in a family in one of the open conference times who might not know how to sign up for a conference.

There are some years where I have more families to conference than I have slots available in the evening times. I like to make extra conference times available every school year, but these are the years that I make sure I have extra slots available before school, at lunch and after school a few other days besides the assigned parent conference days.

I have found over the years that adding a few before and after school conference days on different days, helps me to have the best conferences because I don’t end up overwhelmed by all of the conferencing in two evenings. People who sign up for a 7:45 PM conference deserve to have just as good a conference as families who sign up for a 4:00 PM conference.

Anytime I have a student who receives additional services from a teacher that will also be attending the conference, I try to add an additional 15 minutes to the conference time. This way we have the time to have the conversation that we need to have when discussing the student without being rushed for time.

What is Most Important to Parents at a Conference

I have found over the years that when parents conference with you, they want to know:

(In this specific order)

Is my kid happy? They don’t come out directly and ask if their kid is happy, but the way they communicate with me the entire year shows that this is their priority. Parents want to feel their child is content and being nurtured at school. This doesn’t mean school has to be an insane birthday party each day, but more specifically what are the things their child are sharing about school each day? Did their teacher make the kids feel connected? Does the teacher treat them kindly and make the classroom a safe space.
Does my kid have friends? While students don’t have to have tons of friends, parents want to know who their kid gets along with. They also, hopefully, want to know if their kid is capable of getting along with others.
Is my kid struggling in any way? This can be academic or social struggles. Like the first two, this is something that should probably not come up as a surprise for parents as I should have already had conversations with anyone struggling. At my school, we do not have conferences until the middle of November. This is a nice amount of time to get to know my students pretty well, however it is almost a third into the school year. If I have any significant concerns, I should have shared them with the parent already. This would be a good time to discuss organization challenges, challenges with homework completion and any other smallish sized problem.
Is my kid being challenged? Parents want to know how kids are being challenged and kept from being bored all day long. I like to prepare a few math and reading handouts to pass along to any parents who want to know what else they can do to support their students.
Is there anything else I should know? (Most) Parents want their child to succeed. (Most) Parents want to know how they can help the teacher in supporting their student at home.