How did your parent-teacher conferences go?

emberlee3

We had ours this week.  DS is doing well, socially and academically.  He turned 5 the first week of school, so he is one of the youngest in his class.  He went to a play-based preschool, and I think that really helped his social skills.  His teacher even referred to him as "more mature" than some of his classmates!  Academically, the kindergarten curriculum seems to be just the right level for him.  I didn't have any major concerns, so I mostly used the conference time to learn a little bit more about the curriculum and to share a bit about DS's personality and interests outside of school.

How did your conferences go?  What do you talk about?  I know some of you are teachers, so I'd love to hear your perspective.

ppants

It was great!  DS and DD are in 3rd. 

DD is a "model student" per her teacher, she's getting all As, and has 178 accelerated reading (AR) points right now.  Teacher said DD would probably be perfectly happy if she could read all day.  The kids were asked to do a self evaluation and give a strength, weakness, and anything the teacher should know about.  DD wrote, "Uhh nothing I can think of" for anything the teacher should know.

DS is going great academically.  He's getting all A+s and has 153 AR points.  He was diagnosed with ADHD over the summer and we began meds before school started.  He is able to stay on task with assignments, but did list his weakness as "I'm not very organized."  The teacher said he's still lagging some socially.  For instance, they were done in a small work group, and instead of talking to kids in group quietly, DS grabbed a book and starting reading.  The teacher also commented on how DS would be happy to read all day.  DS listed his item for the teacher to know about as "I'm serious about my work." 

 

neverblushed

I have DS's on Monday.  He's in 4th grade, and he started at a G/T magnet school this year.  I haven't posted about it much, but I've been concerned because even for a GT program there's a LOT of homework.  My DD went to the program, so I knew that it would be a lot more work than 3rd grade in the regular elementary school.  But he has even more homework than his sister did.  Frankly, he often has more homework than she does now, and she's in the high school magnet.

His language arts teacher is new this year, and I suspect he's struggling to figure out how to create rigor without just piling on more work.  So, I'm interested to see what this looks like from the teacher's point of view.

I'll keep you posted!

amieeyoung

We had ours awhile back (last month). He is in 4th grade, which has been an adjustment (he's really smart so work is not a challenge- in fact we have to challenge him at home) but the social aspect and being more responsible is a challenge. 

His math teacher said he is reading in math class when he finished his work and sounded upset, and I (nicely) told her that she needs to challenge him then, and that at least he was being constructive. I guess it probably wasn't the response she wanted, but I told her at the beginning she would need to challenge him. We had looked at the math book and he knew everything up to section 11 and I had told her this. 

Otherwise it went well. 

skategirl128

DS is in first grade and conference went well. His teacher did suggest we get his eyes checked- so we made an appointment for next week. Otherwise he's very ahead in math and on track in reading. He's having a much better year- his teacher is much better than last!

neverblushed

Okay.  Had my DS's conference today.  Sigh.  It was fine but very non-specific.  In short, my son is doing fine.  He works hard in school, uses his time well, participates, gets along with everyone, blah blah.  Honestly, I didn't get a real sense that the teacher has a handle on my particular kid's strengths and weaknesses.  

His report card was good, but our county no longer uses an A, B, C, D, F scale for intermediate grades.  They use P for "proficient", I for "in progress", N for "not demonstrated" and the rarely-awarded ES for "exceeds standards."  In theory, and as a fellow teacher, I can appreciate making elementary school grades about the demonstration of skills and content knowledge, and not about a percentage score.  However, telling me he's "proficient" with something doesn't really tell me all that much. 

I did tell his teacher that in 3rd grade, the longest thing he was required to write at home was an answer to a discussion question on literature once every other week.  And that he did not enter 4th grade with the skills he needed in order to write a 5 paragraph essay in 2 nights on top of other homework.  The teacher seemed surprised to hear this.

So, it was good news in that the teacher was generally positive about my kid.  But I think I'll be contacting the math teacher to see if she's a little sharper in her observations.

neverblushed

MrsPM said:

@neverblushed does the report card only say he's proficient in math, reading, etc., or does it break it down to which standard he's proficient in?

  

It's more broken down, but not super-duper specific.  For instance, the general category of Reading is broken into several components such as: Vocabulary, Comprehension of Information texts, Comprehension of Narrative texts.  

There's a ton of pushback in the community about the new report card.  People feel (probably accurately) that pretty much every kid gets "straight Ps."  Really, it shouldn't matter.  But I also find myself having to resist the urge to be frustrated because I can't compare my kid's report card to other kids'.

MesmrEwe

They went kind of "eh" ... 

DD is super smart - the problem is she doesn't have a good work ethic.  It could be summed up as "For as smart as she is, her grades could be far better!"...

It's one of those things I think her teacher is systematically "checking out" when it comes to DD because of the work ethic issues.  There's only so much you can do when someone doesn't want to be motivated.  Of course we're dealing with those same issues at home which makes it worse...

Spin313

Great! DS is in first grade. We were a little worried that his teacher was going to give us negative feedback about his time management, but she said he's doing a much better job getting work done (not dawdling or getting too easily distracted). She also loves how excited he is to learn and participate. He's at a second grade reading level, advanced in math, and loves science. He also has lots of buddies and works well with others.

amieeyoung

Hmm neverblushed... I wouldn't like that either. It seems like if they are going to change it they should be more specific such as your child does well in X but could work on Y. I would find that grading system frustrating too. Boooo

aglenn

Ours went really well!  DD's teacher is great.  She LOVES kindergarten, so much more than I ever could have imagined, and she's doing really well in class.  The teacher did bring up her distractibility and the fact that every.single.day she leaves something in the classroom.  I expected that to be brought up, so no surprises.  Her teacher feels like the distractibility is something to watch for now but it's not getting in the way of her learning, so no need to pursue any evaluations for ADHD or anything like that at this stage.  That was my gut feel about the situation as well so I was glad to hear that she feels the same way.

rsd12

Very well! I have a 3rd grader, 1st grader, and a preschooler. They are all doing well! The teachers in elementary school spoke to us about their reading levels and math levels and since we only had 15 mins and everthing is on target at this point we kept it simple. After last year and having a 2nd grade teacher that was tough on my son it was quite a relief!

emberlee3

@MrsPM my DS is the youngest in his class, too.  I am so glad I trusted my gut and his preschool teachers about sending him to kindie this year.