Parents evening bookings: How to solve the headaches

For schools, the parents’ evening bookings headache often begins when starting to plan the event and organise bookings. This is because parent-teacher communication can be manual and time-consuming, reliant on sending individual letters and emails (that may not even be read). Even when digital booking options are available, the experience can be confusing. King Edward VI School in Southampton knows the difficulties first hand. “Our parents were trying to access a number of different routes into payments, parents' evenings, absence reporting, and other communication platforms,” said Headmaster Neal Parker.

Many schools are now beginning to adopt more streamlined booking systems that can integrate with other education software, automating the experience for staff and parents. West Buckland School selected a new platform to make revolutionary changes to parent-school interaction. “It's one place for everything, for parents, staff and students to go and it does everything that we need it to do, with the flexibility to grow as our school does,” said James Hart Prieto, Director of Digital Innovation and Systems. And in terms of parents’ evening, “it is so much easier for both teachers and parents!” he noted.

1. Complex scheduling

Parents’ evening bookings require a lot of planning behind the scenes and scheduling appointments can be complicated. 

Here’s why:

1. Parents’ evening bookings involve multiple people, and all of their schedules matter: teachers, parents, pupils, administrative staff and possibly even more. These people are busy, and schedules can be packed well ahead of time.
2. There are limited timeslots. A teacher’s time is finite and they can only offer a set number of timeslots for parents. The process of aligning teacher-parent availability can be tricky.
3. Substandard processes. Sending letters home or asking parents to print off forms are flawed, time-consuming processes that can complicate bookings. Multiple parents might request the same appointment time, and staff will need to manually allocate bookings based on responses.

2. Clunky communication

Many schools don’t have the right systems in place to automate communications, instead relying on letters, emails and phone calls.

Parents’ evening communications need to include:

• Information regarding the date, time, location and booking process
• Details of a dedicated point of contact to answer queries
• Booking confirmations
• Information on cancelling or amending bookings
• Reminders for parents who haven’t responded

There’s always the possibility that communications will not reach parents, or errors will result in incorrect parents evening bookings. Plus, reading letters, writing back to the school, sending emails or filling in forms is time consuming for parents. There is a large margin for error, and many points at which communication may break down.

3. Additional pressure on school operations

Parents’ evening booking processes can be difficult for schools as well as for parents. There can be an increased administrative burden on teachers and office staff, whose roles suddenly balloon to include event planning, parent communications and additional admin. Staff may need to work additional hours, increasing the pressure placed on them and taking them away from their usual important tasks.

If the booking process is fraught and inefficient, this can also impact the effectiveness of the parents’ evening itself. Miscommunications could result in missed appointments or double-booked timeslots. And even if the event does run smoothly, parents and teachers will have less time to prepare, which is an important precursor to a productive meeting. 

Here are some strategies schools can use to reduce the stress of parents evening bookings:

Go digital. Finding alternatives to paper letters and booking forms can save hours of time and many headaches. In a survey on technology in schools, 78% of leaders felt technology saved time on parental/carer engagement and communication.

Hold remote parents’ evenings – or give parents the choice. Remote parents’ evenings can be simpler to organise and easier for parents to attend. While remote parents’ evenings are decreasing in popularity since the immediate COVID-19 aftermath, there’s still significant enthusiasm for them. In a Teacher Tapp survey, 41% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they preferred online parents’ evenings. After managing tasks remotely during the pandemic, schools have the technology to be more accommodating and can give parents and teachers autonomy and choice.

Communicate effectively throughout the year. A study found that one in five parents felt confused and frustrated by the lack of updates from their child’s school, a problem that can be tackled by a holistic communications strategy. Schools should consider wrapping parents’ evening planning into their wider communications strategy to deliver simple, unified and timely messaging.

Automate bookings. Schools can join the increasing number of institutions using automated booking systems for parents’ evenings. These systems allow parents to view and select available appointments in real time, with the platform taking care of all logistics to avoid clashes. Systems can also provide a number of features to support wider parent-teacher communication.

The benefits of automated parents’ evening bookings

Is your school considering the automated parents evening booking route? These are some of the key benefits:

1. No chance of human error. Booking systems ensure accuracy, completing the booking automatically – no more letters, forms or confusing spreadsheets.
2. Fast, simple booking. Parents can make bookings where and when it suits them, and will receive immediate confirmation.
3. Clear communication records. Parents can check the portal and get instant answers about dates, times and logistics. There’s no danger of emails getting buried or letters going missing.
4. Excellent value for money. Teachers and office staff can continue doing their day-to-day jobs without the extra task of booking appointments and arranging schedules. This frees them up to complete more value-added work.
5. Less stress! An automated system reduces workloads, pressure and stress for teachers, parents and school staff.

Automated booking systems are making a tangible difference to real schools, parents, teachers and pupils. For West Buckland School, moving to Access Education’s My School Portal kept parents better connected, as well as reducing admin associated with each child’s educational journey. The platform has revolutionised parents’ evening, providing unparalleled convenience and efficiency with an intuitive scheduling system that allows desired timeslots to be booked easily. James Hart Prieto, Director of Digital Innovation and Systems, added “The result is a notably smoother, more productive parent-teacher evening experience for all involved.”

King Edward VI School also moved to My School Portal, transforming parents’ evenings and much more. "Before we moved to My School Portal, we had a huge amount of fragmentation of information,” added Headmaster Neal Parker. “The platform’s ability to consolidate these different systems into one streamlined portal has drastically improved communication and simplified access to key information.”

How to automate parents’ evening bookings in your school

Our solution to automate parents’ evening bookings is a user-friendly, single sign-on platform that keeps admin in one place. Parents can switch between views if they have multiple children at the school, and the platform can support appointment booking, communication and information uploads from teachers. It can also be used to take care of other everyday admin such as paying for school lunches. Teachers can provide student feedback throughout the year to keep parents up to date, ensuring everyone is well prepared ahead of parents’ evening meetings and time can be used productively. Request platform pricing or schedule a live demo to see how we can support your school – our system is trusted by 50,000+ daily users