The education world has just witnessed parents’ evenings change forever.
When the Covid-19 pandemic forced these events to take place remotely, both families and schools found themselves enjoying unexpected benefits: there was no need to book time off work, arrange childcare or stress over parking, meetings took place on time and the dreaded lost paper appointment form, languishing forgotten at the bottom of a school bag, was a thing of the past.
What will happen now that schools are back in person?
We’ve been polling attendees of our recent parents’ evening webinars and the results speak for themselves: 67 per cent of schools said they’re intending to run hybrid evenings (combining in-person and virtual appointments) from now on, while 30 per cent intend on having virtual appointments only and 3 per cent will have in-person appointments only.
Mark Leppard MBE is headmaster of The British School Al Khubairat in the UAE, and tells Tes that he has been glad to see these developments take place.
"For years I have been pursuing an alternative to the traditional parents' evening," he says. "The pandemic forced us to find a solution and this is something I believe we will continue in the future.”
Will you keep holding parents' evenings online?
If you’re part of that 97 per cent that will, you should take a look at one of the new additions to the Tes family: SchoolCloud Parents’ Evening.
The software is fully online (so there’s nothing to install), appointments can be booked quickly and easily and, if you choose to host virtual meetings, these can take place via secure, encrypted video conferencing.
More than 7,000 schools are already using SchoolCloud Parents’ Evening to make theirs run more smoothly - if you’d like to know more, take a look at SchoolCloud's website.
