How I’m doing Parent Teacher Conferences

I always think that parent teacher conferences come so early in the school but here we are! I am so lucky that I have really supportive parents for my students.

I teach upper elementary (fourth grade) and I am so passionate about my students having autonomy in the classroom. And I think a big part of that is letting them in on the conference. I mean, it is about them let’s be real. This is how I am leading my conferences this year with more student input.

When I was in fourth and fifth grade I actually had to be the one to lead my conferences and tell my parents about myself and then the teacher would add in things they are seeing as well.

I wanted to do the same idea this year with my kiddos without them having to be completely on their own. Plus, we can’t mandate that students are present so it makes a little tricky as well.

A couple days before conferences I am going to have students fill out a worksheet on their performance and behaviors in the classroom. My colleague actually had these from previous years so I’m not sure where they got it from – probably a teachers pay teachers download. It was similar to this but this isn’t the exact one we use.

Then we also added our own couple sheets on who their friends are in the class, what’s something they want us to tell/show their parents at conferences, and some other reflection type questions.

I am inviting any of my students into the conference if they’d like, but I know some can’t or don’t want to join and that is okay! At least they know some of the things that we are going to discuss.

Then obviously I’ll have my own data tracking sheets where I fill in their scores for fluency, state testing, math facts, etc. and a list of the books they have currently read at school.

We only have fifteen minutes so a majority of my time will be talking about behaviors, habits, and areas of focus moving forward.

This is only my second year teaching so I really don’t have it all figured out but last year I didn’t do student reflections so I’m excited to see how they go!

I’m curious as to how you lead your conferences?