Parent Teacher Conferences

Happy Tuesday before Thanksgiving friends!  Has the smell of turkey and stuffing already begun to waft throughout the house or is that just my happy imagination?!  My husband and I will be traveling to his family in Buffalo tomorrow afternoon so I wanted to stop in quickly today to share a freebie that I hope will be useful to you!

While most of you are already finished with the tornado that is parent teacher conference week, I am gearing up to enter the vortex next week.  While I don’t enjoy the packed schedule and late nights, I truly do enjoy meeting with my students’ families and discussing all of the wonderful things that I’ve noticed about my students and come to learn about them.  Yes, of course there are those difficult cases that keep you up at night worrying about how parents will perceive some of the information you are about to share; it’s almost inevitable.  However, over the last five years I have come to treat parent teacher conferences as a team meeting where I share what I am doing in the classroom to help my students succeed and discuss what the parents can continue to do at home to help their child grow.

By looking at it through this lens, I really try to keep each meeting positive.  What I was struggling with however, was the best way to present this information to the families while keeping things in a positive light.  In order to help guide my discussion and remind me of my talking points, I created this conference template.

Each form has three sections that will help guide my conversation with the parents.  Areas in Bloom will be where I write down and discuss my student’s strength and areas that I’ve seen the most growth.  Room to Grow will highlight the student’s areas that still need improvement, hence the empty flowerpot.  The image and wording is not meant to be negative but to symbolize that these areas will eventually grow with time and hard work.  The last section is Additional Comments where I can share my observations about the student’s behavior and attitude towards school as well as suggestions for the future.

I have included a signature section at the bottom for my personal records to make sure, if need be, that I can refer back to this conversation and show that the parents were aware of what was discussed and agree with the suggestions made.

I uploaded these forms to my TpT store in both black & white and color for FREE here!  I hope you will be able to use them this year or save them in a file for next year!

I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, food, and free time!  Thank you as always for stopping by!