Conference form

As I'm starting to think about the start of school, I'm revisiting some of my classroom forms that I use with students and their parents. I have forms my students use to request test retakes, "think sheets" for behavior, and of course, several beginning of the year forms to send and receive information from parents. I also LOVE my parent conference planning form that I started using a few years ago.

I remember my parent conferences during my first few years of teaching, and I'd like to think I've come a long way from those days. I remember sitting blankly across from parents, not always completely sure what I wanted to say to them about their child. There were the standard reminders about my homework policies and reporting to them what their child's current grades were in my class, but I never really felt like I had it "together," if you know what I mean.

When I started using this form to plan what I wanted to communicate to each parent, I immediately felt like my conferences became much more intentional and meaningful. It's such a simple thing, but it's one that nobody told me about in college, and as I sat unprepared in that first round or two of conferences, I really wished they had.

I've made a few changes to last year's version of the form, along with adding a couple of other planning/organizing pages that I'll be using this year. Last year I had other teachers walk into 3 of my conferences, so this year I will be using a "conference in progress" sign on the door to keep that from being an issue again. It's nothing fancy, but hopefully it'll be enough to give us some privacy. :-)

I'm also trying something new this year. I always find that some of my conferences run over because of parent concerns that I didn't anticipate. Every year, the other parents who are waiting are so patient, but I always feel bad that their appointments get pushed back. To prevent this (hopefully) this year, I'm going to ask parents to fill out and return a form before the conference so that I can plan accordingly. I'm hoping this cuts down on their wait time.

This packet is available in my TpT store, and it includes the pages shown above, parent letters and reminders, and my sign for the door. You can click on the cover page picture above to go directly to this packet, if you would like. While you're there, don't forget to check out my 1st nine weeks's spiral math review set. These will be a part of my homework for the first 9 weeks, and it feels GREAT to already have that planned!