Overview and checklist for student-parent-teacher
conferences
Overview of student-parent-teacher conferences
Student-parent-teacher conferences (‘SPT’ for short) are an essential accompaniment academic coaching
sessions between students and coach. The term ‘conference’ was used by one of the project schools and
has been used here in preference to ‘meetings’ or ‘interviews’ or discussions’. Schools have adopted a
variety of names for this type of parent engagement.
This engagement is in the form of a formally-structured and semi-scripted student-parent-teacher
conference lasting 20-30 minutes. These conferences discuss the students study and career aspirations, the
parents hopes and dreams for their son or daughter, the students goals, achievement toward these goals
based on all data recorded about the student (subject specific data, literacy and numeracy data, attendance
data and any other data the school records), and ways parents can support their teenager’s learning and
achievement. The conversation is facilitated by the student’s form or tutor teacher (who is not necessarily
their subject teacher) who has a script to guide the conversation, but the talking is shared between the
teacher, the parent(s) and the student.
These meetings require one teacher (the form or tutor teacher) to have access to all information about the
student – achievement data, subject report statements, attendance etc – it is supplied for them by the
coordinator. This is a time when the role of the middle or senior leader responsible for data management
and any administration support for this person becomes essential. At these meetings teachers have access
to all of this information about each student – either on paper or laptop. It is expected the teacher will
familiarise themselves with this material prior to the meeting. Each teacher conducts some 20-25 meetings
over 1-2 days of school time.
These meetings present a substantial planning task for many staff working in a coordinated manner. The
lead school had developed comprehensive documentation for the management of this activity and the
overview and checklist resource file contains a list of all the things that need to be considered and planned.
For example, all parents are sent an invitation and an appointment time, along with an explanation of the
purpose of the meeting and how it will be conducted. Some schools include a letter for the parent’s
employer for release during work hours. All staff are involved either conducting the meetings or some
administrative role – anything from car parking, to crèche management to catering. Some schools give
students responsibility for some of these tasks. These meetings are also an opportunity to access parents
for a range of other reasons – surveying them about school issues (including their experiences with these
meetings) as part of review processes, informing them of other events and developments etc.
The preparation for teachers to help them conduct these meetings in meaningful and informed ways is
significant and requires information about each student to be collected, collated, supplied to each teacher,
training to take them through it and what it means and how to conduct the conference, sharing the dialogue
and so on.
As well as these conferences other forms of engagement with parents featured as part of a programme of
activities for parents (where possible in the parents first language) such as: evenings to teach parents how
NCEA ‘works’, the implications of subject choices made across the years of schooling, variations on homeschool partnerships to help parents learn about aspects of such as how to make sense of year 9-10 literacy
and numeracy data (eg PAT, or asTTle) and how they can help their sons/daughters learn.
Checklist for Student-Parent-Teacher conferences
Thanks to Massey High School for sharing their compressive toolkit for this the process. Project schools
developed their own versions of these resources. Samples of some of these items are included on this
website.
Conference planning and training:
A folder (paper or electronic) containing all relevant data and information about the 20-25 students
allocated to that teacher for the conference days which includes,

A checklist of all the below and the sequence of ‘what to do’ on the day.

A script to guide the various aspects of the discussion from the introductions to the close and farewells.

All available achievement data regardless of year level (eg. PAT or asTTle data and subject data for
juniors) with NCEA data added for seniors.

Attendance data.

A brief report-like statement from each subject teacher of the student commenting on the student’s
learning in that class to date (these do not have to be neat tidy or even grammatically accurate as they
are not given to the parent and student but used as a prompt for discussion).

Each student’s goals for study/career, NCEA and any learning goals in progress.

A credit tracker sheet which details what subjects (and how many credits) the student has enrolled for
and what credits have been achieved so far – this is preceded by information to staff as it requires data
to be collected from the student prior to the meeting so it can be included in the teachers pack and
given to the parent at the conference.

A calendar of all the key data entry and assessment times throughout the year.
Takeaway sheets for parents

Next steps for parents – opportunities to further engage today (information in the Hall) and future
dates.

Helping your son/daughter at home – a list of ways to support your child to learn.
Organisation of the student-parent-teacher conference days

Commitment on the annual calendar for two day planned months ahead and likely the year prior.

A framework for how the days will be timetabled – how to fit 30 minute sessions across two days
allowing for meal breaks.

A decision about who will conduct the conference discussions (eg. form/tutor teacher only? – there is a
need to have some extra people available to attend to issues and other events occurring that maximise
the opportunity to engage parents) – a ratio of 20-25 students per teacher – this needs to be calculated
within the length of the days.

Allocation of enough form/tutor teachers and other staff to cover every student.

Timetabling ALL students with a teacher over these two days – this time and date information is needed
for the letter of invitation.
The process for inviting parents

The first letter of invitation from the principal is posted home. This explains the purpose of the
conference and what parents and students can expect and what is expected of them, along with some
practical information about the management of the conferences such a how to ask the school for a
letter of release from work.

This letter is accompanied by an appointment form with a tear-off reply section.

A script for a call to the home to confirm the appointment and how to talk with parents who say no, not
coming or letter not received – these phone calls are the responsibility of the form teacher.

Text (‘advertisement’) for notices in local papers and/or text for an article in local paper.
Information for staff about the organisation of the conference days

List of duties – who will do what covering everything from cars and security, coffee and tea in the hall
for parents, crèche or other child care arrangements, BBQ (sausage sizzle), relievers for form teachers
if required, key personnel in hall or central area to promote aspects of new school initiatives etc, liaise,
collect information as required.

Specialist roles eg. deans checklist of actions and responsibilities for the conference days.

Information about what will happen regarding parents who do not attend (the letter and other materials
they will be sent etc).
Resources for review processes

Templates and formatted forms of questions for collecting student, parent and teacher voice to provide
feedback about the conferences.

Instructions for analysing and using data collected from these review processes.