Student Led Conferences

At my school (The International School of Stuttgart), all teachers are part of a focus group. This means we all get a say in making positive changes to the school. I decided to sign up to the conferencing group, because I loved how we ran conferences in my old school (Halcyon London International School) and was keen to do this again.

For .me the current problems with traditional conferences are:

• There is not enough time to see everyone! I teach over 100 students. During the last conference I was completely booked up, and ended up having meetings after-school for weeks after!
• Some subjects get overwhelmed with appointment requests, (usually math, science and english - DP teachers also get over booked by Grade 10 parents wanting more information about DP Courses)
• It's usually not a positive experience for teachers, parents or students, as they are quite formal, and they put everyone in a position where they can feel like they are being judged (as a parent, teacher and student). I asked my students 'who looks forward to conferencing' and not one student said yes (newsflash...teachers don't look forward to them either!)
• Even when conferences are student led, students can clam up, especially when you are sitting either side of a table interview style
• Appointment times can be either too short or too long, depending on the needs of the student
• If a student has some negative feedback, (usually minor things, like being too chatty in class), they then here this news over and over again from every teacher - not helpful!

The version that my subject piloted looks like this:

• No appointments
• Families turn up when they want and stay for as long or little as they want
• Multiple families and teachers in a room
• Student work laid out from all grades (giving students a sneak peak into older grades, or reminding students of what they did in previous grades)
• Slideshow celebrating student learning (in Design, we made sure to show photos from all stages of the design cycle, with only a few showing the final product)
• Student activities laid out, such as print outs of some of my design starter activities - this means the student can be the teacher, and their parents can be the student!
• Grade specific prompt forms, with questions/prompts about each unit, and some more general ones. These don't just include sharing work, but have general questions about the units/concepts, and have some questions to ask the parents
  • Grade 6 Conference Prompts
  • Grade 7 Conference Prompts
  • Grade 8 Conference Prompts
• Students come in, pick up a prompt form, and chat away with their students - usually teachers are just their to ask any pressing questions, or to remind students to talk about something excellent they did!
• This also relies on teachers reaching out to parents if they have any concerns with a student long before reports/conferencing, and puts the focus on this day on being a celebration of learning!
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I loved hearing students talking about their learning. One student thanked me and said 'this was so much fun' and a parent said 'this is the only conference today, where my son has acted like himself'

I've sent a feedback form, and will share the results here later!