Virtual Parents Evenings Launched at CVEA

Virtual Parents’ Evenings launched at CVEA

Owing to the current COVID restrictions, we are very aware that we have been unable to hold parents’ evenings in the usual way. We recognise how much you value the importance of good communication between the Academy and home and so, we investigated several solutions to remedy this need. In January, we held our very first ‘virtual’ parents’ evening with Year 8. The evening was hosted by School Cloud and parents and carers were invited to create a schedule of video appointments, each lasting 5 minutes, with their child’s teachers using their mobile phone. This meant that appointments could be made to suite the parent’s availability and completely removed the need to queue up. In a post-event survey, 100% of parents reported that the system was simple to arrange appointments and to attend the parents’ evening video calls. In addition, 83% of parents requested that this model be used for future events.

Here is a selection of comments made by our parents and carers about the virtual parents’ evening:

• ‘Happy with this system, well organised.’
• ‘Was very impressed with how the parents evening took place… ran very smoothly and I got to speak with all the teachers without any issues.’
• ‘I was a bit sceptical as to how it would work. Had no problems and it was easy to navigate. Maybe this is the forward!’
• ‘I think the process was slick and easy to access.’
• ‘I thought you did a great job thank you.’
• ‘It was great to actually put faces to names. In different circumstances I would prefer to actually visit the school but virtually worked great.’
• ‘Fantastic idea and I loved that everything was on time and we could attend at home so there was no childcare issue. Was lovely to put a face to the teachers too.’
• ‘The virtual parents evening went really well and came at a really good time. The staff did a great job.’
• ‘Best parents evening attended! Spoke to every one of my son’s teachers, something I've never been able to do at any of my other parent evenings, and I've had two daughters attend CVEA in past years.’

Following the success of this event, we look forward to holding more virtual parents’ evening in March and April with Years 11, 10 and 9 and Year 7 later in the year.

Look out for the dates and how to book your appointment schedule on the CVEA website.