In all honestly, if there was a communication book, and I didn't happen to bump into teacher at all, I would be totally happy not meeting the teacher (after foundation year). Yes these days we have email, but should we be using it for 'check in' communications I am not sure, teachers are under alot of pressure these days and I am not sure that it is a valuable use of time (this is based on some conversations with teacher friends also).
So my daughter is her 3rd year at childcare (4yr old kindy now), have I bothered to check with them she is happy and settled - no I haven't, I can see it and I trust that childcare would be in touch if there was an issue, we have parent teacher interview coming up.
If school doesn't work like that and unless you 'check in' all the time, you won't know what is going on - then school isn't set up right in my opinion. Why wouldn't it work like that? If there is something parents need to know then school get in touch with parents, or vice versa, why should it be the parents who need to iniate it, it is a two way street like you say.
I'm just going to make an observation here about communication in schools in general (which is some what uneducated because I don't have any at school yet).....I get the feeling that probably in the past (when I was in school) the teacher/parent communication was much more formal, and probably minimal i.e. only if there was a problem, or at formal interviews. I feel like the OP is describing a teacher that is more comfortable with this approach, maybe a bit of a traditionalist who likes their numbers, charts, strict lesson plans and methods of teaching and maybe likes hiding behind them.
I think a modern school environment is much more collaborative between teachers and parents, keeping in touch more often and dealing with things early on before they get to a 'formal discussion when there is a problem' stage. Lots more communication of a regular basis even if there isn't a problem. Much more like a team effort. So yes, check in emails/calls/notes and the like.
I think the disparity coming through in this thread is a bit about different peoples experiences with different era's of schools and parent teacher communication.
As for the original post, I think I would have been pretty unimpressed if I had of had an interview like that. Not giving any kind of feedback to you about the bad behaviour choices doesn't sound right to me, even it she wasn't the instigator I think it was probably a good opportunity for you both to talk about it all and her to learn about appropriate/inappropriate behaviour and good and bad choices and what things she could have done instead of following the crowd i.e. talk to a teacher, talk to you, talk to another staff member of the school, work out a plan of dealing with it etc.
But I think to make the best of a bad situation, it may be time to be in a bit closer communication with her teacher throughout the year so when it comes to an interview this information isn't coming as a surprise. The teacher may not be your cup of tea (and I don't think she would be mine either) but you may need to find a way of working with her old school approach so you can work together to iron out the bumps.
I would expect the teacher to notify me if my my child had been sent to the principals office for any reason.
I would also expect the teacher to notify me if my child was falling behind in any areas.
I will be making the effort to meet and introduce myself to my child's teacher at the start of every year, I will also make it clear to them that I expect to be notified of any issues outside the ordinary.
Then I will let them get on with their job. I shouldn't need to micro manage every step of the process.
I would be very grumpy to arrive at a parent teacher interview and find out my child at been having issues and this was the first I heard of it. I would be going back to the teacher and requesting another interview. One where you both end up on the same page with a solution to helping you child move forward.
Re: Disappointing Parent Teacher Interview
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