Term 3 Parents Evening: Nine Questions Worth Asking Before the Exams

The Term 3 parents evening is the last meaningful conversation most parents will have with a class teacher before national assessments begin on 26 October. It is also, in most schools, ten to fifteen minutes long.

Ten minutes is enough if the questions are specific. It is not enough if the conversation stays at the level of whether your child is settling in well. The questions below are designed to produce information you can act on in the six weeks that remain.

Before the meeting

Bring two things: your child's most recent assessment results, and a written list of questions. Teachers respond well to a parent who has clearly prepared, and a list stops the meeting drifting.

The nine questions

1. Which specific topics is my child weakest in?

Not which subject. Which topic. A subject level answer gives you nothing to revise. Push politely for two or three named topics, because that list becomes your revision plan.

2. Have all School Based Assessment scores been submitted?

For Grade 9, SBA is 40 percent of the KJSEA grade and includes projects assessed between May and July. Ask directly whether everything for your child has been entered. Our guide on the 40 percent that is already banked explains why this is the highest value question on the list.

3. Was anything missed through absence?

If your child was ill during an assessment, was it rescheduled or recorded as missing? This is the most common cause of an unexplained low score and it is usually fixable before submission closes.

4. How does my child perform under timed conditions?

Some children know the material and still run out of time. If the teacher says your child rushes or freezes, that is a technique problem with a six week fix, and it is different from a knowledge problem.

5. What does my child do when they get stuck?

The answer tells you a great deal. A child who stops entirely loses more marks than one who guesses and moves on. Guessing is free in multiple choice papers because there is no negative marking.

6. Is the handwriting legible to someone who does not know them?

An uncomfortable question and a genuinely useful one, particularly for the structured and composition papers where a marker is reading at speed.

7. What would you do if this were your child, for the next six weeks?

This question changes the register of the conversation. You usually get a franker and more practical answer than any direct question produces.

8. Is there anything you have noticed that I would not see at home?

Friendship difficulties, eyesight, tiredness in the mornings and anxiety all show up in class long before they show up at home.

9. What is the exam day arrangement?

Confirm reporting time, the rehearsal on Friday 23 October, what to carry, and what happens if a child arrives late. Getting this from the teacher rather than the parent group chat avoids a lot of wrong information.

What to do with the answers

One thing not to do

Do not use the meeting to relay everything your child has done wrong at home. Teachers cannot act on it, it uses the ten minutes, and it changes the tone of a conversation you need to be useful rather than defensive.

Afterwards, write down what was said the same evening. In six weeks you will not remember which three topics were named, and those three topics are the reason you went.

For the revision plan itself, our six week KJSEA countdown timetable sets out a week by week structure, and the exam preparation checklist covers the practical side of exam week.

If the named weak topics span several subjects, the KJSEA Complete Revision Course covers all nine learning areas in one package, and the KPSEA Complete Revision Course does the same for Grades 4 to 6.