1. Be there – or else.
It starts with a curt invitation for you to hear more – lots more – about your child’s ‘progress’ so far this year. And it’s not optional.
2. Welcome to appointments hell.
‘Click on the link for appointments’, the email suggests, whirling you headlong into a maelstrom of incomprehensible charts, lists and click-boxes for the long list of teachers you simply have to see. The appointments are two minutes each. That’s right – two minutes is all it takes to summarise your child’s chances of scraping through their GCSEs.
3. You’re too slow…
All the decent after-work slots are long gone, nabbed by parents who are quicker off the mark, so you’re forced to take the afternoon off to make it for 4pm…
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4. The walk of shame.
Shuffling into the hall, with its indefinable smell of school, takes you straight back to your own youth – and straight on to the back foot. Sweaty, nervous, expecting the worst - it’s not unlike being sent to wait outside the head teacher’s office.
5. You. Are. An. Embarrassment.
Just accept it. You mustn’t make eye contact with anyone. You mustn’t talk to your daughter. You can’t raise your voice above a whisper. And God help you if you brightly greet that nice girl who came to tea once, back in Year 7.
6. You’re not hearing right.
You could have sworn the history teacher just said your child was failing due to lack of effort and is a menace who distracts other students in class. Your offspring begs to differ. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’ he says brightly as you slink away.
7. Immovable queue blockers.
Get set to seethe as these determined parents wedge themselves and their child into the chairs and proceed to take a full 23 minutes to discuss all their concerns about Billy, while the queue - with you in it - stretches further and further back.
8. Thank heaven for Marie and Kim.
The one saving grace is the cheery dinner ladies who’ve volunteered to run a tea stall. Never have biscuits tasted so good.
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