Parent teacher conference sign-up

Slot length

Fifteen minutes is the common choice. Ten minutes leaves time for a hello and one point. Twenty suits student-led conferences, where the child walks the parent through their work.

Whatever you choose, build in a buffer. A 15-minute slot every 20 minutes, or a five-minute gap after every third slot, keeps you on time. Add one longer break mid-evening. You will need it.

How many slots

Count your families and add about 20 percent. Spare slots give working parents a choice, and the families who can't make the usual hours are often the ones you most need to see. Offer at least one early-morning or later-evening option, and say in the description that you can do a phone or video call instead.

What to ask

• Student's name, because the parent's name alone will not tell you which child
• "In person, phone or video?"
• "Anything you'd like to talk about?" as an optional comment

That last one is worth having. A parent who writes "reading at home" in advance gives you time to bring the right samples.

Siblings and shared rooms

Families with two or three children at the school try to stack their meetings. Ask them to book back-to-back slots, and if you coordinate with other teachers, share your sheet links in one message so parents can line them up.

For privacy, show booked slots as "taken" rather than with family names. Parents do not need to know who is seeing you at 4:15.

Reminders

Send the link two weeks before and close sign-ups two days before so you can print your schedule. Reminder emails the day before and the morning of cut no-shows a lot. Each one carries the parent's link to move or cancel, so a family who cannot make it frees the slot instead of just not turning up.

A ready list

The starter text above makes two afternoons of 15-minute slots from 3 to 6pm. In Dibs each slot holds one family, and claims are atomic, so two parents tapping 4:15 at the same second cannot both get it. Parents book from a phone with no account, get a calendar file, and can swap slots themselves. You get a printable schedule for the door.