Parent Event Management System - Full Guide for Teachers

This article contains guides that will help Teachers to use ReachMoreParents PEMS (Parent Event Management System). You will find guides to help you view, edit, export and book appointments and set your availability for an upcoming parents evening.

Setting your availability

Within the ReachMoreParents portal, Teachers are able to access PEMS and define their availability for a Parents Evening Event within the "My Events" area of PEMS. Once you have clicked on the Event of interest, you will be taken to an appointment booking screen. 

Define your availability

The Teacher Break Time for the whole event will be "greyed out" as a default and any appointments which have already been booked by either Parents or Administrators will be displayed in this screen as well. You can adjust your availability for the time duration of the Event Date by setting the "Start Time" and the "End Time" then saving your changes. 

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article.

How to set your availability times for a parents evening (For Teachers)

Define your break time

If you need to add an additional break into your schedule for the Parent Event, you can click on the "Add quiet time" heading, click on the "+" - New quiet time and setting the "Quiet time start" and "Quiet time end" fields then save your changes to add the additional break you need.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article.

How to add break times (quiet time) during a parents evening (For Teachers)

Viewing and exporting your appointment schedule

There may come a time where you need to review your bookings for a Parent Meetings Event. In order to do so, you would need to access PEMS using your Teacher login, then open the Event you need to view your appointment bookings for. If the event spans more than one day, you can choose any other date in the event date selector to view the Appointments on any other date(s) in the event.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article.

How to view my appointment schedule for a parents evening (For Teachers)

If you need to take your appointment schedule "offline", you are able to export your schedule from the Appointments table to a excel file so you always have a physical copy of the schedule. To do this you would need to click on the Export button in the Appointments table heading, then click on the "Download file" link and access the excel file in your downloads folder.

The information contained in this file is:

• Event Date - The date(s) the appointment is(are) booked on
• Appointment Times - The start times per appointment
• Student - The Student's full name
• Assigned Parent(s) - The Parent / Carer(s) who will be attending that appointment time (the default is all Parent / Carers but there may be some individual appointments also)
• Class (Subject) - The Class Group and Subject information for the appointment booking
• Teacher Notes - Any notes that the teacher has attached to the appointment (not visible to the parent in PEMS)
• Parent Notes - Any notes that the parent has attached to the appointment (visible to the Teacher and the Parent in PEMS)
• Parent Attended - If you are exporting this schedule after the event date has passed, and the parent attendance has all been recorded, this will show whether that appointment was attended or not

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article.

How to export my appointment schedule for a parents evening (For Teachers)

If you are interested in any additional notes that a parent has attached to a Parent Meetings appointment or if you need to add your own, you can click on the "eye" beside that appointment to "View Appointment" details. This will show you the time of the appointment, which Parent / Carer(s) the appointment is booked for, any notes you as the teacher have applied to the appointment and if the appointed has any parent notes attached to it, you can see these also. 

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to view the details of an appointment (For Teachers)

Making changes to existing appointments

Sometimes, we have specific things that we need to discuss with a Parent / Carer during an appointment with them. Within the Appointment Details screen, you can add a note to remind yourself of key talking points without the parent being able to see these notes. 

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to add a teachers note to an appointment (For Teachers)

When circumstances change for either yourself, or the parent / carer who has booked an appointment with you, there will be a need to amend the appointment to a different time on the event date. To do so, you would need to access PEMS as a Teacher, click on the Event tile for the event you need to edit an appointment for, click on the eye icon to "View appointment" details and choose a different time using the "Time" selector.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to change an appointment (For Teachers)

In unforeseen circumstances for either yourself, or the Parent / Carer booked booked with you, an appointment may need to be cancelled. In order to do this, you would need to click onto the Event tile in PEMS where the appointment is located, access the Appointment Details and delete the appointment. 

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to cancel an appointment (For Teachers)

Booking new appointments

When we really need to see a parent, or a parent has asked us specifically for an appointment whilst we saw them offline, we may need to book an appointment as a teacher on behalf of a parent. To do so, you would need to access PEMS as a teacher, click on the Event tile where you need to create the appointment, click on "Add appointment", select the Student, then choose if it's an appointment for all Parent / Carers or a specific one and apply any notes to the appointment for talking points you need.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to book new appointments for a Parents Evening (For Teachers)

Sometimes, a Parent / Carer isn't able to attend a parents evening event in the standard booking window the School Administrator has defined (perhaps they work a night shift so can only attend in the morning). In this circumstance, you may agree with that Parent / Carer to an appointment outside of the Parent Event. We call this a "Custom Appointment" which can be created by opening the Event Tile where you need to make the booking and defining the required fields for the "Add custom appointments" block.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to add an appointment outside of the standard Parents Evening time window (For Teachers)

In some cases, your Parent / Carers may have had an acrimonious split and as a result can't be seen together, or in a less severe case, you have two parents who want to see the teacher but different shift patterns mean you need to book a separate appointment for each Parent / Carer. In the ReachMoreParents PEMS product, we would ask you to account for these individual appointments as the School or System Administrator before the booking window opens for the event so you can manage these at a high level. You can use the Auto-Generate appointment feature with defined availability for the Parent/Carer to book all their appointments with ease.

For further detail, follow the steps in the following article:

How to book Parents Evening appointments for one specific parent (For Teachers)