Went to my younger son’s parent-teacher conference this morning — a three-way conversation between the child, the parents, and the teacher. First, credit where it’s due: my husband comes to every single one of these with me. We found it really useful. Between what I already know about our son’s personality and what the teacher told us, it basically confirmed what I’d been guessing about how he’s doing at school.
We’ve talked before about whether private school fees are worth it. My own view is that as long as it doesn’t affect basic living, investing in education can only help, never hurt.
As soon as we sat down, the teacher got straight to the point. He breaks problems down properly — I won’t go into all of that here.
What the Teacher Actually Said
The teacher asked him how he felt his own learning had gone this term. Our son said he could try harder. The teacher agreed he could make more effort, and said the main issue right now is that he’s too casual — he doesn’t take his schoolwork seriously enough, isn’t focused enough in class, isn’t engaged enough. The teacher used this comparison: primary school is a small pond, you don’t really feel much competition. Once you get to high school, university, even into work, it’s like a fish swimming into the ocean — if you’re a small fish without enough competitiveness, you’ll lose out on a lot of opportunities. This is actually a lot like back home in China. Even though he’s a Western teacher, he puts a lot of emphasis on competition too.
The Test, and What Our Son Did About It
Right after that, the teacher showed us his recent reading and maths results. The last few had all been middling, and the most recent maths test was 16 out of 34 — a fail.
The teacher told us that after our son got the mark back, he’d gone to find him on his own, said he hadn’t done well, went home and studied all weekend, and asked the teacher for another chance to resit it. The teacher praised this in front of us, said it was the first time a student had come to him with that much sincerity — most kids just avoid it. He went back and forth on it in his own mind, didn’t want to hurt our son’s feelings, but also needed to stick to his principles, and in the end kept the original result standing.
Our son cried while the teacher was telling this story. Maybe he felt the teacher’s kindness and understanding, and also the relief of realising we weren’t going to blame him once we found out. The teacher took the chance to say: one test doesn’t matter much, treat it as a lesson, remember the feeling you went through today, wake up.
What He Asked of Us as Parents
My husband smoothed things over a bit, saying our son is slow to warm up, he often needs some time before he gets into the swing of things. He also asked the teacher what we as parents could do to help.
The teacher said parents need to show more interest in his schoolwork — if the parents don’t pay attention and don’t care, he’ll probably feel like it doesn’t matter either, and stop taking it seriously. I said I honestly hadn’t been paying much attention to his schoolwork, I’d been thinking of it as his own business, that he needed to find his own motivation rather than have me watching over him. The teacher said it’s not about policing him, it’s about showing interest in his learning — asking him some questions about what he’s studying, occasionally looking at his homework, that kind of thing. We agreed with that.
How the Meeting Ended
The whole meeting was short and to the point. The teacher kept reassuring our son, saying this conversation wasn’t meant to punish him, it was meant to help him. I really liked this teacher — he came across as very professional, and genuinely wanting the best for the kids, knowing them well and caring about them. That’s something we never really felt during the years he was in public school.
By the way — every week, each class gives out rewards to 3 kids, all sorts of different categories, read out at Monday morning assembly. He happened to get one today, which was a nice bit of consolation.
If you’re mapping out school terms ahead, the NSW school holiday and term dates and full 2026 calendar by state are here on the site.