Parent-Teacher Interviews

Parent teacher interviews (PTI) can be set up and scheduled through eSIS.

Once a PTI cycle is set up, school administrators can allocate parents to sessions in eSIS. Parents can then book interviews themselves through the Community Portal interface.

eSIS allows you to maintain information required to schedule and conduct parent teacher interviews.

Parent Teacher interviews in eSIS consist of:

Cycles

• • A cycle is a set of related sessions. E.g. Interviews for Year 5 & 6 students might be held as one cycle with a morning and an afternoon session OR interviews for Year 7 & 8 students might consist of one cycle consisting of 4 sessions over 2 days

Sessions

• • Sessions are the blocks of time that teachers are available for interviews. Each session has a date and start and finish times. Each PTI cycle will have at least one session associated with it

Time slots

• • These are the units of time into which sessions are broken into in order to allocate a parent/student to a teacher. The length of each time slot is defined when the session is created. e.g. each interview for Year 7 & 8 students might be 5 minutes long.

Setting up Parent Teacher Interviews

To create a new PTI cycle:

• Select Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance from the Students module.

• In the Set Parent Teacher Interview Search Criteria window click New

The Create PTI Cycle window is displayed.

• Create a code for the PTI cycle

• Add a description

• Complete the details for the File Type, Year and Semester

• Click Finish.

Creating Parent Teacher Interview Sessions

You will now be prompted to enter the session details.

You will then be taken to the Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance screen with the cycle just created displayed.

• Click Add… on the Sessions tab of the Parent Interview Maintenance window to add extra sessions. 

• Repeat this process until you have all the required sessions for the cycle entered.

The General tab of the Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance window is used to maintain summary information about the PTI cycle.

• Cycle options allow different booking configurations to be set. These include:

  • Allow slot per class: If selected this allows parents to book as many time slots as their student has classes with a specific staff member. E.g. if a student is taught by the same staff member for both Maths and Science the parents can book 2 time slots for that teacher.

  • Contiguous bookings: Selecting this option forces contiguous or adjoining timeslot bookings were multiple bookings for the same teacher are allowed

  • Appointments per staff: Allows parents to select additional bookings per teacher

  • Multiple Appointments per staff: Limits how many lots of multiple appointments per teacher may be made per parent

The Active Cycle checkbox should be cleared when the PTI cycle is no longer active. 

Adding Year Levels to a Parent Teacher Interview Session

To add year levels to a Parent Teacher Interview Session:

• On the Sessions tab, click Add in the Year Levels Attending this Session area. 

• Select the Year Levels to add in the Parent Teacher Interview Sessions - Add Year Levels to Session window

• If the staff for that Year Level are to be added automatically make sure the Add Staff for these Year Levels check box is ticked

• Click OK. 

Add Staff

Normally staff teaching a year level are added automatically when new sessions are added for the year level they teach. To manually select and deselect staff for a specific session use the Parent Teacher Interview Session Staff window

This window allows users to:

• • Select one or more staff members to be included in a session

  • Select rooms in which staff members will conduct interviews

  • Copy rooms used in other sessions

  • Exclude a staff member from a session

  • Exclude a staff member from specific time slots within a session

To access the Parent Teacher Interview Session Staff window

• Click on Staff button on the Sessions tab of Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance. 

Add staff members in bulk

All the staff from a particular year level can be added at the same time

• Click Bulk Add

• Select the Year Level to add staff from

• Click OK. 

Assigning staff to rooms

• Staff can be assigned to a specific room by selecting the room from the drop down list next to the staff member’s name in the Parent Teacher Interview Session Staff window.

• If staff are to be assigned the same rooms as in previous sessions (from the same or a different cycle) the rooms can be copied using the Copy Rooms button

• Rooms can also be overwritten in the current session.

Changing staff availability

• Staff can be made unavailable for a specific session by removing the tick in the check box in the Available column next to their name

• If a staff member is unavailable for part of a session (or if staff are allocated different dinner breaks for example) particular time slots can be selected by clicking the Availability button

• Deselect the times specific staff members are available.

• To remove a staff member completely from a session highlight the name of the staff member and click the Delete button.

The Schedule Tab

The Schedule tab is used to maintain schedules for parent teacher interview sessions for a given cycle.

The Parent Teacher interviews for the session are displayed in a grid showing staff and time slots. Parents/Guardians are displayed along with the student’s preferred name. Any time slots for which the teacher is unavailable are coloured light grey.

Set the Community Portal Display From and To Dates

To select the dates that the Parent Teacher Interview session is visible on the Community Portal, it is necessary to define these dates in the system.

To define the dates:

• Go to Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance > Sessions tab > Modify Times

• Enter the relevant dates for parent teacher interview information to be available for viewing on the Community Portal.

Note: If the ‘From’ date is after the Community Portal Open date, then what is shown on the Community Portal will depend on what is ticked under ‘Before Session Opens:’

Set the Community Portal Open and Closing Dates

In some cases, schools may prefer to open the Community Portal before parents can book appointments to allow parents to view the times available and then the school can make bookings available a week (or some time) later.

To do this:

• Go to Parent Teacher Interview Maintenance > Sessions Tab

• Enter the relevant dates for bookings to open and close.

• Note: It is possible to leave the 'Open Date' empty provided there is a date entered in the Community Portal Display From and To fields (as above).

Scheduling a Parent-Teacher Interview

• To create a Parent Teacher Interview, select the Session to add the interview to from the drop down list of sessions: 

• Select the Contact/Student to schedule by clicking on the Par/Stu button.

The Contact/Student Search window will be displayed:

• Enter Search criteria for the student or parent contact

• Click Refresh Grid

The Contact/Student Search window is displayed with contacts based on your search criteria

• Highlight the contact to schedule

• Click OK. 

The selected contact and their associated student/s will be displayed in the Parent/Student area of the Schedule tab: 

• Assign an interview time by selecting the appropriate student by clicking on their name in the parent/student grid

• Double-click on a free time slot in the grid for the required staff member

• The booking should appear in the time slot

• Bookings can be moved by clicking on the appointment an dragging it to a different time slot

• Bookings can be deleted by clicking on the booking and clicking the Delete button on the keyboard

• Confirm the deletion by clicking Yes in the window that appears. 

• A second appointment can be added for the same contact/teacher combination if required to create a longer interview

• Once created a dialogue box to confirm the second interview will appear

• Click Yes to confirm. 

• It is also possible to book appointments with multiple teachers at the same time

• Create an additional appointment/s at the same time for the additional teacher/s

• Once created a warning message will appear explaining that an interview already exists for the student with another teacher at the same time

• Click Yes to schedule concurrent appointments.