parents' meeting parent-teacher meeting, parent-teacher conference

Question

Hi, everyone:Could you tell me the difference among the three, especially that between the first two and the third.Which one do you use ?Best wishes

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

They all mean the same thing. Different schools use different terminology.

Neeraj Jain · Answer

Parents' meeting is only between parents, there is no involvement of teachers. A parent-teacher meeting is a social gathering of parents and teachers. A parent-teacher conference is a special case of meeting. Here, discussions and presentations also take place. There is lot of knowledge sharing.

Nona the brit · Answer

Sorry, Neeraj, I have to disagree with you. These all mean the meetings between a child's parents and schoolteacher.

I suppose a parents' meeting could be just between parents - but it is also used for parent/teacher meetings. Parent-teacher meeting is not a social event (why would they want to socialise with each other anyway?)

Parent-teacher meeting and parent-teacher conference both mean that the parents meet their child's teacher to discuss the child's schoolwork and progress. The 'conference' one doesn't refer to a conference in the business sense, with presentations etc. It's still a one-on-one private discussion between teacher and parent(s).

Hly2004 · Answer

Thank you, Nona the brit and Neeraj Jain.

In fact, I want to distinguish the following two types of meeting:

(1) all parents of students in a class sitting in a classroom, listening to a head teacher speaking about their kids every semester.
(not one to one, and the teacher only speak their study generally, address common problems.

(2)parents of one kid meet his/her teacher every semester

In fact, I guess (1) is parent-teacher meeting or parents' meeting. (2) is called parent-teacher conference.

Am I right? If not, how to say the (1) type in English?

Neeraj Jain · Answer

(1) is parent-teacher conference and (2) is parent-teacher meeting.

Nona the brit · Answer

It probably varies from country to country and school to school - it's not as though these uses are set down in law somewhere.

Over in the UK

Parents meeting - could be one-to-one with teacher, or could be a group of parents meeting without any teachers, or could be the situation you describe with a group of parents being spoken to by the school.

Parent-teacher meeting and parent-teacher conference both refer to the meeting between parents and teacher to discuss one individual child.

Hly2004 · Answer

I think "conference" means "one to one"
Here're two links I found:
http://add.about.com/cs/education/a/conferences.htm
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/ca/191

In my country, it's not "one to one" type, but "one teacher to many parents", so I think if I translate it into "conference", it may cause some misunderstanding in the form it takes, although the essential idea is the same.

Come to think of it, I think "parents meeting" is oK.

I've got it, thank you both.

:-)

Anonymous · Answer

In my country parent teachers meeting is one person chairing the business aspects of a meeting with many parents discussing subject matters that affect their children and the school in general. Example: Planning a fund raiser, or say a building repairs project.

While parent teachers conference would be one teacher and parent in a one-on-one discussion about one child.

parents' meeting parent-teacher meeting, parent-teacher conference

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