Book your three-way conferences starting on Nov. 27

Three-way, student-parent-teacher conferences in December and following the March break are a method of student self-assessment and reflection used in the Middle Division.

With the help of their teachers, students identify areas of success and where improvement is needed, and construct goals for the following term. The benefits of the three-way conference format include: identifying strengths; ensuring areas for improvement and specific goals are clear to the student, his teachers and his parents; promoting the student’s understanding of how he learns; building the student’s accountability for his learning; and contributing to the student’s self-confidence.

An overview: three-way conference dates

• Thursday, Dec. 4 from 1 to 8 p.m. (no lunch at school)
• Friday, Dec. 5 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Your son won’t attend school at these times, but will accompany you to school for the conferences you book. There will be 10-minute conference slots with form advisers and five- or 10-minute slots for subject teachers. To accommodate all parents, teachers of art, music, drama and physical education are only available for five-minute conferences. Please also note that you aren’t required to book conferences with all of your son’s teachers.

Booking a conference appointment
You’ll be able to schedule your December student-parent-teacher conference by signing up online from 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 27 until noon on Wednesday, Dec. 3. The system won’t be accessible outside of these dates.

Here are the instructions:

Go to the school’s pickAtime website link. To register:

• Enter your email address and push “Login/Create Account.”
• Fill in the required fields and register. You would have previously done this for the Oct. 6 interview.
• For each child, enter his student ID (located on your monthly financial statement) and birth date (dd/mm/yyyy) and then push “Add.”
• Sign in. If you’ve previously registered, all you need to do is enter your email address and password. The system will know about your appointments and the children you added to your account.

Scheduling

• Each coloured square represents an available meeting time. The legend shows you what teacher corresponds to what colour, and the times increase as you go down the page. (You won’t see all of the teachers, just the set of teachers that your children have classes with.) Click on a square to book that time.
• After you set when you want the reminder email to be delivered, click “Create Appointment.”
• Repeat until you have a time with each teacher you would like to visit with.
• You can click on “printable schedule” and print the resulting web page to get a hard copy of your schedule at any time while the booking site is open.
• You can log in with your email address and password at any time until 4 p.m. on Dec. 4 if you want to make changes to your schedule.
• If you have more than one appointment, the others will be hidden. Click on the blue circle to the left of your name at the top of the screen to show your appointments. There will be links to modify the time or cancel the appointment.

If you experience problems, please contact Catherine Danalias at 416-488-1125, ext. 4001. If she’s not available, contact the UCC help desk at 416-488-1125, ext. 3323. You may email helpdesk@ucc.on.ca outside of school hours.

Preparing for the conferences:
We ask you to review your son’s term reflection with him on his laptop.

What happens on the day of the conferences? You’ll meet your son’s teachers according to your schedule on the day of the conferences. Your son is expected to be in number one dress.

We look forward to celebrating your son’s learning and confirming his commitment to his areas of improvement.