PTO

Parent Teacher Conferences for Teachers

We use a site called Parent Teacher Online (PTO) for booking and managing parent-teacher conferences. PTO is a web-based solution that makes it very easy for parents to make bookings for several teachers, especially if they have more than one child in the division.

You can access the PTO sites for AISJ here:

• Elementary School - https://bookings.parentteacheronline.co.uk?school=j5ftm

• Middle School - https://bookings.parentteacheronline.co.uk?school=eg66h

• High School - https://bookings.parentteacheronline.co.uk?school=g9a54

• Pretoria - https://bookings.parentteacheronline.co.uk?school=ef8kw

You will have received an email with the login information for the system as an email. If you don't have the login information (surname & PIN), please send a message to your division office.

Click here to view a short video that reviews the use of PTO.

To use the Parent Teacher Online system, please follow the steps below.

1. Login to the site (see links above) using your surname and PIN.

NOTE: You might want to bookmark the site, as whenever you log out, the URL (address) of the site changes.

2. Before the bookings start, the first thing to check is that all of your students are listed in the system. Click on Go to Students:

3. On the Students page, you will see your class list with all the students in your class. Please check that this is correct and if it is not, please email your division office and it will be corrected.

4. On the Students page, you can also select any student that you really want to meet with by ticking the Recommended box:

5. Go back to the landing page, and click on Go to Bookings: 

6. As no bookings have yet been made, you will not see any student bookings, but you will see the time slots that have been set up for conferences:

NOTE: It is possible for you to block out a time slot by clicking on Make Unavailable. Please only block out a maximum of one break for yourself, as there are a limited number of time slots, and if you block out too many, there will not be enough to meet all the parents of your students.

7. Once bookings have started coming in, you can see the ones that have been made for you on this page.

8. On the Your Bookings page, you see all the bookings that have been made for you, including the details of Class, Pupil and Parent, which is useful information on the day of the bookings, as well as while preparing for the conferences:

NOTE: This data is generated live, so this is the latest booking data for you while you are accessing the page.

9. To download all your bookings as a PDF file or an Excel spreadsheet, go to the landing page (Click "Go back"). First, choose the date you want to download the data for, whether you want to show unbooked times and whether you want to include space for notes. Then click on either PDF or Excel to download:

NOTE: Please do not download a list of your bookings until the morning of the day of the conferences. Otherwise, changes may still take place, but they won't reflect on your downloaded file, as that is generated at the point of you clicking to download the file. Any new or cancelled bookings will not reflect in the downloaded file.

10. The downloaded PDF file looks like this, with space on the right for notes:

11. The downloaded Excel spreadsheet looks like this:

We are using Google Meet to host the conferences. We'll use the Google Meet feature to set up a meeting for later and on the day just start this meeting and keep it open during the day. 

This means that, during the conferences, you can have just one, standing Google Meet meeting, and all parents join that same meeting when it is time for their conference. They will automatically enter the waiting room, and then you simply have to let them in when it is time.

Click here to view a short video that reviews the Google Meet settings for parent conferences.

NOTE: You may leave the Google Meet running the whole time during the conferences and just admit parents as they join. Teachers are encouraged to end the Google Meet when they have time off conferences, as long as when they restart the meeting, they once again use the Google Meet link saved in PTO.

NOTE:

• There is no waiting room in Google Meet

  • A message will appear as a window when someone wants to join

  • Participants need to be admitted  or denied

  • When a participant wants to join, the screen dims

  • Your conference can continue, but you will have an annoying window in front of you

  • If the current conference meet goes over time, and you have a request to admit the next parent, tell the current parent you are over time, ask them to leave the meet, then admit the waiting parent

• Don’t be shy with the 'Deny'!

  • If a parent asks to join a conference meet in advance of the scheduled time, while you are meeting with another parent, click ‘Deny’

• Finish conference meets on time - teachers will have a 2-minute buffer between conference meets

• End the Google Meet when you have a break. Use your Google Meet link saved in PTO to restart the meeting.

• If a pop-up appears asking for permission to use your camera and microphone - allow

• Check ‘Host Control’ - turn off 'Share their screen', and 'Send Chat messages'. 

14. In case you want to know, the system shows parents a simple link to each of the Google meetings for each teacher. This is why we needed your Google Meet ID. 

NOTE: The Google Meet Link now appears for the parents 15 minutes prior to your meeting time (a measure to avoid parents checking into your meeting room long before or after their meeting time).

If you are having an in-person meeting, they will see the Room number instead.

If you have any trouble using the PTO system, please contact your division office.