Parent-Teacher Meetings for Tuition Centres: Schedule and RSVP

A parent-teacher meeting (PTM) at a tuition centre usually starts as a WhatsApp message: "PTM on Saturday, please confirm." Half the parents reply, some reply to the teacher privately, and on the day nobody is sure who is coming. The notes from the conversations then live in a teacher's notebook.

TuitionDesk has a dedicated Parent-Teacher Meetings page that handles the date, the notice, the RSVP and the follow-up note in one place. This guide walks through how it works and, just as important, where its limits are.

Before you start: the parent portal must be on

PTMs are tied to the parent portal. In Settings → Centre features, the Parents option must be switched on (it is off by default). Owners, branch managers and teachers can then open Activity → Parent-Teacher Meetings. Teachers see meetings for their own classes plus centre-wide meetings that have no class attached.

Plan availability: the product's help page and an in-app message describe PTMs as part of the parent portal on Growth and above, while the plan configuration lists the parent portal on every plan. Please check the pricing page for what your plan includes rather than relying on any single description.

Schedule a meeting in five steps

1. Open Activity → Parent-Teacher Meetings and click Schedule PTM.
2. Pick a class (optional). Leave it empty for a centre-wide meeting for all parents.
3. Set the date, time and duration (the default is 30 minutes).
4. Add a location or a meeting link, and an agenda note for parents.
5. Keep Notify parents on and save.

Parents are notified on the channels your centre has enabled: email, WhatsApp and SMS where those are switched on, plus an app push and an entry in the in-app Updates. The meeting appears on your Sessions calendar alongside classes and assessments.

What parents do

Parents see the meeting on their child's Plan tab in the parent portal and tap Yes, Maybe or No. You see the RSVP counts on the PTM list, so you can decide on the day whether to run one long session or add a second slot.

Parents can also request a meeting from the same tab by giving a preferred date and a reason. Requests appear at the top of the PTM page, where you can:

Action	What happens
Acknowledge	The parent is told you have seen the request
Decline	The parent is notified
Mark scheduled	The parent is notified and the Schedule form opens prefilled with their date and reason

"Mark scheduled" is a prompt, not a booking: you still save a real PTM so the parent can RSVP.

The automatic reminder

For meetings linked to a class, TuitionDesk sends a reminder at 8 AM (in the parent's time zone, falling back to the centre's) on the day before the meeting. It goes by push where the parent has the app, and by email and WhatsApp where those are enabled. Cancelled meetings are skipped. A centre-wide meeting with no class attached does not get this reminder, so for those, send an announcement yourself the day before.

Record what was agreed, privately by default

After the meeting, open it and add the Meeting outcome (after meeting) and any action items. This is separate from the agenda written before the meeting, so the two never get mixed up.

Outcome notes are internal by default. You can choose to share one with the parent and notify them, but only when the meeting covers a single family. If the PTM covers a whole class or the whole centre, TuitionDesk refuses to share the outcome, because a note like "slipping maths scores" would otherwise reach every family on the roster. If you want to share outcomes, create one PTM per family.

A simple routine that works

• Two weeks out: schedule the class PTM and send the notice.
• One week out: check RSVP counts; follow up personally with parents who have not replied.
• Day before: the reminder goes out automatically for class-linked meetings.
• Same day: note the outcome and action items in TuitionDesk straight after each conversation.
• A week later: check progress on the action items, and use the attendance and progress report data you already hold.

If you are unsure how to structure meeting time, school circulars give a rough model: a published date, time windows by class or grade, and an advance notice. Tuition centres are smaller, so a single window per batch is usually enough; this is a suggestion, not an established standard.

Limits to know about

• RSVP is per meeting, not per time slot; TuitionDesk does not currently split one meeting into individually bookable slots.
• Parents who are not on the portal still get email or WhatsApp where enabled, but cannot RSVP.
• Outcome notes cannot be shared across multiple families.
• The Plan-tab RSVP is not added to parents' calendar download.

Related guides

• Parent portal: stop the endless calls
• Parent feedback surveys for tuition centres
• Push notifications for parent alerts
• Teacher and parent communication
• TuitionDesk plans explained
• Help: Parent-Teacher Meetings

Run your next PTM from one screen

Add your classes and parents, switch on the parent portal and schedule your first meeting. Create your free TuitionDesk account and see who is coming before the day.