This paper reports on a small-scale qualitative study of interactions at parents' evenings in six UK secondary (11- 16/18) schools. At these events parents meet with their child's subject and pastoral teachers for a series of brief consultations about progress and general welfare. In a policy climate which has promoted parental choice, accountability and shared responsibility for students' education, the parents' evening is a key event. Yet there has been little close-focus analysis of the consultations themselves. This study has assembled and analysed, via discourse and conversation analysis, a corpus of tape- recorded consultations, and has sought participants' views of the encounters. Foci include: how identities of Teachers, parents and students are constructed and defended; how consensus is reached and decisions made; how disagreements are handled; how authority is claimed, maintained and distributed; and what constitutes an educational dialogue between parent and teacher (and student if present).