Open evenings seem to be dying out in my area. Only three schools in my borough are holding open evenings this year, compared to all of them doing them a few years ago. I can definitely see why, as open evenings can seem false and a bit of a show which isn’t necessarily representative of the school on a daily basis. However, I find that open evenings show the school in its best light and you can learn a lot about the style and attitude of a school through what it does for its open evening.

However, open evenings are a very time consuming event. I like to go to the extreme with things like this as I love being creative and doing something a bit different. And I feel that the activities I made and the way I presented my classroom really is representative of my teaching on an every day basis.

I made a variety of activities to engage the Year 5/6 visitors and had ten of my Year 7 tutees to run them so I was free to speak to parents. I have prepared Hebrew and Arabic worksheets, an artefacts treasure hunt, chalk mandalas and a large RE trivia board game. All of the activities went down really well, especially as a couple of them ended in a prize.

I had also prepared these lolly tags and parent information sheets to hopefully stick in the minds of our visitors! I am sure that for visiting parents and children, an open evening is quite daunting, however with all the effort that went into our open evening I was keen to ensure that we made an lasting impression!