The St Peter’s School Baccalaureate® Open Tray Evenings are always held in Lent term and always booked for around the midway point of the academic year.
The beauty of an Open Tray evening?
- Parents can arrive and depart at times that suits them.
- All Open Tray evenings are held in your child’s tutor room, so you can see the environment they spend most of their time in.
- Your child’s tutor is on hand to answer any questions you may have at the midway point of the academic year. The evening is best described as an informal parents’ evening.
- Your child will have prepared their own tray specially for you, with a complete set of their workbooks completed so far this academic year.
- The pupils will have carefully gone through their books and put post-it notes on their achievements and favourite pieces of work. Some will have completed reflection sheets or written letters to you.
- It is the children who get ready to hold their own parents’ evening with you, their most treasured people.
- The children are able to share and explain their own St Peter’s School Baccalaureate® assessment grid and target sheet.
- The evening will give parents another insight into how your child is performing following the Michaelmas term highlighting procedure.
- Other parents will be in the room when your child takes you through their tray, creating a relaxed atmosphere of praise and positivity.
- The evening gives us an opportunity for us to focus our attention on each individual child and allow them the chance to describe their next steps in their learning, as well as their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
- It is an opportunity for them to share and celebrate their work and their achievements at this half way stage of the academic year. There is always lots of laughter and cause for celebration.
- Any parents who are unable to attend can take pupils trays home to share at a mutually convenient time.
Ultimately:
- Your child feels empowered in their own learning journey.
- Your child leads their own progress meeting.
- Your child has an opportunity to discuss their own next steps and targets with YOU.
- Parents have a chance to find out what their child has been up to and why they come home from school so tired!
- Children get to walk home ten foot tall.
As I whizzed around each tutor room during the Lower School Open Tray Event, I heard lots of children in control of their own learning, realistic about their achievements and successes and aspirational in their own target setting for themselves. These are learning behaviours that will never leave them. Each should feel rightly proud, especially as they do all of this by 7-10 years old – hugely impressive!
Well done to the pupils & big thanks to the parents enthusiastic “oooohhhhh’s and aaaahhhhhhhs” – the kids loved it! I hope you did, too.
In each child’s tray was a Parental feedback form. We would be most appreciative if these could be COMPLETED (!) and passed back to tutors. They are read thoroughly by myself and the staff team and used in future teaching and learning planning and developments.
Thanks in advance for your full and honest feedback, as always.
L.Ball
