Purpose of the Back to School Night
Back to school night is upon us next week. We will have our school building full of curious and happy parents willing to hear about all the amazing learning opportunities CA Elementary School has to offer daily basis. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to demonstrate the core values of the school and the IB PYP. The time is limited, so we have to think about our audience, their background and expectations for our event. Hence, we have consulted a number of faculty members to collate the current guidelines and suggestions for your perusal:
Agenda for the teachers' presentation should include at least the following:
- Introduction of the teacher(s) and assistants in the grade level- Overview of the daily routines for learning, school's policy on homework, classroom expectations
- General and practical information about, UoI, language and math programs
- Suggestions/ideas on how to best support their child at home
- How to find information, classroom pages, CA website, Student Handbook
- When/how do the parents hear about their child's progress, ES reporting cycle
Presentation guidelines:
General guidelines:
- Collaborative planning to ensure a common message (Time is given on Wednesday 2 September to finalize the plans)
- Classroom teachers decide how much time is spent together and how much separately
- It is important to give parents the opportunity to spend time in their child's classroom. Even if it was only a few minutes in the end.
- Consider, whether the students would write/draw a message to their parents
- Heikki will announce when the BTSN are over via PA system
Suggestions for effective presentations:
- Interactive, positive, avoid lecturing
- If you use slide shows avoid text-heavy slides
- Prefer demonstrations and/or games over lengthy explanations
- Consider having a brief slideshow of the students/teachers in the grade level
- Use exit cards or similar activity to gauge Q&A
- Encourage and offer separate appointment times for individual parent questions/concerns
- If you want your parents to know more about certain areas of learning, consider providing home readings
Schedule for the night
Please find the schedule here.
Support
Signs will be posted in hallways
Kae, Yoshiko will help parents to navigate between the different places
