Open Evening
On Thursday 6th October, we had our annual Open Evening for Year 5 and 6 students and their families to come and look around our school, Waingels. I had the opportunity to be a tour guide for visiting parents and students and I’m writing to tell you my experience of the evening.
After finishing school at 2pm, us Waingels students who were helping out for the evening returned to school between 4:45pm and 5:00pm (before the first tour started at 5:05pm.)
Before the first tour started, the guides were given a sheet that had a route which we would follow to take the families around the school. On my tour, three families accompanied me around the school. We started in Green Zone where the visitors got to make chocolate mug cake in the Food Department. The Waingels students that were helping had laid out all the ingredients that were needed and the visitors mixed these into a cup which was then heated up in a microwave. The smell made me want to eat some but unfortunately the cake was reserved for visitors.
Afterwards, the tour headed to the Science Department where there was a demonstration of fire but I didn’t watch it because I was making sure my tour was kept together. The visitors were able to touch a real Lamb’s heart and there was also a heart rate monitor to check that you were alive during the tour!
When we finished looking in Science, we continued on to the Maths Department where there was Maths themed games. There was also an interactive Maths lesson where the visitors could answer questions on a whiteboard.
I then took my tour group upstairs in Yellow Zone to the Languages Department where they had fun games for the visitors to play such as translating French words to English and throwing the correct ball through the correct hoop. There were sweets available if you completed the challenge.
Last but not least, we headed over to Red Zone and visited the Beliefs and Life classrooms. In one of them, they had this poll where you could say if the experience you had of Open Evening at Waingels was beneficial or not. After that, we headed to Textiles and 3D Design where you could look at some of the students work.
Finally, our tour ended downstairs in Red Zone where we visited Computer Studies where the visitors could play programmed games before heading off to History, Geography and Business Studies. The parents asked lots of questions and were intrigued during the tour. I thanked everyone for coming and told them to pick Waingels as their child’s first choice school. This evening was beneficial for me because I was able to share my experiences of Waingels and got to talk about life at secondary school and what they can except in Year 7. By talking to them, they will hopefully recognise some friendly faces when they come up to Waingels next year then they won’t feel lonely or scared.
Having experienced this event two years in a row now, I would definitely recommend this to other students that haven’t helped out yet. It was a great experience and one that I will do again next year! Photographs of this year’s event can be viewed here. Harry- Year 9 Student
