Open Evening 2024

4th Oct 2024

Written by STA

A night to remember - for all the right reasons!

Last week, Southborough High School pulled out all the stops to provide visitors with a warm welcome to our whole school Open Evening and an interesting and fun evening of subject activities to see and take part in.

With record numbers through the door, visitors were able to pre-book a specific time to listen to the Headteacher speech and embark on a comprehensive tour around the school..

As always, Southborough students were suited and booted and ready to escort our first round of visitors arriving at 5pm. The aim of the evening, of course, was to showcase our vibrant school environment provide our visitors with a flavour of our teaching and learning styles and demonstrate the high engagement between our boys and their subjects.

There was a cornucopia of activities for visitors to enjoy, including: numeracy ninjas, biology experiments - including dissection, microscopy and DNA extraction -, lego robots and ZOR in action, Spanish karaoke, a clay workshop in the Art room and poetry writing and riddle solving in the English department.

In the Drama workshop, visitors could enjoy a special magic show -complete with card tricks – delivered by a talented students and magician in the making. In the media suite, visitors could learn about green screen editing and the three point lighting technique for film effects.

Another Spanish classroom proved particularly popular with visitors for offering fresh Argentine empanadas, which were delicious! Perhaps one of the ‘messiest’ subject classrooms – for all the right reasons! – was Chemistry. In here, visitors were encouraged to take part in a wide range of fun chemical tasks including creating rainbow fizz, Ooblek, flame tests, elephant toothpaste and thermite demonstrations. But it was the making of slime that really put paid to the carpet –messy but great fun!!!!

All in all, it was an evening packed with goodwill, learning, fun and creativity. Our staff and student tour guides & helpers together - as always - put their hearts and souls into showcasing a school they all love.

So what did our visitors think? A few days later, the school started its Open Day Tours, and a good number of visitors who took part had also visited us during Open Evening. When asked for feedback, both parents and students were highly complimentary about the evening –and the school itself - including the following comments:

“I loved making the slime but the best bit of all was the dissection of a sheep’s heart; I LOVE Science!” Year 6 Student Visitor

“The biggest message that I picked up during Open Evening was how much of a community Southborough High School is…I witnessed time and again the positive relationship between staff and students as we moved from class to class.” Year 6 Parent Visitor

“Our tour guide – a Year 11 student – was absolutely lovely; so helpful, informative and clearly proud of his school. He really made the evening extra special for us and my son felt really included.” Year 6 Parent Visitor

“I was incredibly impressed with your inclusion provision - the Zenith Centre. What a fantastic team you have! And the Centre itself is so welcoming. “ Year 6 Parent Visitor