It was lovely to welcome Y5&6 parents to our inaugural Back to School event on Saturday. This was an opportunity for parents to come and enjoy a lesson with their child and experience the Winchester House approach to learning first-hand.

Before the lessons, Katy Dallimore, Assistant Head Academic and Emma Goldsmith, Head talked to parents about the Winchester House approach to learning. They reminded parents about the new revised timetable and how independent learning (prep) was incorporated in to the School day. They also explained about the new reporting was scheduled for this year.

Parents were asked to join a Maths, English, Science or Music lesson.

In the Maths lesson the objective was to find all the nets of a cube. After studying a die (which is the singular of ‘dice’) each pair were given a set of 6 square polydrons with which they were to discover for themselves, and also to record on paper, any other nets of a cube that they found. Two sets of parents/children found all the possible nets and there were interesting discussions after the activity to do with how the six numbers on a die are arranged and how many possible outcomes there are when one, two, three or even four dice are rolled at the same time.

In English, using inference skills, students and parents completed a police investigation by exploring evidence left behind at a crime scene after a body was found. Findings were then used to produce a Facebook profile for the victim.

In Science, the children and their parents spent a lesson learning how to use a Bunsen Burner correctly and applying this to determine the colours of metal elements in the ‘flam tests’ experiment. They then put their learning into context by blowing up hydrogen balloons containing metal salts to finish off with a bang! 

And in music, the children and parents joined together to play the Samba using such instruments as the Surdo’s and the Ngogo Bells. It was great to see the children taking the lead and by the end of the lesson they were dancing around the classroom to their samba funk beat!

Parents commented on how much they enjoyed the morning, how impressed they were with their children’s confidence and enthusiasm and how much energy they exuded in the lesson.

“Thank you for giving us such a fabulous and fun lesson on Saturday. It was lovely to get a glimpse into B’s world at school and share in his learning. I really enjoyed it and think it was a very valuable exercise for all us parents to experience the classroom again and see what a brilliant job you teachers do.” - Parent