I always felt like there were so many ideas being shared about Meet The Teacher night for elementary teachers but not for secondary teachers... and Back to School Night (as we call it) in middle school or high school is much different!
I know every district or school probably does it a little differently but ours was more of an open house style where students and their parents could come find all their classrooms and meet all their teachers. Since it's middle school, you don't just have your one class of students coming and needing to find their desk... if you are like me you have hundreds of students and they're coming to just to meet you and find out a bit about your class.
Some overall advice I have for you before getting into the details of how to prepare...
Be happy and friendly!! first impressions are HUGE. not all of your students will come on this night but the ones who do will remember their interaction with you however short or long it is.
Be intentional about talking directly to the student and not just to the parent! I think this is really important, especially now that the student is in middle school. they need to be taking responsibility for their school work and they're the one that will be coming to your class. Treat them like it! Ask them their name and if you've already had them before ask them what's new since you last saw them!
Provide a comfortable environment for questions! Students and or parents may come with some anxieties or uncertainties and this night is the time for you ease those! Answer questions with patience--even if you have answered the same question ten times already!
Plan what you will do for this open house ahead of time so that you can make sure to get into the copy room and have copies ready--the earlier you do it the less likely you'll be waiting in line while everyone else is also trying to make their copies for it!
Have no idea what to do?? You're in the right place!
Here are the things that I would recommend sharing students and parents on that night. You could have these all together one one paper you hand out, you could have them on separate handouts, or you could just display them!
share about yourself! Try to think of some fun facts that students may relate to so you can instantly have a connection with them!
share your class supply list or how student should come prepared to class! This was always one of the biggest questions I got from parents cause they wanted to know if they needed to get a folder, a binder, a notebook, etc for my class before the first day of school.
share what they will learn about in your class! In middle school they have multiple classes and if you're an elective teacher as I was, than they don't always know what they're even getting into. I love to make sure it's very clear what they will be learning and doing in the class of mine they're taking so there's no confusion!
share your class policies! Although you will definitely be going over these again with students in class the first week, this is a great time to make sure the parent is aware of them as well. Plus, if you're a teacher you know that repetition is necessary!! This could be simply having a copy of your classroom syllabus/disclosure.
share how you parents and students can contact you and how you'll be contacting them! this can be as simple as your email address or you could also have them sign up for something like Remind which allows teachers to message students (or parents) without them having each other's real phone numbers.
share your classroom wishlist! I think the best group of people you can share your wishlist with is your students' parents. Usually they're more inclined to help out and donate when they know it's benefiting their student and especially after meeting you. I have found giving them a QR code is one of the easiest ways so that they can do it right from their phone!
a little bonus that's not necessary but will leave a nice first impression is to have a little treat for them! this can be as small as just a jolly rancher, starburst, or mint! I put a cute little sign with mine!
ALSO make sure to spell check before printing cause I didn't realize my typo til after taking this picture🫠
If you teach more than one class you'll need to have this information for each of your classes since you'll have students coming for all of them. I found the easiest way to do this in an organized way is to color code your classes and then any papers for that class are copied onto that color. Obviously you will label them with the class but that way you can easily just tell students and parents which color of paper to grab.
I love having paper copies but also QR codes for those who prefer to have the digital version because in this day and age it can be much easier to have access to it on your phone then have to not lose a bunch of papers!
Over the years of participating in this night I feel like I learned a lot and last year I really loved how I ran it in my room. I decided to have stations! This allowed students and parents to meet me and then continue on around the room keeping things flowing. You could totally create your own version of stations but if you'd like to save time and have a template to go off of then grab my BTS Night Stations resource in my TPT store here!
If you found this helpful, pin the image below or sent to a friend!
Comments