Talent and Potential Saturday School

Bute House offers Saturday School to give opportunities for learning and experiences open to our local partner school children. Our programme inspires and challenges Year 5 and 6 children, as nominated by Headteachers in our local primary schools. We will work with the children, their parents and teachers, to recognise and develop their talent and potential.

Our programme runs on Saturdays during the Autumn and Spring Terms, 9am to 1pm. Selected students attend class lessons for one term for subjects such as music, art, philosophy, computing, visual thinking, sport and other enriching activities in fully equipped learning spaces. Students benefit from the emphasis on growth mindset, working together and developing their personal and emotional skills.

Aims

The Explore programme is our big tent of activities, programmes and partnerships with local schools. Bute House Explore reaches out to all primary schools in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and beyond with programmes and activities to enrich learning across the curriculum and beyond. We give a space to children for their personal growth and learning through creative experiences and enhanced learning.

All the Bute House staff team are involved in delivering Explore. Staff members give up time to
commit their expertise and talent to creating the best experiences for the children who participate.

The Saturday School allows our local children to experience specialist teaching, resources and equipment in a dedicated environment with dedicated support to class teachers to embed the learning back at their own school. This provides opportunities and experiences not normally available to the children.

Background

As part of our established and developed Explore programme, we are constantly seeking new ways to engage with our local schools, using resources and expertise we can uniquely provide. Based on feedback, discussions and requests with the Senior Leadership Teams of our local schools, we developed the enrolment procedures and a teaching programme that would be of benefit to the children and schools involved. We have been running the Saturday Schools series twice yearly since Autumn Term.

Alongside that process, we worked with a private funder who generously supported the initial trial phase of the Saturday School and continues to give ongoing financial support.

Resources

The Saturday School makes use of all our specialist facilities in our studio. As part of a Building Project we have new state-of-the-art music, drama, art and science spaces and local schools will be able to enjoy these new facilities.

Specialist teachers give their time and expertise to design, deliver and review the Saturday School and partner school feedback is continuously used to develop and modify the programme.