School Events

School Events are an integral part of education.
All events related to school may or not be related to the curriculum but they build the school spirit among students and teachers.
Conducting a successful event at school involves planning, logistics, finances, promotion, finalising and evaluating.

School Leaders must come together to plan the various school events to be conducted around the year.
All Events require planning.
School Leadership must ensure that all events to be conducted for the academic year are planned at least a year in advance.
Care must be taken to include events and competitions which are in accordance with the values of the school and also give all types of learners a chance to participate and exhibit their talents.
Sports Competitions, Science Fairs, Drama Performances , Song Recitals etc must be included in the planning.
Multiple Intelligences must be tapped to ensure the appropriate students are groomed to enter the various competitions and get accolades.

It is important that people with different skills collaborate in the school events core planning.
A good core event planning team will have people with a strong leadership quality, who are detailed oriented, who are passionate about helping and have no inhibitions to seek assistance for resources, who have some knowledge of marketing and social media.
An event leader must be designated and the leader must have a sound knowledge of the potentials of the team.

Once the team is put together it is important that the date, time and venue must be finalised.
Discussions must also be focused on what the resources available and its requirement and outcomes of the event.
A secondary team is to be put in place which will support the operations of the core team.

After the Team and its members and the event is fixed the next step is to identify who will be responsible for what.
It is suggested that a timeline for execution of the event be prepared to give clarity on task distribution people or organisations.
The planning team needs constant updates about the progress. A big event may take upto 3 months of planning while small events take much less time.
Things which are often overlooked like a parking plan, signs and signages, storage plan for events related to material, waster and recycling plan etc must also be considered while planning an event.

Core planning committee must look into allocation of duties and must ask for voluntary support from people within and outside the organisation ( eg. Sister concerns, parent volunteers, school staff and alumni association).

The next step is to promote the event. Social media is a powerful tool for promotion of events. Print and Web based media can be used to announce and promote the event.
Personal invitations must also be included for special people like guests and others associated with the school.

The School Head must delegate as much as possible so that there is enough time to over see the detail in all aspects of event planning.
Priority tasks like media questions, managing finances, and volunteers, guest and judges arrival and accommodation ETC.

Lastly after the wrap up of the event the event leader must initiate a survey / questionnaire to analyse the success and failure or shortcomings of the event.
What could have been done better, what needs improvement , what was appreciated and what was liked have to be noted down.

All events participants must be thanked for their participation and cooperation for the success of the event.
A small gesture of thanks will go a long way and means a lot to staff members who will eagerly contribute to future events.

A new PhD thesis by JustEd member, Pia-Maria Niemi University of Helsinki, shows that when lower-secondary school pupils and teachers are asked about the significance of school-wide events, they take a broader perspective.
It can be concluded that common events at school are important for students both socially and academically, if they are well organised.
In her doctoral dissertation, Pia-Maria Niemi, studied school-wide events from the perspective of Finnish schools.
Surveys were taken from high school students as well as teachers from one lower-secondary school were interviewed.
The primary findings are that events organised for the whole school bear both academic and emotional significance, as they on one hand maintain tradition and on the other are social occasions in which traditions can be rethought and the everyday boundaries of the school transcended.
According to the study, it is important for the pupils that the school also hosts events which break up the routine and where pupils can meet their peers from different classes.

The study also showed a strong link between experiences of celebrations and other such events, and the school spirit and general atmosphere.
The pupils who described their school spirit as good also stated that they enjoyed school events and believed school-wide events to be significant factors in generating the overall atmosphere.

It is suggested that some school events must also be planned for the teaching and non teaching staff to keep their spirits up and foster a sense of belonging with the school.
Some events can be organised for the parents and community members also for eg.
Events like Bake Sale, Donation Drives , Clean up Drives etc can help spread the idea of volunteering and charity for the school community.