All students should celebrate school milestones, even if they are not graduating this year. Whether it’s Grade 3 or Grade 10, you don’t have to wait for a graduation year to celebrate the achievements from this past year! After all, completing a school year is enough of a reason to celebrate!
All cultures have ceremonies to recognize the passage of time and changes in status in people’s lives (coming of age, joining a couple, births, deaths). These ceremonies or rituals are opportunities to reflect and even set goals to accomplish before the next year and are important parts of marking befores and afters in life. School milestones happen every year, so be sure to celebrate them!
Let’s Talk About School Milestones!
The end of the school year is an important milestone for all students; their transition from one grade to the next is always worth recognizing.
The end of every grade is a time for review and reflection. Along with discussing the final report card, have a school year wrap-up discussion. This is a meaningful way to celebrate the accomplishments and achievements of the past school year.
Discussing learning and putting the past year’s events into context for students is an integral part of how they will remember these years and how they affected them.
3 Ways to Make This Year Meaningful for Students
- Talk About It. Regardless of what happened this year, having an end-of-school-year discussion. This is an important part of recognizing the work that students put in. Celebrate all their achievements, and put some benchmarks in place for next year.
- Reframe Negatives as Positives. While students may have missed out on many learning opportunities, it’s important to remind them that they survived a unique school year. And they came out the other end!
- Encourage Connection. While students who were still learning remotely might have felt isolated this year. But since restrictions have mostly been lifted, students can begin socializing again!
Reviewing the School Year
It doesn’t have to be the last day of school to have a chat about how this year went. Even halfway through summer, you can talk about the school year as a way to prepare for the year ahead.
- What was your favorite subject learned this past year?
- And what was your least favorite subject this past year?
- Who was your favorite teacher?
- What’s the best project you worked on?
- What’s something you are most proud of?
- What’s the best thing that you read or watched this year?
- What’s the most challenging aspect of this grade?
- What’s your favorite school activity?
- What tip would you give other students entering the grade you just finished?
This conversation is also an excellent opportunity to talk about summer learning and make plans to keep the academic momentum going ahead of the new school year!
Get Next-Year Ready
Prepare for the next school milestone this summer at GradePower Learning! Our summer programs keep students of all ages from falling behind and ensure a stronger start in the fall.
Visit our locations page to find a GradePower Learning center near you.
