28/04/2023
๐๐ฒ๐ท๐พ๐พ๐ป ๐ด๐
๐ด๐ฝ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ฝ๐ณ ๐ท๐พ๐ ๐๐พ๐ ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฝ ๐ด๐ต๐ต๐ด๐ฒ๐๐ธ๐
๐ด๐ป๐ ๐ธ๐ฝ๐๐ด๐ถ๐๐ฐ๐๐ด ๐๐ท๐ด๐ผ ๐ธ๐ฝ ๐๐พ๐๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ท๐พ๐พ๐ป'๐ ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ป๐ด๐ฝ๐ณ๐ฐ๐
It's third term resumption week for schools in Nigeria. I welcome you to the most strategic term of the academic year.
A school owner asked me about events that she can include in her school's calendar for this term and I thought to share this with every school leader out there.
School events are an essential part of educational experience and they play a crucial role in students social and personal developments.
Here are some of the key reasons why should include events in your schoolโs calendar:
*1๏ธโฃ Building community:* School events bring students, teachers, and parents together, fostering a sense of community and school spirit. These events create an opportunity for everyone to bond and connect with one another.
*2๏ธโฃ Developing social skills:* School events provide students the opportunity to interact with their peers in a more informal and relaxed setting. This interaction can help them develop crucial social skills like communication, collaboration, and leadership.
*3๏ธโฃ Encouraging diversity:* School events can celebrate the diversity of students and the community by showcasing different cultures, traditions and perspectives. This can help students learn about and appreciate different ways of life.
*4๏ธโฃ Providing learning opportunities:* School events can be educational and enriching experiences, providing students with opportunities to learn new skills, develop interests and explore their passions.
*5๏ธโฃ Creating memories:* School events can be some of the most memorable experiences of a student's life. These events can create lasting memories and help students form positive associations with their school and their peers later in life.
What events can you integrate in your school's calendar?
*1. Subject Specific Events:* Schedule events that meet your school's learning goals. At the beginning of the term, you should decide on the school theme and learning goal for the term. I may write a comprehensive post on setting learning goals soon.
Subject specific events include Maths Challenge, Spelling Bee, Creative Writing Competition, Essay Competition, Science Fair, Debate, Arts Show, Reading Challenge and Quiz Competition on General Knowledge.
Subject specific events should be carefully planned to help improve students learning progress. Parents do not necessarily need to attend these events, neither do they need to contribute funds, but you should share pictures, videos and updates from the events with them. Carefully manage time, so you don't spend the whole day on these events. Give rewards in form of gifts and listings on the school's wall of fame.
*2. Outdoor events:* Students need to draw experiences from real life activities. You need to extend learning outside the four walls of the school. Schedule field trips to historic places, palaces, government houses or places identified from the students learning scheme for the term.
Parents may need to pay for logistics and meals where necessary. Create opportunities for students to interact and ask questions when they visit places outside the school.
Other outdoor events are environmental awareness day and community projects.
Environmental awareness day: An environmental awareness day is a great way to teach students about the importance of protecting the environment. Activities can include planting trees, recycling and learning about different environmental issues.
Community Service Projects: Teach the children about giving back to the community by organizing projects such as food drives or visiting an orphanage home. You can receive donations from students and their families for this course.
*3. Parents specific events:* For every child on your school's enrolment, there are three customers - child, father and mother. Your customer retention model must be focused on satisfying these three categories.
You can host a two hour business breakfast meeting for parents on a Saturday morning by inviting a finance specialist and serving bread and tea breakfast. Parents do not need to pay for this event. Include the cost in your school's budget.
Parent-Teacher Conferences: This is a time for parents to meet with their child's teacher and discuss their child's progress, strengths, and areas for improvement.
Parents Dinner Party: There is no gainsaying in the fact that families are under threat of breaking up too quickly. This has direct impact on students at school. You can host parents to a dinner party, invite marriage counsellor(s) and or counselling psychologist to discuss some of the germane issues leading to break ups. Serve nice food, play good music, you may include sip and paint and other engaging but fun activities. It may be a 3pm to 6pm event. Do this well according to your financial capacity. Do not request for funds from parents. If you don't have the capacity to serve foods, you may request that each family comes with something to eat and drink or serve zobo drink/tigernut drink and small chops.
Please note my use of the word "break up" as against "divorce". This is because some families are emotionally broken, but physically together.
You can as well invite parents to a work out or aerobic session. Separate the males from the females please. Invite a work out trainer or aerobic coach. All you need to provide are the space, water, glucose and the service fee of the instructor. Schedule this for a Saturday morning.
*4. Whole school community events:* These are events that involve parents, teachers and students. Examples of whole school community events are Cultural Day, Career Day, Book Fair, Graduation Day, School Founder's Day, Sports Day etc.
Cultural Day: A cultural day festival is a fun way to learn about different cultures from around the world. Students can showcase different foods, languages, arts and traditions from different cultures around the world. Parents pay for their children's costume and meals or bring the items from home.
Career Day: A career day is an opportunity for students to learn about different careers and the skills they need to succeed in them. Professionals can be invited to talk about their jobs and share their experiences. Students can visit legal chambers, hospitals, furniture houses, mechanical workshops, engineering sites, restaurants and other places where they can see experts at work.
It is important to emphasise the changing paths in careers and that careers are built on serving people's needs. So, students mindsets should be directed towards solving societal problems rather than being fixed on a particular profession.
Book fair: A book fair is a great way to encourage reading and literacy. Parents and students can shop for books, participate in book-related activities and meet authors.
Graduation Ceremony: A graduation ceremony is a special event to celebrate the student's accomplishments and transition into another level of education. Make the day memorable by being carefully organised, delivering a resounding graduation speech and students staging heart warming presentations. You don't need to spend the whole day on this event and make everyone tired. Just do something worthy of lasting memory.
School Founder's Day: This is an event in honour of the schoolโs history and milestones. It is also a day for reiterating your business's vision for the future. Invite the creme de la creme of the society, your family, friends and associates. Invite parents from the school. You can also encourage parents to invite two of their friends. Deliver a good welcome message, invite an expert to deliver keynote speech and let students stage two or three presentations.
Schools don't have sports events in third term because the term falls in the rainy season.
*5. Talent Specific Events:* If your school runs co-curricular classes on swimming, taekwondo, chess, music etc, you can dedicate events towards spotting the best talents in these skills. Parents may not attend but share updates with them. Give rewards and do some reinforcements.
*6. Marketing Events:* These are events targeted towards attracting new families into the school.
*7. Open House:* This event provides an opportunity for prospective parents to tour the school and observe the classrooms. Advertise the open house event and have prospective parents register to attend the event. You can give each parent in your school two invitation cards to give other parents around them. Give branded items as souvenir and serve water and drinks.
In conclusion, make learning fun and engaging in your school. Build lasting memories and cultivate a good customer retention model.
I believe you would find this piece helpful.
*๐ฃ๐ฑ๐ช๐ท๐ด๐ผ.โ๏ธยฎ๏ธ*
