Student-Led Back To School Kick-Offs

     Last year myself and another colleague took over the supervision of our school’s Student Council. After being involved in student council myself for over 9 years, at the high school and post secondary levels, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to help out our students as they made their voices heard at our school. To be honest, it was a rocky start…. positive… but rocky. Both my colleague and I were new to the school so we still unaware of many of the school traditions and schedules that the student body and staff expected of us. Furthermore, we didn’t have an opportunity to have any past student council information passed down to us, which left us scrambling a bit in regards to expectations, direction, etc.

     With all of that aside, we were lucky to have an amazing group of students serving as our council last year and we got through the year with some definite highlights!
– A full dedicated council for the year
– Manitoba Student Leadership Conference trip!
– Spirit weeks in both semesters
– School clothing sale
– School decorating contests for Halloween and Christmas
– Intramural sports events and tournaments
– Prom

     While I am away on mat leave for this year I have still coordinated with my colleague to help out as much as I can with our student council for this year as well. We are very lucky to have a strong dedicated group serving as our council this year and we even had the opportunity to sit down at the end of June (they came back to school after their exams!) and tentatively plan out every month of the school year! One big change that they want to incorporate is hosting some type of back-to-school kick-off at the start of September. It may be an assembly, a fun sports tournament between staff and students, a BBQ lunch, etc.This would be a big change for our school as we don’t do any type of formal back-to-school welcome, not to mention something that is planned by the students as opposed to the staff.

     So my question is, what back-to-school kick-offs have you seen? What does your school currently do to welcome students back? If you do welcoming activities, are they student-lead, staff-lead, or some type of hybrid?