YEAR END ASSEMBLIES:
You get to school one day and it’s time to wrap up another school year! It’s common to celebrate students and recognize achievements at this time and is a fun way to bring closure to the year. Besides being fun, student awards recognize all the hard work they’ve put in throughout the school year. Awards can provide students with a sense of accomplishment and can lead to realization. School assemblies can be a terrific way to foster a sense of community and school pride. But if your students are going to miss class, you want to make sure the experience is worth it. These school assembly ideas will engage everyone from Kindergarten to Grade 7.
In theory, an awards ceremony is a time of celebration. But for many students, this is not the reality. All too often, the same handful of students stand onstage accepting award after award, while the majority of their peers look on. Any teacher will tell you, seated rows of idle children make for a behavior management challenge waiting to happen. Attempts to mitigate this have led to the onset of participation trophies galore, leaving many children with recognition that feels disingenuous. Taken all together, this can make what should be a joyful recognition feel stale and boring. But what if there were another way to approach the traditional awards ceremony? What if there were a way to give meaningful recognition in a way that is engaging for the entire student body? One Connecticut middle school sought to make this a reality and ended up starting what will surely become a time-honored school tradition.
IDEAS FOR END OF YEAR AWARDS:
A popular type of award for students is some kind of incentive. For example, students might work toward reading a certain number of books by the end of the year. The reward could be a t-shirt or gift certificate to a favorite restaurant or store. Businesses will often donate items for incentive awards in exchange for public acknowledgement.
- Academic awards are probably the most common type. Recognizing the highest averages and overall grades is obvious and expected, but you could also branch out a bit into more imaginative titles. Awards for “Mad Scientist”, “Spiffy Speller”, “Bookworm”, and “Music Maniac” are fun and give recognition for other academic areas other than grades.
- Awards for athletics are often given out by physical education teachers. There are many opportunities to recognize student achievement in this area. Common awards are for Most Valuable Player, Best Sportsmanship, Most Improved, Hardest Working, etc. These awards can be extended out by recognizing personal bests and milestones for individual students.
- Superlatives are another fun type of award. These usually are based on personality or sentimental memories. Some examples might be ” Friend to All”, “Most Cheerful”, “Most Helpful”, or “Hardest Worker.” Celebrate students with snacks and music while you pass out these awards!
- One thing you definitely do NOT need at this busy time of year is to spend precious time making your own award certificates. Here is a resource that will assist:
- End of Year Awards – $4.00; Etsy Year End Awards; $7.90; End of Year Class Awards – $4.77; End of the Year Ribbon Awards – $4.67; End of Year Awards – $10.00.
- Here is a list of 50 award titles perfect for recognizing your best and brightest students. Whether you teach here are some unique award ideas!
- Above and Beyond Aware
- Academic Excellence Award
- Academic Star
- Achievement Award
- Artfully Creative Award
- Aspiring Author
- Awesome Attitude
- Caring Classroom Award
- Certificate of Achievement
- Certificate of Completion
- Certificate of Recognition
- Difference-Maker Award
- Good Friend Award
- Helping Hand Award
- High Five Award
- Homework Hero
- Enthusiastic Learner
- Excellent Effort Award
- The Extra Mile Award
- Kind Classmate Award
- Leadership Award
- Math Master
- Miss Manners Award
- Outstanding Improvement Award
- Participant Award
- Peak Performance
- Perfect Attendance
- Principal’s Award
- Remarkable Reader Award
- Reading Rockstar
- Rising Star Award
- Safety Award
- Shining Star
- Sight Word Wizard
- Spectacular Sportsman Award
- Star Student
- Stellar Student Award
- Student of the Year
- Student of Integrity Award
- Super Scientist
- Super Speller
- Teamwork Award
- Technology Whiz
- The Kindness Counts Award
- The Wow! Award
- Writing Wizard
- The Yes I Can! Award
Celebrating and recognizing a year of everyday victories and monumental growth is so important to students. Boost their confidence and reward their effort to ignite a spirit within them! Present their certificate in a folder. Students will be excited to take their award home and parents will be proud to display it.
- Read new ideas for Assemblies: