Celebrate The School Year

Jun 08, 2021 • Report Cards, Summer

Not every school year is a graduation year, but every student deserves to celebrate the school year! Whether it’s Grade 3 or Grade 10, you don’t have to wait for a graduation year to celebrate achievements! In fact, successfully completing a school year is enough of a reason to celebrate!

If your child was in one of these important transition years this year, it’s likely that he or she missed out on an important progress milestone. For many students, missing out on these important occasions brings a sense of loss. But just because graduation ceremonies or other end-of-year events were cancelled doesn’t mean that you can’t make this school year an important one for your child!

It’s Been a Tough Year: Celebrate Every Accomplishment!

This school year has been one for the record books. There has not been a school year in recent times as impacted by current events as this one. It hasn’t been easy for any age group, but the events of this year have been arguably the hardest on school-aged children. They are the most social age group—for most children, school is the only life they have outside of the home. They are the group the global pandemic will have the biggest impact on.

Discussing learning and putting the events of this year into context for students is an important part of how they will contextualize the pandemic and how it impacted them both personally and academically.

4 Ways to Make This Year Meaningful for Students

1. Talk About It. Regardless of what happened this year, having an end-of-school year discussion is an important part of recognizing the work that students put in, celebrating achievements, and putting some benchmarks in place for next year.
2. Reframe Negatives as Positives. While students missed out on a lot of learning opportunities, it’s important to remind them that they survived one of the most unique school years ever and have come out the other side!
3. Encourage Connection. While many students felt isolated while learning at home, that experience is one that they share with all their classmates. Now that restrictions are lifting, students can begin seeing their friends again and talking about their learning experiences in person!
4. Plan Something Special. If graduation ceremonies have been canceled due to ongoing restrictions because of the pandemic, plan something special. While local restrictions might disallow large gatherings, most Canadian provinces now allow small gatherings outdoors. Order a special meal and eat it lakeside, visit a provincial park, or plan a scavenger hunt with friends. Put on fancy clothing and celebrate. Another year has come and gone and we made it through.

Keep Learning Momentum Going All Summer

At Oxford Learning, our summer programs are designed to keep a student’s learning momentum going into the next school year. Learning should never stop at the end of the school year! When children keep their brains active, they overcome summer learning loss. Fortunately, summer learning loss can be prevented with effective summer learning programs that bridge that gap between this year and the next.

Find out everything you need to know about report cards here.