Every year, excitement builds as elementary students get ready to make the leap to middle school. Many middle schools have gone above and beyond to help welcome these prospective students and help get to know the new building, staff and understand how the schedules work. This is an extremely helpful process for students and even parents. Often times, this experience takes place towards the end of the school year or even in August as the new school year is starting up. But as many educators know, these are both busy times of the year for families and schools and attendance to special events like these can be low.
This was the same concern that my own child’s school district faced. That’s when the middle school administration and two feeder elementary school PTO organizations came together and brainstormed a new approach to help to get students ready for the big leap. As a parent to a new middle school student this year, I appreciated the effort put forth into this event and will highlight some key features that helped make the night successful for all the stakeholders involved.
First, the group decided that timing for the middle school mingle for incoming students was most important for attendance. The event took place in February and was on a day with few varsity sports taking place at night. Students and families checked in as they entered the event and students were given a colored coded name tag. The event featured an agenda that included presentations from the MS Principal and teachers, as well as student activities and tours, and dinner. In total, the event was designed to run less than 90 minutes.
The main purpose of the event was not only to become familiar with this new building and staff, but the other students who would be there as well, especially those who would be coming from a different elementary school. Using the color-coded name tags, students were placed into groups to go through a tour of the school. Groups included students from both elementary schools for an opportunity to interact with one another and were led by middle school honor society student leaders. Students not only visited classrooms; they also had the opportunity to practice locker combinations, play middle school themed bingo and spend some time playing in the gym.
During the student activity time, there was a presentation for parents where the staff got to introduce themselves and help explain the important things to know about the differences between elementary and middle school, as well as a Q&A session.
No event would be complete without food! Our middle school allows students to make choices for lunch for the first time, so each family was able to go through the various lines to select a meal option and students were able to get comfortable with the process. Toward the end of the evening, a raffle took place to provide some entertainment and to have a few tokens of appreciation for those who came. This specific event included a sponsorship from Gleaner Life Insurance Society to help offset the cost associated with the dinner and prizes.
Examples of the agenda, group rotations and presentation are available courtesy of Croswell-Lexington Middle School Principal and MASSP Member, Bethany Davis. To view the sample items, click here. If you are looking for more examples on how to implement an event like this or are simply looking for new ideas to improve what you are already doing, consider searching social media or posting in the massp.com/forum for suggestions.
Written by Ryan Cayce, MASSP Director of Digital Learning and Resources