Special School Occasion during Autumn Season
Beginning of the busiest time in the year!
In most parts of the world, Autumn is the beginning of a new school year. But in Japan, Autumn is the highlight of a school year. In this blog, you can expect school life from September to November. I hope you enjoy!
Events in Autumn (September- November)
SEPTEMBER~OCTOBER: School festival/Sports festival (文化祭/体育祭)
It's time to go back to school... But there are a lot of fun events that highlight school life in the second term. School festival and Sport festivals are student favorites. School festivals invite parents, people from the community and students from other schools to get to know the school more. Students usually present a short speech. However, the highlight is the performances from certain clubs. For example, the orchestra club, dance club and cooking club.
↑This is a link to a pretty accurate example of what a school festival performance looks like. (they dance to a k-pop song)
Sports day is a day where the whole school comes together to compete in various events. Some events are individual like the 100m event, but some are in small groups, and some grades have student led dance performances.
↑This is a link to a VIRAL dance event in a sports day. It went viral because the demonstrate boy is so amazing for not being shy.
SEPTEMBER~OCTOBER: Choral Performance (合唱コンクール)
In some junior high school and high schools, there is a choral performance where each class prepares choral performances. In my school, the preparation was mostly student led and we would practice after school. For elementary school, the whole grade works on a play performance or an art exhibition.
SEPTEMBER~OCTOBER: Mid-term test
In between special events, there is the dreaded mid-term test. Students study for around 5 to 10 subjects depending on the student's school/grade.
October~ November: School field trip
School trips are one of the student's favorite events because we get to go outside the school and explore! It was surely one of my favorite as well. In elementary school, students visit to historical monuments/museums, government facilities such as the Houses of Parliament, and factories such as chocolate factories and construction factories. In middle school, students can visit places outside of the prefecture by bus and trains. In high school, most schools visit either Nagasaki or Hiroshima as a part of the peace education in Japan. These trips are often overnight so there is a lot prep done.
Most of the places that students go for school trips welcome family visits as well. They are perfect facilities to spend time during the weekend or long breaks. Check them out if you are out of activities.
- Morinaga factory (Guide is only in Japanese/ reservation needed before hand)
- Diet building (no reservation needed) The inside is very beautiful and it is a great place to learn about Japan. For example, there is a secret room for the royal family to rest before going to council that you can see. Also, there are four statues of important prime ministers of the past except for one corner. This conveys the following message "Perfection in politics does not exist. Symbol of the future".
- Local Museums
And we are left with one more season until the next school year, Winter!
Thank you for reading this far.
Click here to check out our winter version.
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