Honoring Schools for Their Accomplishments

Ask your friends how they choose schools for their kids. In 5 out of 10 cases, you’ll hear something like, “I check the reviews online and listen to what people are saying.” Honoring schools for their achievements means giving them the advantage of standing out. We’ve collected ideas and strategies for setting up school awards to showcase the shiniest achievements.

Why should you honor schools?

A school is a dynamic generator of achievement recognitions. But, it’s a mistake to think that awards should happen only inside the walls of an educational establishment. To drive competition and incentivize improvements, honoring the accomplishments of schools is vital. Take the phenomena of the Ivy League which is the gold standard of colleges worldwide. In 2018, Harvard received 34,295 applications while the expected number of enrolling students is merely 1,660. If only for the purpose of attracting students, school awards are worth your best shot.

The best ways to recognize school achievements through award events

Recognizing a school’s success is a value adding process. Depending on the recipe you choose, there are many ways to cook a delicious school awards event. We’ve collected 3 of the tastiest ideas, along with real examples which showcase the value of recognition:

Teacher, you have to be a star!

What can be more important than the level of commitment and expertise demonstrated by school teachers? Organizing an in-house awards event focused on professionalism and progressive teaching methods on a national or regional level is a great way to honor the whole teaching profession.

Below you can see an image from the most recent TES Schools Awards event, the top UK recognition program in which every school wants to shine. The program collects teaching environment insights across the UK and rewards the most progressive standards of education. There are 17 nomination categories in which teachers can star including Community Impact Award, Lifetime Achievement, and more.

Praising digital

Nothing can be saved from all-embracing digitization these days. The quality of digital environments at schools shows how well the educational standards a school relies on are aligned with the modern labor market. Recognizing school achievements in terms of digital competency can be supported through online awards events.

To demonstrate the position of education in the digital world, you can ask students of multiple schools to create an animated video or build a website applying modern software technology. Alternatively, you can estimate how well a school makes use of digital technology following the example of Web Awards. Once again: When choosing a school, the first thing you do is check its website. Creative and up-to-date websites better communicate the mission and values of a school as well as provide comprehensive information for applicants. Web Awards is an online competition that analyzes school websites based on design, innovation, copywriting, and interactivity.

Your students can do it!

The time-honored way to evaluate whether honoring schools for their accomplishments pays off, is checking the skills and expertise of the students. Organize an inhouse contest dedicated to one specific theme for students from multiple schools. As an example, Berner School has the tradition of hosting Dance Awards, the regional dance contest where students from local schools demonstrate their talents:

The guide to organizing school awarding events

All that you need to honor the accomplishments of a school is a well thought-out strategy and several smart tools. We’ve created a short guide to launching a successful school awards event:

• Write a brief & set a budget. One blank page is the perfect place to start. Write a one-page brief specifying your goals and expectations for the awards event. At the next stage, decide how much your event should cost. In most cases, school awards are sponsored by school officials which means you should decide how to make the best use of the provided budget. Otherwise, consider raising funds through commercial sponsors or making the event paid admission.

• Include technology into your strategy. Using a reliable awards management system can simplify your work and take your event to a new level. Cooperate with a tech vendor that automates the processes of submission, judging, and reporting to have a good sleep at night.
• Select judges. Especially for the events hosted by one of the participating schools, it’s vital to create conditions for unbiased judging. Focus on the equal presence of schools’ representatives on the judging board. If it’s an online contest, look for an awards management system that provides the capability for judge abstention if there’s any conflict of interest.
• Build your guest list. This should be fully directed by your event goals. If it’s a talent show, you can provide access to everyone and advertise the event publicly. For teacher award ceremonies, it is logical to limit the guest list to school staff, students, parents, and representatives of academic institutions.
• Choose a venue. The place where the award event is staged should fall in line with your strategy. Even with a very tight budget, focus on finding an event venue that complements the mission of the awards ceremony. Consider the accessibility of the venue, design capacities, and other factors that impact the image of your awards event.
• Make the best of table & seats planning. One of your goals in school event organization is turning attendance into a pleasurable experience. Ensure there will be enough space for everyone by graphing table & seats planning before the event.

Conclusion

The importance of honoring schools stems from one simple rule: People always prefer award-winning schools over those that can’t demonstrate their accomplishments. Pick a creative idea for an award show, develop a plan, and start rewarding those who so justly deserve it.