Hold a number challenge
The ideal fundraiser for your anniversary year – challenge pupils to create their own fundraisers around your anniversary number. Can they do 25 handstands, bake 50 cookies or pick 100 pieces of litter?
Sell anniversary gifts
Create a sense of belonging with a printed product such as an anniversary hoodie or T-shirt. Make the process easier by using a company that operates a fundraising scheme for PTAs where parents can order and pay online. Or offer mugs, keyrings or tea towels. Use our supplier directory to find the right people to work with.
Commission a mural
Work with a mural or graffiti artist to express your school’s character through art. Get pupils involved with workshops, a talk from the artist or a design competition.
Shoot period portraits
Decorate a classroom in the style of your era and hire a photographer to take portraits. Colourful 1920s fancy dress or retro 1960s fashion works just as well as sepia prints representing the Victorian age.
Create an aerial photo
Drones make aerial photography easier to achieve these days, but you’ll still need a photographer with experience. Ask pupils to stand outside in the shape of the number of years you’re celebrating.
Hold a talk and exhibition
Gather former pupils and staff members together to tell stories about their time at school. How was it different? What funny stories do they remember? Source old photos and display them in the hall.
Recreate the past
Ask pupils to dress up in the costume of your year. Book a history workshop or contact a living museum to ask if they can help with ideas and resources. On the day, draw up a list of rules which would have been in force when your school opened: standing still in lines – boys at the front and girls behind– for Victorian day, or the three Rs and skipping games for the 1920s.
Plant a tree
Choose a living, lasting symbol the children can watch grow for years to come. Plant as many as you can or make a hedgerow to create food and shelter for wildlife. Contact the Woodland Trust for details of their free trees for schools.
Create a time capsule
Get pupils thinking about what matters the most to them and what represents their lives. Items could include class photographs, drawings, videos, or letters to future generations. Bury your capsule, but don’t forget where you put it!
Hold a bake-off
Using your year as the theme, hold a bake-off or ask a creative cake maker to bake a showstopper.
Make a book
The ‘We Are Writers’ literacy project offers children a unique opportunity to publish their work in a paperback book. Register your school and invite pupils to write stories or poems around the theme of your anniversary.
Throw a party
Invite the whole school to a fancy dress party, grand dinner or ball. Or keep things simple with a potluck supper or barbecue. Develop fledgling relationships by inviting alumni or local firms you’ve worked with over the year.
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