School spirit days tend to build a sense of community as well as a bond between students inside the school. At Pentucket, we have one week during the school year that allows students to go all out and dress up to support their class in Spirit Week. Would having more days like this across the school year help with student activity and engagement with each other and the school?
During the week before Thanksgiving, known to Pentucket as Spirit Week, every day has a new and different theme where students can do something different from the normal average day of school. This year, we had days such as “Anything but a backpack”, “Country vs country club”, and “Pajama day.” These days were enjoyed by the students who participated in these spirit days as well as the students who did not.
This one week brings a tremendous amount of bonding and connection to the school and raises spirit for the students by a good amount, hence the name, “Spirit Week.”
When asked about Spirit Week and how it affected the way they interacted with other students and the school, responses differed from person to person. Many people enjoyed Spirit Week and everything else it brought with it, while others did not.
“I think that school Spirit Week is fun, and it is probably the best time of the year to do it, and maybe one more time at the end of the year,” said sophomore Spiros Sakkas.
“I really like school Spirit Week and I think it helps promote school spirit and interactions between others. It fosters connection between different groups of students and allows students to share an identity of being a Pentucket student or a person from their specific class rather than being from different friend groups,” is what sophomore Grey Cummins responded with when asked.
If there were more days like this in the school year, would students be more encouraged to interact within the community and connect with one another?
Having more days during the school year where students could dress up or participate in a fun activity would encourage student activity and raise spirit throughout the year. It would help deal with the stress of school by allowing students to have more fun in school, and it would allow the students to be active in their community. In my experience, having these spirit days lets me relax a bit and helps me deal with some of the stress that school brings with it.
“I feel like it would be better if we had one Spirit Week when it is normally, and one before the end of the year before the seniors leave. They should make sure that they have thought out rules for spirit days from the get-go,” responded Sakkas when asked.
When asked about adding more spirit days, Cummins replied with, “I think it’d be a great addition, but they’d need to be done well because if they weren’t marketed right I think they would flop.”
A few school spirit days that we could add across the year are superhero day, twin day, crazy hair day, beach day, sports shirt day, or character day. These are just a couple of the options we have for special spirit days. Having these days once every one to two weeks could give students something to look forward to and plan for to keep them invested with the school.
Having these days well planned out is a large factor in making sure that they work well if actually implemented into the school year. One of the problems that arises with school spirit days is low effort on rules or ideas for what the day is about.
If we got enough time and people to work together on making sure that the spirit days are well thought out and are created with school spirit in mind, the spirit days would most likely be a success and would create a healthy school space for everyone involved.
One of the most important parts of the spirit days is a way to get everyone involved. During Spirit Week, this is done through a competition to see which class does the best during the week. If something like this is implemented during the school year, maybe with smaller rewards for the grade levels, it would encourage more people to participate in the events and raise spirit further than it would otherwise.
Adding more school spirit days would most likely raise school spirit and give students something to look forward to if they are planned and implemented correctly. If done right, these days could add a stronger sense of community and create a greater bond between students at Pentucket.
