Over the years, our school has held various end-of-year Student Activity awards assemblies; although many of these events have been “very nice”, they were not necessarily entirely successful at capturing the essence of the spirit of our school. As well, students who did not receive awards often left feeling that the assembly was “only for the good kids” and even a “waste of time”.
Three years ago, with these points in mind, members of our Student Council created a new end-of-year Student Activity Awards Assembly, that has since become known as – The Golden Bagels.
Here are a few of the highlights of our last two Golden Bagels:
The assembly begins with heavy fog from our tech committee, flashing lights, cool music, confetti, and of course, the raising of the Golden Bagel to the rafters of our school gym (the bagel is a huge inflated tube – painted to look like yummy whole wheat with several poppy seeds)
The opening also includes a video made by one of our creative media students (topics include “the evolution of the bagel” or “it ain’t easy being a bagel”)
Student Council –as award presenters – wear Golden Bagel aprons and chef hats
Every Student who receives an award goes to the podium and collects the following items: a nice plaque, a Golden Bagel on a royal blue ribbon (a real bagel “shalaqued” with varnish to protect it for years to come!) and a fresh bagel from our “short-order cook” who tops the bagel with butter, jam, or cream cheese, and puts it in a nice little zip-loc for the winner to eat after the assembly (no eating in the gym of course)
Awards at this event include best club, best committee, best new activity, most improved activity, student commitment awards for each grade, senior point awards for ongoing leadership, and a few teacher commitment awards
The assembly also has Oscar style nomination slides – for many of the awards – fun visuals to keep the presentation moving
We also have the “Not-so-Golden Bagel Awards” which are our humourous awards. Categories change from year to year, but include such favourites as Best Name (you probably have some good ones in your school), Best Hair, Most identical Twins, Worst Imitation of the Principal. Lots of on-screen visuals are crucial here!
The last 10 minutes of the 40 minute (no longer!) assembly are devoted to a year-end slide show – which is simply a power-point presentation of as many faces and events from the year – accompanied by our choir singing the school song and/or a groovy playlist of hip tunes
After the assembly, all students (not just the winners) are invited back to the lunchroom for free (we got a sponsor from the local bakery) bagels and cream cheese.
No assembly is perfect. But like any student activity, if we try to create an event that can appeal to a wide range of students and staff, and have a nice balance of quality, sentiment and creativity, we’re on the road to creating memories that will last a lifetime. Keep the faith.
Josh Sable