If you’ve spent any time at ANCS, then you’ve no doubt heard us use the phrase “school family” to talk about the members of our school community. Drawn from our school’s work with Conscious Discipline, the “school family” emphasizes building meaningful relationships between the people in a school–students, teachers, parents–to create a culture of responsibility and cooperation, where everyone has a role to play in forming a positive environment. And to connect our “school family” with students’ home families, classrooms use “friends and family” boards filled with pictures of loved ones from students’ lives outside of school. Beyond parents and siblings, on these boards you’ll find many grandparents and other adults important in the lives of our students, and once a year, we hold a special day just for those folks.
This coming Friday is ANCS’s “Grandparents and Special Friends Day” hosted and organized by our school’s wonderful PTCA. It’s one of those days when the energy in the school building is palpable as students are excited to show off their classrooms and introduce their guests to their teachers and friends and the grandparents and special friends in attendance are thrilled to be with their respective students. At the elementary campus, the school chorus puts on a beautiful display of singing for guests, and at the middle campus, a short performance by drama program students is always entertaining.
More than just a feel-good moment, Grandparents and Special Friends Day is a recognition of the importance of the network of adults in a student’s life–teachers, parents, grandparents, coaches, aunts, uncles, etc.–to the success of that student. By creating the experience of Grandparents and Special Friends Day at ANCS, we want to send a message that all of those adults are members of our school family.
To learn more about Grandparents and Special Friends Day (and, if you haven’t already, to RSVP), visit our website.