Other Community Activities
Branksome offers several "communities" within its main student body. Each student is assigned to an Advisor Group. This is a group of students that meet several times during the school's eight-day schedule, and usually consists of 8-10 students and an Advisor teacher. The students in each advisor group all belong to the same clan.
In addition to this, each grade is encouraged to become a close community. Each year in February the school hosts a week of grade celebrations called "Spirit Week". Normal classes continue during this week, but the week is punctuated by lunchtime activities such as the arts event or the human scavenger hunt. The most celebrated events of the week are the lipsync and cheer that occur on the final days. Each grade is assigned a colour, which is used as a way of expressing grade pride. The grade is given a colour in Grade 7 and continues with that colour until they graduate, with new Grade 7s inheriting the colour of the previous year's graduates. Colours for each grade are as follows:
- Graduating Class of 2013 and 2019 - Purple
- Graduating Class of 2014 and 2020 - Pink
- Graduating Class of 2015 and 2021 - Red
- Graduating Class of 2016 and 2022 - Yellow
- Graduating Class of 2017 and 2023 - Orange
- Graduating Class of 2018 and 2024 - Blue
During each day of Spirit Week, students dress in a specific fun manner. Traditionally, during Spirit Week, Tuesday is Crazy Hair Day, followed by Crazy Tie day (Wednesday), Crazy Socks Day (Thursday), and then Friday is a "Grub Day" during which students are free to wear whatever they choose so as long as it meets the dress code. Typically, each grade orders an item of "grade wear" and wears them on Friday.
Currently, Grade 9 students go to Onandoga for outdoor camping, which helps them develop leadership skills. Grade 8 students take part in many activities in Stratford, ON, and Grade 7 students travel to Ottawa as part of their leadership program.
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Famous quotes containing the words community and/or activities:
“The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)