Year Six Leavers Ideas: The Best Ways to Say Goodbye
By Philippa Pearne and Tom Kirkham
As the end of the school year approaches, it’s time to start thinking about Year Six leavers ideas. Year Six children building towards the final phase of their primary education will experience a whole range of emotions when they move from one chapter of their life to another. After all, most of them have probably been at their school for seven years. They will likely feel huge affection for it, both as a physical space and as a place which has provided them with such wonderful experiences, great friends and memorable moments. And now they are coming to the end of their time there, and preparing to make, at least for many, the first of life’s big transitions as they move to secondary school. This is a huge moment for them, daunting and exciting in equal measure. But it is vital that they have the chance to say a proper farewell and a proper thank you before they go.
So, how can you make your leavers’ last few days at primary school that little bit more special? We’ve put together some brilliant Year Six leavers ideas to help you make it an end of year they will never forget.
Brilliant Year Six Leavers Ideas
- Put on a show
- Produce an inspiring leavers assembly
- Announce a beach day
- Bring the beach to you
- Jump around at a trampoline park
- Enjoy a movie night
- Party on
- Declare battle…of the bands
- Get personal with an art project
- Have a water fight
Celebrate Through Entertainment
One of the most inspiring things you can do as a Year Six teacher is to end the year on a high with an uplifting, celebratory assembly to champion the work the Year Six children have done and to help them look forward to the years ahead.
What better way to celebrate your leavers than with our Leavers Assembly Celebration Pack? It includes three uplifting songs and an inspiring, completely flexible assembly script as a WORD document that allows you to really celebrate the achievements and camaraderie of your Year Six leavers.
The pack also contains vocal and backing tracks, sheet music and lyrics. If you’ve already got your assembly script sorted, but you need a little help on the music side, take a look at our downloadable leavers song packs, either instead of or alongside. They feature a range of excellent leavers assembly songs, written especially for KS2 students, which marry the uplifting with the wistful, and the beautiful with the boisterous. They also require minimum preparation time and minimal fuss!
And finally, during your leavers assembly, ask the Year 3s to present their Year Six buddies with an autograph book – a sweet gesture from the children they have been looking out for during their first year at primary school to remind the Year Six children that they were once new to the school too, and will be again at their new school next year. The purpose of the autograph book is to ask as many people in the school as possible to write personal messages of goodwill (and/or amusement) for them to look back on and remember fondly once they have left the school. It’s a bit like signing school shirts, only with far less mess!
Make A Day Of It
When all exams are done and dusted and there are only a few weeks left of term, there is no doubt that by this point, all Year Six students deserve a day-long treat. Block a day out of the school calendar and make it a little bit different, whether you stay on-site or hire a coach to take them out for a break from normal school surroundings. Here are a few Year 6 leavers ideas for how to end summer term on a high.
What better way to give the kids and teachers a much-needed boost than treating them to some sea air and a good old fashion day at the seaside? Rope in a few parents for an extra pair of hands – we’re sure a day at the beach wouldn’t be too much of a hardship for them – order fish and chips for lunch and play games on the sand. To inspire a brilliant day out for all, you could even engage in an uplifting sing-song in the coach on the way there using some of our leavers songs to celebrate the pupils’ achievements. Plus, you’ll make the most of the great UK summer with this fun-filled Year Six leavers idea.
2. Bring the beach to you
If the budget won’t allow for coach hire or a day out this time, you could always transform the school into its own version of the seaside (plus, this way, you can get the whole school involved and celebrate the Year Six children all together.)
Ask everyone to dress up in their finest beach wear, play traditional seaside music on some loud speakers as they arrive, fill the playground with paddling pools, set up a few sprinklers, hire some inflatables and make sure the sandpit’s ready (if you’ve got one).
After serving fish and chips for lunch (in an authentic seaside-esque cardboard box or paper bag, of course) you could then arrange for an ice-cream van to arrive at school and give each child money donated by their parents or the PTA for an ice-cream. It’s a cheerful, rewarding way to transform the school setting into something other than the reminder of lessons and exams.
3. Jump around
A morning or afternoon at the local trampoline park is guaranteed to allow Year Six leavers to release any pent-up energy they may have had building up in the last few weeks of term. And what better way to celebrate the end of the school year and all the exciting adventures that lie ahead of them than to, quite literally, jump for joy with their closest friends? A pizza party afterwards would end the activity perfectly – name us a child who doesn’t enjoy the novelty of pizza – followed by a little speech made by the Year Six teachers and a mini award ceremony to celebrate which pupils had jumped the highest.
Make An Evening Of It
There’s something about an evening school event that makes it feel extra special for the children. Allow these leavers’ ideas to inspire you to save the best ‘til dusk.
1. Enjoy a movie night
Everyone loves a night at the cinema so let the fun come to you and put on your own cinema evening at school – Year Six invitees and their parents only (this is an exclusive event after all...). It could take place either indoors or outdoors (weather depending) and you’d need to use or hire a projector and a screen or large white sheet to project the film onto. Provide popcorn, pick’n’ mix, soft drinks and ask a willing parent to run the BBQ and you’ve got yourself a pretty memorable evening.
2. Party on
You’ve heard of an end of year party, but there are always new ways to make yours even more distinctive. Bottom line? Think ‘wedding’, only a little less ‘over-budget glam’, more ‘affordable chic’ of course. You could either hire a venue or transform the school hall. Some Year Six leaving party ideas include thinking of a theme and asking everyone to represent it in what they wear – not fancy dress (because, let’s face it, they’ve done enough World Book Days in the last seven years) but perhaps a certain style, for example, a Hawaii theme, or a carnival feel.
Consider a face painter too – no, not lions and tigers and bears. Glitter! Whilst it might be every adult’s worst nightmare, children love it, especially when it’s applied expertly and even better when it shows up like a beautiful tattoo in photos.
And speaking of photos, you could go down the tear-jerking route of projecting a slideshow of photos from the children’s time at the school on the wall while the party takes place. Or, hire a photo booth and some props to mark the occasion in a really fun and on-trend way.
Interrupt the proceedings halfway through with a little light-hearted awards ceremony where each child receives a certificate of ‘excellence’ in their category. Categories could include things like ‘the child with the messiest desk’, ‘the most chatty in class’ and ‘the most likely to forget their PE kit.” All affectionately meant, of course.
Make It A Final Week To Remember
1. Declare battle...of the bands
If there’s one thing most children love doing, it’s pretending they’re in a band. During the final week of term, allow them time to form their own bands and ask them to write a parody of a song – with lyrics describing their time at the school - ready to perform at a ‘battle of the bands’ performance on the last day of term. Suggest some easy, well known tunes for them to put their funny words to – for example, Little Mix or Katy Perry – et voila! But be careful what you wish for...
2. Get personal with an Art Project
An end of year art project helps to keep the children’s creative juices flowing, as well as getting them to reflect on their school memories. At the beginning of the last half of term, give a square ceramic tile to each Year Six child and ask them to paint on it a positive representation of their time at primary school. It could be a happy face, some positive words of wisdom they learned along the way or just a colourful painting to demonstrate their happiness there. Once they are all finished, collect the tiles and display them all together to make one large art muriel. Seeing them as one display might evoke a few happy thoughts and celebratory memories for the children and they can go back and look at it as they please for the remainder of the term. They can then take their tiles home to have as a keepsake.
3. Have a water fight
The good thing about the summer term in the UK is that it’s usually fine weather, which means that allowing the kids to let off steam whilst cooling off in the process is also fine – after all, getting wet in such hot temperatures is in their best interests (said no teacher ever, except on the last week of the summer term). Now, we obviously wouldn’t condone this sort of behaviour in normal school hours but hey, it’s their last week and they’ve worked hard so let them loose with a few water guns why don’t you? Give them half an hour on the playing fields to have fun, cool down and generally think you’re the best Year Six teacher ever. And, just to warn you, we’ve heard it be known to officially name the last five minutes a ‘free for all’, which is when the teachers get involved too. Whether that means getting soaked by the kids or you revealing a sneaky water gun of your own and getting your own back, it doesn’t matter. As long as everyone is having fun, it’s a lovely (and happily chaotic) way to end the school year.
We hope these Year Six leaving ideas have provided you with some inspiration on how to send your students off in style! If you’d like to go down the musical route, please explore our memorable leavers songs and don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any assistance.