Schools
Hi everyone, this is Kagamin! Is everyone doing well? Thanks for reading my blog! Coolest Magazine and Kagamin thank you! orz This month, Kagamin is er -- mean I -- I'm going to be devoting this Kagamin's Corner to High Schools! Why? I'm graduating Middle School this year! It's sort of scary! On the blog there's a few comments from girls (and a few boys <3) asking about schools in the area! Since I'm looking too, I got the idea to turn it into a post and spent a few days going around to different schools in the area.
Also in my fan mail (yeah, snail-mail! I love it, please send me more! <3), I got a letter from a Claire Laval Jean Geraux, whose cousin apparently spent a bit of time at Gekkoukan and wants to try going to Gekkoukan as a foreign exchange student. She's a big fan of my blog and wants to know about how school in Japan works! I promised I'd put in a section about it when I wrote up the school blog post!
At the suggestion of the webmaster, I've divided up the sections so it's all easier to read instead of the huge column of death!
Contents |
General School Information
Claire-chan, I asked a few people including my manager about how school is high school is different in Japan from France. Unfortunately nobody knows what school is like in France (I'm sorry! orz), but looking at websites and talking with people, I think I've come up something for you. I hope this helps!
The school year starts on April 1 and ends in March (the end date varies). It's divided up into three semesters. 1st term is April 1 to mid-July, then summer vacation, 2nd term is September to late December, then winter break, and 3rd term is January to early March, followed by a spring break. Each semester ends with final exams. First and second terms also have mid-term exams but because the third term is shorter, it doesn't have a mid-term. If you want to transfer in at a less awkward time, Gekkoukan accepts foreign transfers in September.
The school week is the traditional Monday to Saturday in the area, though Saturday is a half-day and ends around noon. Students spend more time in school overall, but quite a bit of it isn't classes: things like preparing for Cultural Festivals, Athletic Festivals, and so on are all done on school time. Then there's the third-year school trip (usually to somewhere far) and various weekend excursions (usually somewhere close).
Day
Though the school day for most students starts around 8am, you'll see students earlier than that. This is usually "morning practice" (asaren) for Athletic clubs, who meet multiple times a week for "morning practice" to get in extra time before classes, usually meeting around 7am.
The official school day that lasts from about 8:30am ~ 3pm in the afternoon. Your homeroom teacher takes attendance and starts the day. Then your homeroom teacher leaves and the first of your subject teachers show up for almost an hour of lecture per subject until around noon with breaks between, for about six classes a day. Lunch lasts an hour or so, then back to classes. Finally your homeroom teacher returns to wrap up the day.
After classes, there's times for clubs, usually from 3pm to 5pm. After clubs, many students who plan to attend university attend supplementary schools, or cram schools (juku), which are private schools you have to pay for to help you in subjects you're weak in and get your educational level up to snuff. With declining birth rates, universities are desperate for students, but the best ones still are tough to get into! It's not surprising for these classes to get out around 8pm or so. So it's not unusual for someone to be in school-related things for 12 hours a day, and that's before homework and don't forget train commute times to all this and you can see why it's not unusual to see kids in school uniform at 9pm!
Homeroom
A student's school identity heavily revolves around that of the class they're in. Unlike American schools in dramas I've seen, different teachers come to your class teach subjects instead of you going to their class, so you stay with the same group of students for an entire year, so you get to know your classmates pretty well but students even in the classroom next door can be a bit of a mystery to you.
Classrooms are identified by their class number, usually two numbers or a number and an alphabet letter (such as "2-B" or "1-1"). The first letter identifies the school year of the students (1-3), the second the class in that year. Class sizes vary, for instance Sevens has about 40 students in a class while Gekkoukan has about 30. Each class has its own representitives such as a class president.
Each class has a homeroom teacher assigned to it. This teacher is responsible for the class and doubles as the student counsellor for that group of students. The homeroom teacher is the first teacher they see in the day, who takes attendance and makes announcements. The homeroom teacher is also the last teacher they see as he or she returns at the end of the day to excuse the class.
The class participates in school events as a group and success or failure is determined by how well the class group does. They also do projects such as Cultural Festival together, take field trips together, and so on. The class is responsible for keeping their classroom clean and share responsibility for halls, and bathrooms clean and all students are on a rotating schedule to do this work.
Uniforms
Uniforms are still the norm for school in the area. Each school has a different uniform decided by the school's administration and are an important way to identify what school person goes to. Uniforms are different for boys and girls. Basically two uniforms are worn: the winter and summer uniforms. The winter uniform has long sleeves and generally thicker material and is worn from October 1st to June 1st. Summer uniforms are worn for a shorter period of time, June 1st to October 1st and features short sleeves and lighter material. Monogrammed sweater-vests are a common approved variant on uniforms.
Most schools will have a photo in their guidebook for new students on the regulation method of wearing the uniform. Girls uniforms tend to be more elaborate and are allowed to be worn in more different ways. Most schools have a sleeveless sweater that can be worn instead of the jacket. Your street shoes are not worn indoors, instead you wear a pair of rubberized slippers inside the school. You change from shoes to slippers at the shoe lockers provided in the foyer of the school building.
You've probably seen photos of students wearing their uniforms in various strange ways. You shouldn't come to school assuming you can modify your uniform. How much can mess with your uniform depends on the school's administration. Some schools are really strict (like Sevens), others allow some exceptions (Yasogami), while others seem to have informal rules about it (Gekkoukan).
Clubs
Afterschool clubs are an optional part of school life. However, socially, they're considered socially important as well as fun. They teach responsibility, encourage sociability, and group effort. Contributing to the success of your club looks good on your school transcripts for university (even as far back as middle school). Students who are in the go straight home club are seen as lazy or unfocused (which isn't always fair as they may have part-time jobs or other circumstances like me!). It's possible to be in more than one club at a time and some dedicated students are in an athletic and cultural club simultaneously, though most students are only in a single club so as not to look flighty or uncommitted.
Clubs range from athletic to cultural (and student government). If you watch manga and anime, you've seen some pretty strange clubs. Most of those clubs are ridiculous and only exist only in fiction, but some surprising clubs do exist. Clubs really only need a faculty advisor, a charter, and funding approval from the Student Council President.
Athletic clubs are based around sports and are probably familiar to anyone. What sports exist at a school are a matter of interest and tradition. As they require greater commitment by members, it's hard to get a new athletic club formed. Most athletic clubs meet every day except the week before exams and during exams week.
Cultural clubs are basically any club that isn't an athletic club like calligraphy, literature, photography, art, band, manga drawing, and so on.
Specific Schools
There's a wide variety of schools in the area (over twenty) but I couldn't visit every single school on the list. From last month a lot of people asked me about this school or that school but because I only have limited space, I chose three schools:
Gekkoukan Private High School : A private high school with high academic standards as a sample of a private school.
Seven Sisters High School: A public high school with good academic standards in the big city of Sumaru as an urban public school.
Yasogami High School: Another public high school, this time in Inaba, as a sample of a more rural high school.
I also tried to visit Kasugayama and St. Hermelin which are both in Sumaru (in theory at least!).
Gekkoukan High
Tatsumi Port Island: Gekkoukan Private High School
Located a bit of distance from Sumaru in the city of Iwatodai is Gekkoukan High School. It has the best first-choice university entrance rate in the prefecture, and the curriculum assumes a student plans on university attendance. A private High School endowed by the Kirijo Group, it has a large and modern campus with college-level facilities built ten years ago. Designed to handle all basic schooling of Kirijo employees, it also has a middle and elementary schools on campuses next door. It accepts public enrollment and is used to handling foreign students. Though it's not a boarding school, a lot of students live in dorms. It got started because because the Kirijo Group is international and a lot of their kids lived in dorms while their parents worked in another country. Now it's a thing and like half of the students at Gekkoukan live in dorms.
The uniforms for Gekkoukan are blazers for the boys and cute little blazers for girls. The school colors are black, white, and red. Girls wear a red bow, boys a black string tie and the jacket for the boys is double-breasted. There's no year markings for boys or girls.
Seven Mysteries:
1. It has an astronomical observatory, but nobody can say where it is.
2. Unusual clubs, including fencing and boxing, and a service society whose faculty advisor is the Chairman of Gekkoukan itself!
3. The school nurse is rumored to test out strange potions on students and faculty alike.
4. Gekkoukan is very strict about being a locked campus at night, but why?
5. Some sort of android girl attends Gekkoukan. Rumors differ on what the robot looks like.
6. The bathrooms of Gekkoukan have some sort of curative powers, including curing illness.
7. A ghost of a student who died at school now wanders the halls killing anyone alone after school.
Kasugayama High School
Located in Sumaru, not too far from Seven Sisters High School, Kasugayama is an all-boys school. A few boys asked me about this place, so I thought I'd at least find out what I could. When I asked people on my Twitter about what they knew about Kasugayama seriously guys, how can you write indecent things like that on a girl's Twitter \(>_<)/ ? Just because it's an all-boys school for troubled boys doesn't mean they do stuff like that, does it? Gross! When I called them to see if I could visit and get a tour, the faculty told me that as a girl, it would not be recommended for me to visit, so that's about all I know. I guess if you're not being sent there, you shouldn't go there.
Uniforms for Kasugayama is a light blue traditional high-collar jacket style from what I've seen around Sumaru.
Seven Sisters High
Sumaru: Seven Sisters High School
Over in the hustle of Sumaru there's Seven Sisters High School. It's known as "Sevens" locally and is a public high school with a decent university acceptance rate. It's a pretty typical public school campus and is close to everything in Sumaru. You can identify Seven Sisters' campus easily because it has the clocktower with the clock that hasn't worked since forever, but now it's something of a landmark so nobody tries to fix it (I think!). The school's notable for being led by the dedicated Principal Takashi Hannya, a guy so great they made a statue to him.
The uniforms of Sevens are sailor uniforms (seirafuku) for girls and blazers for boys, both in black with white striping. Your year is identified by the color of your bow for girls and tie for guys. I think the girl's uniforms are pretty cute, but the guys look a little dated if you ask me.
Seven Mysteries:
1. The clocktower clock. Why hasn't anyone ever fixed it?
2. Rumor has it that there's a ghost in the clock tower.
3. Some students swear that Principal Hannya's statue moves.
4. There's a classroom somewhere in Sevens that can't be entered.
5. The Sevens crest is cursed and you should remove it from your uniform.
6. The "Toilet Hanako" ghost story isn't unique to Sevens, but the rumor never dies here.
7. There's zombies in the principal's office (don't ask me!).
St. Hermelin High School
St. Hermelin High School is supposed to be a school in the Mikage-Cho Ward of Sumaru, known as Lunarvale (that's English, I guess it means Moon Valley), the community so-named because of its proximity to an American military base. A few people asked about it on my blog, so I did some searching for it. It's supposed to be a place with a colorful population of students, with facilities being pretty middle of the road, and the uniforms are supposed to be gray--sailor uniforms for the girls, high-collar jackets for the guys. But when I looked for an address of the school, but I couldn't find it. Does it really exist?
Yasogami High
It's a little out of the way but Rise-senpai has attended Yasogami, so I couldn't help but check it out! It's a little hick high school with rats and a draft! ...Juuuuust kidding! It's actually a nice tidy school! The feeling I get from Yasogami is the opposite of Sevens or Gekkoukan; Inaba's pretty rural, so Yasogami's more laidback too.
So why go to Yasogami? It's stress-free compared to the others on the list, so if you want a cozy school in a nice little town where life is slower, this might be your place. It's the kind of place where local farmers have their market on weekends (organic produce!)..
Uniforms at Yasogami are pretty traditional, the sailor uniforms for girls and the high-collar jackets (gakuran) for boys. The "colors" of Yasogami are black and black-and-gray houndstooth with a yellow bow for girls. You can tell the year of a male student by his collar with the roman numerals for I, II, and III respectively.
Seven Mysteries:
1. If you watch a turned-off television at midnight on a rainy night, the TV will turn itself on and you'll see your destined soulmate in it!
2. One of the school's students was a victim of the serial killer in Inaba. Scary!
3. A number of students have disappeared and re-appeared without explanation.
4. Inaba's famous beef served in the cafeteria beef bowls, but there are no ranches near Inaba.
5. Studying in the library on a rainy day is said to markedly improve grades.
6. It's said a student trades in weird items, from crystal balls to magical charms.
7. A fortune-teller that shows up to the school Cultural Festivals is said to be actually be uncannily accurate, though his predictions aren't always nice.
