Goal Setting to Start High School "Right"

High school is an exciting and critical stage of school life. Starting high school "right" for grade 10 students was a big issue for me as a principal. My starting point was to define what the word "right" implicated.
Starting "right" meant students being warmly welcomed
Starting "right" meant making students know and feel that they mattered
Starting "right" meant motivating students
Starting "right" meant giving students focus and direction
That seems like a challenging list for a first day of school. Still, it was on my agenda as a principal and then it spread to the agenda of the entire high school community. To translate our list into action, we setup a plan for a day full of activities for the first school day of grade 10 students. Grade 10 is the first high school year in the Lebanese educational system.
Our warm welcome translated into greeting them with a smile and cheers as they entered into the school building, followed by a carefully prepared animated morning assembly with a spiritual and motivational theme.
Then students permuted into 5 different 50 minute activities that aimed at covering the scope of "starting right" as we perceived it:

1. A school tour to get a feel of the place and note the places and people they will come in contact with. Needless to stay at every stop (library, lab, administrative offices), a cheerful welcome was prepared for them.
2. A hands-on workshop promoting practical organization skills (self-test for time management awareness and skills, handling and managing schedules, efficient use of folders for maximal organization, resourceful use of locker space and times, etc.)
3. A meeting with the Students' Affairs Office for school life and activities issues and insights on high school planning, choices, university and career planning.
4. A data gathering session to fill up the Students Profile Sheet, a computerized system for gathering data on each student's learning styles, multiple intelligence, study preferences. Reports could then be generated to students and parents and also to teachers to take into consideration as they prepared their lessons as well as to other instances for different purposes
5. A goal setting session to inculcate the life skill of effective goal setting knowing that goals give direction, focus, and motivation. Each student is expected to set three goals by the end of the session: an academic goal, a habit or personal goal and a social goal.

In short, day 1 of secondary school at our school, is a day full of engaging activities that translate our way getting students to start high school "right". Students' messages, even years after, reflected the impact that this day and specifically the Goal Setting session had on them. 

"All of this negative energy was channeled into a positive one when you first spoke to us at my first secondary assembly.  It was at that moment, yes, as early as the first day, that I made a choice to excel in secondary school"

"And throughout my first year at secondary school, I strove to fulfill these specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals (Yes, I didn't forget them yet). "

"You made my dreams and goals in life seem a little bit more possible and concrete"

"Although I have the memory of a fish, I still remember your goal-setting speech, and your advice about setting attainable, realistic, yet ambitious aspirations for the school year, and, most plausibly, for life"

Here is a link for the Goal Setting lesson resources: 

          Goal Setting Session resources