Aida Junior High School

Aida Junior High School is in Mimasaka in Okayama, Japan. It was founded in 1947 in Aida, Okayama. At that time, it was called Fukumoto Junior High School. In 1961, the name was changed to Aida Junior High School. This school has five buildings, the new gym, the old gym, the shop building, the schoolhouse and the ping-pong building. At this time, it has about 105 students.

The school song

The school song was made by Kōji Yamamoto and Yōhei Matsuda. It is called "Carry Your Dreams Actively" (in Japanese, 元気よく夢を持って, Genkiyoku Yume wo Motte) Students sing the school song at Opening Ceremony (始業式, "shigyōshiki"), Closing Ceremony (終業式, "shûgyōshiki"), Sports Day (運動会, "undōkai"), Entrance Ceremony (入学式, "nyûgakushiki"), and Graduation (卒業式, "sotsugyōshiki").

Subjects

At Aida JHS, there are nine subjects. They are Japanese, English, math, Social Studies, Science, Music, Shop class and Home Economics (Home Ec), Art, and Physical Education (PE).

• Japanese - Students study about the Japanese language. Students write kanji and read Japanese books, for example.
• English - Students study about the English language three times a week. They study English grammar and words, read English books and printouts and copy pages from their books. Once a week, they play English speaking games with a native English assistant teacher.
• Math - Students study arithmetic (計算, keisan) in every class. They also study algebra equations.
• Social Studies - First year students study geography. Second and third year students study civics.
• Science -
• Music - Students play recorder and sing songs. Many students love singing and playing recorder. Students also watch videos about music.
• Shop class - In shop class, students make things like robots and bookshelves. In home ec, they study cooking and sewing.
• Art - Once a term, students watch a video about various arts. Then, they study about marquetry (寄せ木, yosegi), glass art, watercolor techniques like wet brush (にじみ, nijimi) and color blending (ぼかし, bokashi), and perspective drawing (遠近感のある絵, enkinkan no aru e).
• PE - PE is the most popular subject at Aida JHS. Students can play many sports, for example, soccer, running marathons, kendo, and volleyball.

Transportation

Students go to school by bike, by car, by schoolbus, and on foot. Students living near to school walk and students living far from school can go by bike or by bus.

School rules

• Students must change shoes at the shoeboxes in the school entrance (玄関, genkan).
• Students must not dye their hair.
• Students must wear only white shoes.
• Students must use school bags.
• Students must not ride bikes in the school grounds.
• Students must wear uniforms (制服, seifuku).
• Students must follow traffic rules when they go to school.
• Students must not join the Nazi Party, or the Democratic Party of Japan.

Uniforms

Students wear uniforms at school everyday. Boys wear black jackets, black pants, and white shirts. Girls wear navy blue sailor tops, navy blue skirts, and white shirts. Students also have PE uniforms. When they study PE, they wear their PE uniforms. Girls' PE uniforms are the same as the boys' PE uniforms. Both wear light green jackets, pants, shorts, and white shirts. Students have club uniforms, too. When they play sports after school. they wear their club uniforms.

Challenge Work

2nd year students do "Challenge Work". For two days, they work at various jobs - for example, the Farmers' Market, Marui Supermarket, the preschool, the kindergarten, a spa hotel, the gas station, cake shops, and so on. After they finish Challenge Work, students make a newspaper about it. This newspaper is shown to their parents by the students.