Elementary school in Hokkaido

Hi! I’m Honoka Shimoju. This is my last blog so I’m sad :(  Anyway, I’ll introduce about elementary schools in Hokkaido.

As you know, there are many elementary schools in Japan but they have different customs. In this post, I’ll show you some interesting points about schools and compare region to region.

Firstly, elementary school students in Hokkaido can wear their own clothes even when they have P.E. They can choose clothes which they can move easily with. Like this.

On the other hand, Most other prefectures students have to change clothes before P.E. It is called,  “Taisouhuku”.

Secondly,  almost all elementary school students in Japan buy the same backpack called Randoseru before entering an elementary school.

 

However, the students in Otaru don’t use Randoseru. 70 percent of them use a backpack called “ Nappurando”.  The reasons why they use it are because of snow and the steep slopes in the city. Because of these problems, certain deputy head wanted to create a new backpack which is strong and light.

 

Finally, I mentioned about the winter vacation. Normally, elementary schools have 18 days off between December and January in Japan. However, Hokkaido has 26 days off at the period! We can take a longer rest than people in other regions so we are lucky! Just kidding. We sometimes have awful snowstorms and extremely low temperature in winter so we should stay home.

 

This year, students can’t get long summer vacation due to COVID-19. I hope they can get a  long vacation in winter.

Thank you for reading.