APFS Yearbook project

A fast growing number of schools are choosing to document their achievements and activities through the publication of a School Yearbook as they find it a great way of drawing together the memories and achievements of their pupils’ time at school.

The APFS Yearbook project can be run by having either an individual design the book or by getting the children to do it as a classroom exercise. Either way, a yearbook is a great gift to present to your school leavers which will invoke fond memories for years to come.

Because Yearbooks are typically created at the end of an academic year, the project presents a fantastic opportunity for a fun and stimulating activity engaging pupils in a specific and focused learning experience post-SATs. Because of this, APFS provide examples of classroom activities that can be used with the focus of these being on the 4 C’s – creativity, collaboration, community and celebration.

Few pupils have an in depth knowledge and understanding of the process of how a published book comes to fruition from the initial ideas and concepts through to its ultimate production and publication. The School Yearbook publishing project embraces this process and provides children with the opportunity to experience, first hand, being an integral part of the process.

Although the design can only be accessed by one computer at a time, APFS have been clever with the activities and suggest that the classroom is split into small teams and take responsibility of tasks such as design, interviews, photography etc. These tasks are a great way to get children to collaborate, generating ideas and then presenting them.

When it comes to transferring all of the photos, text and design ideas onto the yearbook designer, it can be easily accessed through your internet browser from any computer via a login facility, making it secure yet accessible. First impressions upon logging in are that it looks professional with plenty of features, all presented in a single easy to navigate menu bar.

The designer is very easy to use, even for someone who is not computer literate like myself, and comes with a good variety of fonts, backgrounds and scrapbook items to use. There’s also a selection of free layout templates that are all completely customisable.

APFS’s finished printed yearbook is a high quality and visually attractive product at a very competitive price. Upon searching the first couple of pages on Google for primary school yearbooks it became evident that the APFS books were the best price.