A Giant Cone of Candy on Day One and 9 More School Traditions From Around the World

Once a year, South Korea goes quiet for the Suneung, the national college entrance exam. In 2025, a 35-minute nationwide ban on flights was imposed during the English listening test, and 140 flights were rescheduled. Banks and public offices told their workers to start an hour later to keep the roads clear, and even the stock markets opened an hour late.

Police rushing late students to exam halls has become an annual sight, and younger students line up at the school gates to cheer the test-takers with signs. This year’s exam is on November 19, at 1,312 test sites across the country.

Japanese first graders get a randoseru, a firm, box-shaped backpack, and it is designed to last the child’s entire elementary education, six years. The idea goes back to 1885, when the Gakushuin school banned pupils from coming by carriage or rickshaw and chose a plain backpack instead: at school, the school said, everyone is equal. The name comes from ransel, the Dutch word for a backpack.

It is a big purchase: in a 2026 survey by Japan’s randoseru makers, the average price was 62,034 yen, and almost half of families paid 65,000 yen or more.

Argentina’s public schools are known for the guardapolvo, a white smock worn over everyday clothes. Historian Daniel Balmaceda writes in La Nación that the teacher, Matilde Filgueira de Díaz, gathered her pupils’ parents to explain that the girls’ clothes made each family’s social status far too visible. In 1915, she decided to dress the whole class alike, so that money stayed out of the classroom.

The idea spread, and the smock became mandatory in 1942. More than a century later, kids walking into class in white are still the picture of the Argentine public school.

On the first day of first grade, German children walk into school holding a Schultüte, a large decorated cone filled with toys, chocolate, candy and school supplies, a present from their parents or grandparents. The Local calls it a giant plastic or paper cone filled with all manner of goodies.

The tradition dates back to the early 1800s in Saxony and Thuringia, and the oldest written note about it comes from Jena in 1817. Kindergarten teachers still tell children about a “sugar-cone tree” where small cones grow. Germany’s biggest maker produces about two million cones a year.

On results day, around 180,000 Dutch high school students find out whether they passed their final exams and can put their backpacks on the flagpole. It is a modern tradition to hang the school bags of the successful teenagers on a flag pole outside the house, so the whole street knows.

A Flemish heritage register explains why the bag is there at all: a flag alone could mean anything, so the bag was added to make clear what it was for. All students get their results on the same day, and no flag means no pass. The custom was already around in 1979, when a Dutch press photographer caught a schoolbag on a flagpole.

Finland says it was the first country in the world to serve free school meals. The law came in 1943, and Helsinki started right away, followed by the rest of Finland in 1948.

Today, every pre-primary and comprehensive school pupil, and every upper secondary and vocational student, is entitled to a free school meal, and the law asks for a balanced, supervised meal every school day. It wasn’t always fancy: until the early 1960s, school food was mostly soups and porridges, and children brought their own bread and milk.

Under France’s official schedule, primary pupils have 24 hours of classes a week, spread over nine half-days that include Wednesday morning. But since a 2017 decree, towns may fit the week into four days, and 90% of towns have chosen that option. So in most French primary schools, Wednesday is a day off.

Lunch is long too: the midday break cannot be shorter than an hour and a half. Not everyone is a fan. In 2025, France’s national audit court said the four-day week is out of step with what children need.

Before every school year, parents, teachers, students and neighbors in the Philippines spend a week fixing up public schools. It began in 2003, when the Department of Education introduced a National Schools Maintenance Week, now called Brigada Eskwela.

GMA News lists the work: cleaning, repairing and repainting roofs, walls and restrooms. School heads and teachers are not allowed to collect any fees from parents for it. This year, it ran from June 1 to June 5.

In many Japanese schools, cleaning is part of the school day. The Japan Forum explains that groups of students take turns cleaning a set area every week, such as the classroom, the corridor or the gym, most often during the lunch break or after school. At the end of the term, everyone does a big clean, called o-soji, with jobs like waxing the floors.

A University of Tokyo professor pointed out that having all students take part in cleaning is not standard practice around the world.

In the US, the first-day photo has become a small production. Back in 2012, ABC News noted that it had turned into a carefully choreographed photo op, often with props like homemade signs. One mom it featured had already made her preschooler a series of chalkboard signs. Social media meant everyone could see what every other family was doing.

The sign itself is older than any app. In Germany, families photographed first graders next to a slate that said “Mein erster Schultag,” (“My first day of school”) like this girl with her Schultüte in 1984.