I have been wanting to write about my school filing organising system for years now, however, time got the better of me, but finally, I’m sharing it!! I created these ‘School Years’ File Boxes many years ago and made one for each of my three children. I keep all their old school book pages, report cards, certificates and school photos in them, which helps with keeping everything tidily organised.
Keep those special school keepsakes organised!
I’m such a sentimental mum and have kept so many school trinkets over the years. I use my storage system to not only save school photos, but I have ripped pages out of the kids exercise books at the end of the year to keep any particular stories or drawings in the books that I’ve liked. This saves room as I don’t have to keep the whole book.
In recent years I have included a ‘first day of school questionnaire’ which I’m kicking myself I didn’t have when the kids were young as it would have been really nice to watch their handwriting change on these pages over the years and also keep track of some of their favourite things. It’s so nice going through some of the old papers, reading their stories and spelling tests. I keep the kid’s school photos in this box as well. Perhaps you can keep them in an album, but for now, this is how I store them. Isn’t my youngest a cutie!!
I have used a file storage box which I got from Howard Storage World many years ago, but you can also find them at officeworks, with suspension files.
I added a labelled tab to each file, which makes it super organised and easy to file everything away. I have labelled the tabs:
- Prep – Year 12
- Certificates
- Reports
- Photos
- Sports
- Other
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How do you store your children’s keepsakes and important documents from school? Have you got your own filing system that works, or do you stash things into boxes and worry about them down the track?
First Day of School Printable
I have some cute little First Day of School Printable Questionnaires available for download too. There is one for every year that your child is at school, ranging from prep, all the way to year 12 (plus one for the last day of year 12). I created them because we always write down milestones for the kids as babies. Why not also note down their favourite things to do and eat, their height, what they want to be when they grow up etc, it’s fun to see the difference each year.
DOWNLOAD HERE: School Memories Pack includes First Day of School Printables + Box Label from my online store.
I think it’s such a lovely way to keep memories of your children, whilst as parents, it’s fun for us to look back on certain memories of the kids. Enjoy comparing what their favourite food was in prep class, compared to on the first day of their high school years too. File this page tidily away in the corresponding file.
It really doesn’t matter when you start using these printables, as long as your child is still at school, (I missed the first few years). It’s never too late to collect little memories like these keepsake lists. The lists will have the year level your child is in, and what the date is currently. Preppie mummies will especially love these since they can collect them all over the years. Just get your child to fill one out at the beginning of each year, and file it into your filing system you’ve created.
What sort of keepsakes have you kept from your child’s school days?
19 comments
I love this idea!! I’ve been trying to decide how to keep all the school memories, as my little boy started Reception class in September 2018 (he is 5 in April) and already have so many certificates/nativity programmes etc. This will be perfect filing system xx
Yay, good timing! Enjoy lovely 🙂
I love this idea! My son will start prep in 2020, and I’ve been thinking about what to do.
Thanks, I’m off to officeworks today!
Yes its such a good system, makes it so easy! Did you see the printables too for documenting their favourite things each year? Perfect to start at Prep 🙂
I have these containers, I got mine from Officeworks. Well done keeping it to one container per child. Although I have whole books in there, as I let the kids choose some of their favourites. Usually the awards, school photos, first day of school photos, Math, English and a third of their choice. I think I will end up with 2 boxes per child haha.
Aw thats cool having them pick which ones they want, they will love looking back when they’re older and see what they loved doing at that age 🙂
Literally have ‘sort the memorabilia boxes’ on my to do list for next week, this is remarkable timing. Great idea to use a custom made filing box – off to Officeworks I go (any excuse!).
LOL I read your mind! I’m a bit like that with Kmart, any excuse 😉
I use this system with my 3…you’ve posted this before? I think i used you’re suggestion. It works so well. My oldest (of 3) is on her lady year of primary school and the box is full.. but I’m determined to edit to keep just one box from the first 7 years of school life…i may have to concede that nursery gets its own… although as much as it’s finn looking through… no-one wants to be burdened with too much in the future. Am enviously admiring the label maker!
I may have mentioned it or shown it briefly before but havent done a proper post until this one 🙂 as for the label maker, its a giveaway, you can win one too!! Head here to see how to enter – https://www.instagram.com/p/Bspk3hxlUPJ/
Thanks for this. I have been keeping my kids stuff in a small filing system but I think this works so much better.
its great for keeping everything in one place!
I kept my sons certificates and anything I wanted to keep in a ring binder and plastic sleeves. All his drawings etc I kept started to yellow so I took a photo of them to put in an album. When he left home he then had his folder with all certificates, reports and other bits. It is good to look back through them when they are older. He is now 28.
I have a display folder for each child for each year and include their birthday cards, reports, sports and other certificates, basically anything they do in that year. But this is now getting out of hand as they are in high school and I have too many folders. What do you do with the children’s birthday/Christmas cards etc?
I also used a few different things when the kids were younger, but they have definitely gotten out of control. This would’ve been so much easier and I plan on buying these now anyway so I can start this year and as I go through my cupboards during the year with the kids help, we will no doubt at least get a few things put into here. I’ll end up with two boxes for each of them too, as we also keep birthday cards, etc, newspaper clippings, school photo packs and a couple of books from each year. I love keeping their English books especially when they were younger and used to write a weekend recount every Monday. These are our memories of what we did that year. I may even expand on this idea and create one for the whole family year by year. I need somewhere for my sporting photos, certificates, etc, any newspaper articles for extended family and other memorabilia we want to keep.
Thank you Kat. I have been looking for something like this. My store away for now and worry about it later method has caught up with me and the kids are still in Primary! Way too much of the kids school stuff has accumulated and being super sentimental when it comes to this kind of thing makes it very difficult to sort through. I have photographed larger items (posters, dioramas etc) and scanned some items, started a methodical memorabilia book with progressive photos of milestones or occasions with stories about the photos jotted down beside (over thinking the process is another hurdle in making progress on this). I love the idea of the file box. Thank you for this article, very timely for me!
It definitely makes it easier to keep track of things! 🙂
My two are 22 and 24, this is one of my tasks for this year. Awesome idea.
Yes its a great task even for kids who have left school! Maybe even easier as you know you’ll have nothing else to add in future 🙂