When Kellsie Lewis ’23 arrived at Bryn Mawr on the first day back after spring break, she was expecting a normal day – reuniting with friends and swapping stories from vacation; catching up with her teachers and getting back into the classroom groove.

Instead, Lewis and her sixth-grade classmates found themselves called into a class meeting first thing in the morning – an unusual occurrence. “We thought it was just a quick meeting to say, ‘welcome back’ and different things like that,” Lewis recalls. “But then they said we’d have no classes and everyone was screaming and all surprised and happy at the same time.”

The girls were told that it was Spring Into Sisterhood Day – otherwise known as SIS Day. An annual surprise event for sixth graders, the day is all about building community among the girls. “We try to give the girls tools so that should they come into sticky friendship moments in the spring, they are able to make good choices and have good resources,” explains Spanish teacher Rebeccah Wish, the sixth-grade chair.

The event began about seven years ago as a way for girls to learn more about how to handle the friendship transitions that are typical of this age. “We’ve noted that this friend shifting happens in the winter and spring of sixth-grade year, and we want to make sure that the kids are aware of how this can cause them to behave unkindly toward one another,” says Amanda Macomber, the Middle School director. “We want to give them the tools to handle this phase more gracefully.”

Each year, the sixth-grade team plans different activities for the day based on what they see as the best way to tailor SIS Day to that year’s class. For the Class of 2023, that meant sessions including Zumba, Zen doodling, an advisory tug of war competition, a group drawing activity and more. One of the most impactful activities was one in which the girls gave anonymous compliments to one another. “Middle school girls need things [like the compliment activity] because they’re always thinking, ‘What do you really think of me?’ and ‘Do I really belong?’” says Debbie Waranch, the Lower and Middle School counselor. “Often, hormonally, they will go to a negative place, so those [positive] words are very powerful.”

Other activities challenged the girls to work together to find solutions to various problems. Arreyelle Wilson ’23 most enjoyed an activity called Save Sammy. “We had to save a gummy worm from drowning in the ocean, and we couldn’t use our hands,” Wilson explains. “We could only use paperclips to pick up a toothpick to flip over his boat, which was a cup, and to pick him and put him in the boat, and to put him in his life jacket, which was a rubber band. It was hard!”

In many of the activities, girls were placed in groups that were quite different from their normal friend groups. For example, at lunch, girls were asked to sit with groups based on birthdate. “Not only was that mixing it up and helping girls get out of their comfort zone, but that gave them more connections to each other,” says Stacey Rubin, the Middle School learning specialist. “They discovered things like that two kids were born a minute apart on the same day!”

For their part, the girls also liked having the chance to mix up the people they hang out with regularly. “Everybody has their own friend group but it’s really cool to hang out with people and find out more about them,” says Wilson.

Adds Abby Watson ’23, “I learned that you should reach out to people you don’t hang out with as much more often than you might feel necessary because you could grow friendships that go until after Bryn Mawr with people that you don’t expect.”

Importantly, the conversations sparked by the day’s activities did not end once SIS Day was over. In an email to sixth-grade parents following the event, Macomber highlighted the take-home points: that strong communities are built on respect, trust, support and acceptance; that each person in a community has an important role to play; that it takes courage and integrity to avoid negative behaviors as friendships shift; and that each person can move from being a bystander to unkindness to an “upstander” who reinforces positive community norms. Macomber also included conversation starters for parents, with questions like, “What do you value in a friendship?”; “Where do you feel you already do a great job as a community member?”; and “Do you see your friendships changing? How are you handling that?”

A week after SIS Day, the sixth-grade team sat down to debrief. Overwhelmingly, they agreed, it was a positive experience for the girls – especially in terms of getting them to know many different girls in their grade. “This group in particular has been really inspired by the mixing that we’ve done, and the president and vice president of the class are setting up ‘mix it up’ lunches to keep going with this,” says Wish. “It’s great to see them taking it in their own hands.”