We don’t have these in the UK, at least they didn’t when I was at school.
So: Who pays for them, the photos, printing binding and so on.
What’s the purpose of them and what are the quotes for each pupil for.
Does each yearbook have all the pupils in the school for that particular year.
Who organises it all.
A good idea would be to show just how you looked in your yearbook, iffn ya aint embarassed 
The various private schools I went to in Canada also had yearbooks. Both places, they were paid for by the school (a.k.a. out of your tuition) and given out free (I know, because otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten them). Each yearbook has photos of all the students in the school, with individual photos for the graduating class and class photos for the others. It’s organized by a yearbook club, helped along by teachers. What’s it for? A memento (if you were a popular kid); otherwise, an instrument for assuaging your present insecurities about your appearance by reminding yourself that at least you don’t look like that anymore.
My wife, Pepper Mill, is currently editing the yearbook for our daughter, MilliCal. Her class is “graduating” from 5th grade, the highest grade in her physical school building. She and other class mothers are volunteering to do this. It definitely keeps down costs, while making sure the stuff you want gets in. They’ve got pictures of class activities by the same group of kids from grades K-5. It’s basically a memory book.
We didn’t have this when we were kids. I’ve got a yearbook from my senior year in High School, and another from my senior year at college (only my undergrad college – I didn’t see any point in getting stuff from grad school).
The way my high school did it was:
Some of the money necessary for production was raised by the Booster Club. This is a club of parents who organize fundraisers for the school’s extracurricular activities. There was also a charge of about $25 for the yearbook itself. If you didn’t want one, you didn’t have to buy it.
The purpose is to have something to remember your high school days by. I am not sure what you mean by “quotes”; the design inside is going to vary by school. I don’t think we had any kind of quotes by or for students inside.
The yearbook does have the school pictures of all students inside, plus many candid shots at the various games and events taken throughout the year by student photographers.
My yearbook was entirely written, designed, photographed, typeset, etc., by a student-run club with the hands-off help of a faculty advisor. It was a fairly big deal to be elected yearbook editor-in-chief and quite a big job. There were probably 30 student staff on the project, maybe more. This was back in the pre-electronic prepress days too so it was probably even more work than it is now.
Different schools might do it differently, of course.
In my high school, IIRC we paid for them. I’m not sure if the amount we paid covered all the costs.
To have pictures of yourself, your friends, your teachers, and your school. There was also a tradition of signing each other’s yearbooks with some sort of message. Getting people to sign them was the fun and interesting part for me.
Yes, though there might just be a picture for people other than seniors. There was more material (quotes and the like) for seniors.
There was a yearbook club and a teacher who served as yearbook adviser. I was never in yearbook club, so I don’t really know how it worked.
No. Nobody wants to see that. I guess it might be legal, now that the Chicago anti-ugliness ordinance has been repealed, but something like my yearbook pictures might start a massive worldwide push toward reinstating such laws.
Forget to ask, does every other pupil sign the other pupils books or is it just liimited to classmates
It’s whoever you want to sign your book. I doubt in any school that it’s EVERY student signing EVERY other book. That does not seem to make sense to me. Why have people you don’t like sign your book?
I didn’t even know all the people in my class (approx. 500) so there’s no way I’d have them all sign my book. And the ones who did, well 99% of them I have no idea who they are anymore anyway. I wish I had left it blank.
You ask people to sign it, between classes and the like. You can ask anybody you want to sign your yearbook, though it would seem a bit odd if someone who was a total stranger asked you to sign their yearbook. You can have teachers sign as well as students, and you can ask your friends who aren’t in your year. If someone signs your yearbook, you should sign theirs if they have one (not everybody buys one).
Starting in middle school (5th grade, ~10 yo), my NJ public schools put together yearbooks that contained individual photos of each student as well as photos from memorable activities from throughout the year. We had to pay for the yearbooks and we’d get them a few weeks before the end of the year. Typically we’d get our fellow classmates to sign our yearbooks, with some people just signing and others including a short note.
In high school, seniors got a half a page each that included a larger picture as well as information that told what activities each student participated in throughout the four years of high school. There was also space where each student wrote about some of their memories. Finally, each student selected a quote that appeared below the memories section. Seniors got their yearbooks for free (paid for by class fund raising throughout the year) while underclassmen had to pay for them. Underclassmen had smaller individual pictures and no text.
I should note that my classes were fairly small, with about 320 students in my entire high school. My graduating class was only 67. That’s very small for a NJ public school.
It’s also extremely common to sell ads (the yearbook club does this), which are bought both by local businesses and by, say, the parents of seniors or groups of students. (My parents bought a quarter page ad - it has a baby picture of me and says how proud they are.) I believe the ad money goes a long way to pay for the yearbooks.
When I was a kid it was a great mark of social status to have a lot of people want to sign your yearbook.
Of course, given that not every school does things the same, the fact that I have multiple blank yearbooks says nothing about my popularity.
In the high school in the district I grew up in, yearbooks were handed out after the last day of school. So people didn’t generally get them signed.
In the high school I graduated from, yearbooks were handed out while school was still in session, and we had all the yearbook signing stuff one could wish for. Which means, 2 dozen or so signatures for me.
Heh, no pics posted as yet 
Guess y’all are embarassed
In my HS sophomores and juniors didn’t even get individual photos. We got group photos with other students whose last names were alphabetically similar. And if you were out sick the day of the photo, you weren’t in the yearbook that year.
We had small yearbooks in junior high (um…ages 12-14, roughly) and much bigger ones in high school. The general format was the same: a section of school photos, organized by year in school and then alphabetically, followed by pictures of staff and then of clubs and sports.
Our high school yearbooks started out with a few pages of the previous year’s events, since yearbooks are sent to the printers so early that they don’t really capture the year they’re dated. So, for example, my 1992 Yearbook has pictures of the 1990-91 school year activities - the Senior trip (featuring students who already graduated the year before the yearbook came out), the play and musical, the Homecoming game, etc.
After that little “previously on”, the current year stuff starts. The Seniors were in the front, with larger pictures. We had a large school, so here was no room for the “list of activities and a quote” by each student’s picture that you see in some smaller school yearbooks. Rather there was a row of photos and then a list of names at the end of the row. Floating on the page were selected quotes from senior students, obtained by a written questionnaire passed around in the beginning of the school year. For my senior yearbook, they also asked for a baby or childhood picture, and they used some of those next to the quotes, but not everyone got a quote in there.
After the senior section is the Freshman (first year) section, and that has smaller individual photos of everyone, again in alphabetical order with a list of names at the end of each row. No quotes or anything in that section. After the freshman come the sophomore and junior classes in identical format.
Then are two pages of teachers and administrators, just picture and name.
Then there’s two pages of “bests”: best hair, male and female; best smile, likewise; most school spirit, that sort of thing, with pictures.
The second half of the book is devoted to activities and sports. There’s a group photo of most of the clubs’ members and a list of their names, with a text blurb about what exciting things they did that year. Some of the bigger clubs and sports have two page spreads, with candids or shots from games or shows, along with the posed group shot.
At the back is an index by student, seniors listed in bold, and the page numbers on which they can be found.
There are some candid shots as space fillers throughout, some with captions and some not.
We got our yearbooks about two weeks before the end of school. The tradition in our school was that, you brought your yearbook to school and had people “sign” it. This isn’t just a sign your name thing, they are meant to write a paragraph saying nice things about you and your time together. Some people are witty, some only think they are, some are sweet, and some are raunchy.* The sign of social death was to have a yearbook which wasn’t full of ink, or, worse, had bland generic stuff like “You seem like a nice person. Have a good summer,” written in it.
*Junior year, Jennifer Johnson wrote: “Life is like a dick…when it gets hard…FUCK IT!” Classy girl. I love it when my kids find that one.
chowder, we didn’t have them in the UK when you and I were at school but they do now. Two years ago Miss Marcus organised the one for her year at end of Year 11 (age 16, after GCSEs, when some people were leaving full education and others were going on to college etc.).
As to organisation, it sounds much as described by American Dopers - photos of the pupils, teachers etc. with some sort of quote against each. Also lists of “most likely to” - Most likely to become Prime Minister, Most likely to play for England … Signed by whoever you asked - generally friends and teachers you like. Not sure now but I think it was funded from money they (the Year Book Committee) raised themselves during the year - non-uniform days, discos etc.
Actually it’s not surprising it is similar to the States - I’m sure they got most of the ideas from teen movies :dubious:
The only thing we had when I was a sprog was the end of each year photo.
One large and 4 small pics and I looked a right twat in every one of them, every bleeding year.
I still have a few and I drag 'em out occasionally just for a laugh.
No I aint showing 'em
We only had a senior yearbook, but we had photos of all classes K-12 (it was a small school – the 120 in my graduating class was the largest in school history). The seniors had individual photos, while the other classes (down to K) had a single class photo. There were also photos of clubs and high school teachers.
There was some fundraising, but most was taken care of by sales plus advertisements (if you had a senior, you bought an ad, and local business usually took ad space for the good will value).
The book consisted of individual photos of the seniors, with listing of extracurricular activities, a quote (chosen by the student), and any nicknames. There was a section of photos of teachers, administrators, and staff (bus drivers, janitors, lunchroom staff, etc.). Then came the club and sport photos and finally photos of the other classes. There was also a class will (the seniors would “leave” things to juniors and faculty as a joke), class history, and class prophecy (where the various people would be in 20 years, again, as a joke). There was an inspirational comment from the principal in the front.
We got a copy a week or so before classes ended, so were able to get others to autograph.
If you want to get a rough idea of what they were like (and get one of the funniest parodies ever made) get a copy of the National Lampoon High School Yearbook Parody.
So when you have your reunions do you take along your yearbooks just to see if that hottie is still as hot or does she look like summat the cat dragged in
I have my high school yearbook and a cruisebook for the UNITAS cruise in 1996 for the USS Moosbrugger.
I went to a small school and to keep costs down we had our books printed ‘off-season’. That meant you didn’t get your yearbook till the start of the next school year. For seniors, they bought a separate ‘memories’ book to have your friends sign.
It also had a place to collect ‘cards’. You get these announcements/invitations to graduation. (Like wedding invites) But they are generic for the school so they had a place to put a business type card with the students name. Students would get extras of these ‘because it’s cool’ and to trade them with friends to collect in your senior memories book.
I read the messages in my yearbook and laugh at my friends attempts to be profound. Then I shudder to think what I probably wrote in theirs.