The activities and traditions

The spring concert
In March there is a special concert at the school. This is the spring concert, which has replaced the traditional exam in the core subject music.
At the spring concert the different classes give examples of what they have learned in their music classes’ practicing part. Students who have participated in the optional music classes after school perform too.
The spring concert is held as an evening arrangement where family, friends and former pupils are invited.

Graduation
At the end of the year the seniors graduate. When the exams are passed and the hat is on, a big ending with speeches, music and singing is held. Furthermore student hats are thrown in the air and champagne bottles are opened.
After that the seniors drive around with their class in e.g. a horse-carriage, a tractor with carriage or a truck. They drive around to every student’s family and have something to drink and eat, and the families congratulate the other students.

Parents' meetings
At the beginning of the school year the school offers an introduction meeting for the parents of the freshmen.
The class teachers introduce their lesson plans, relevant conditions are discussed, and the school and its possibilities are shown. Last but not least the students and the parents have an opportunity to meet and have a common experience of the student’s ordinary day.

Core-classes
Core-classes are a number of events with lectures, discussions, theater and music which are instead of some of the classes. The amount varies from year to year. What the core-classes contain and when they are held a core-classes-board decides.

GIS DAY
At GIS DAY users of Geographic information systems (GIS) show how to use GIS to solve problems in the society, in concerns and in courses. Langkaer Gymnasium and HF support this idea.

Ugly day
This is the day you quit your vanity and dress the straight opposite of how you would normally dress. You find the rompers from the 80’s, and wear it in honor of the occasion.
It’s the day with most happy and smiling faces at Langkær. It’s the day 400 boogie-dancers fool around in their ugly outfits and scream as loud as they can…
Each year there is a fun and crazy competition; you work hardly to become as ugly as possible to win the famous “Ugly-Cup”!! And thereby also claim the spot as langkær’s ugliest student – what a title!?

Intro field trip
As a regular tradition of the school the first year students are sent on an introduction trip to Sweden for a couple of days.

Some of the things the students are to do are canoeing, climbing, riding on Second World War bicycles etc. The students are divided into groups of 4-5 people, with whom they have to sail together, cook and live in a tent.

These trips are very socially minded and the students really learn a lot about each other during them. Of course they require a certain amount of physical skills but the most important thing is to be socially open-minded.

Musical
Every second year at Langkaer gymnasium a musical is built up. Every student at the school from freshman to senior is allowed to be a part of this musical, but first they have to pass an audition. At the audition teachers from the school sit and judge. Then after a few weeks the casting lists come up. In the musical there has to be: actors, singers, people to tape the performance and some to control the light.
Now some hectic months start where the musical is put together.
Then 3 days in January they show the musical, first in the day for some pupils from a primary school then in the evening for parents, siblings and pupils at the school. After the final show the school throws a great party for contributories.

This year the musical’s name was “Venus og Vinyl” translated “Venus and Venyl”, it is inspired by Nick Hornby’s novel “High fidelity” from 1995 and the film by the same name from 2000.
To cut a long story short it is about a frustrated music nerd called Rob, whose love life is a mess. It takes place in London 1995.
The musical is a combination of music, acting, dance and an exciting set design in correlation with living lifelike pictures on a big screen.
It is two teachers at the school who have written the manuscript.

The song contest
One time a year we have a song contest, people at the school can start a band, write a song and some lyrics and then perform it at a school party (similar to the “Eurovision Song Contest” – but smaller!). The winner and runner up of the contest qualify for a “national” song contest where all the winners of the song contests of all the gymnasiums in Aarhus compete against each other.
This year it was a rap-group called “Slagprosa” with the song “Neden for 2.-rangs-blær”.

School parties
The school parties take place about six times a year. These parties have a quite good reputation among the upper secondary schools of Aarhus. The school establishes a comity that has to arrange the parties and come up with theme ideas – e.g. Hawaii theme, Gangster theme and others.