IB school International Peace Day celebrations come in many forms. Some schools hang posters. Some read a passage in morning assembly. And some, like Starbuck International School, build something that takes months to prepare, involves every single student from kindergarten to Grade 8, and ends with 1,120 children singing and signing a peace song in unison.
This is the story of how they did it, and what other IB schools can take from it.
It Started With a Book
The groundwork for this year’s Peace Day began the previous spring, when the school librarian, Elizabeth Liebsch, brought a picture book called The World Needs More Purple Schools by Kristen Bell to the team’s attention.
It sparked something. The school ordered multiple copies so every grade-level team could explore it together, and shared a video version with the middle school. The book’s message, that schools can be places of kindness, inclusion and belonging, became the foundation for the entire celebration.
What happened next is a good example of what happens when you trust students to make an idea their own. The younger students in K–5 connected directly with the story. The middle schoolers took the same idea and adapted it into something that felt more relevant to where they are. Both groups arrived at the same place through different doors. That is good teaching.
What the IB School International Peace Day Celebration Actually Looked Like
On Peace Day itself, the K–5 students gathered outside together, while the middle school held a separate assembly in the auditorium. The school had hoped to bring all 1,120 students and staff into one space, but practical decisions around spacing and safety came first. It was the right call.
The middle school assembly was the part that stayed with people longest. Several students stood up and read poems they had written themselves, sharing personal reflections on what peace means to them. Nobody told them what to say. The honesty in the room was the point.
Community guests were also invited, their presence a reminder that peace is not just a school value but something that connects to the wider world outside the gates.
The Paper Chain That Tied It All Together
If there is one thing from Starbuck’s Peace Day that other schools should steal immediately, it is the chain-link project.
Every student and teacher created a paper link and either wrote or drew their own message about peace. Each class connected their individual links into a class chain, carried it to their assembly, and then joined it to every other class’s chain.
By the end, one enormous peace chain stretched across the entire school, from kindergarten to Grade 8, linking every classroom, every age group, every perspective into a single connected piece. It was a physical representation of something the IB talks about constantly but rarely makes visible: that a school community is genuinely stronger when every part of it contributes.
Simple materials. Enormous impact.
Student Agency in Action
What made this celebration feel different from a standard school event was how much of it students actually drove.
Sixth graders created purple people posters inspired by the book and displayed them in the PYP hallway so younger students could see them. One student made necklaces and bracelets for staff members. Others wrote poetry. Some made art. The creativity was not assigned. It emerged.
Music was woven throughout the day, with a playlist that included Man in the Mirror, Wavin’ Flag, Don’t Worry Be Happy and others. Students waved flags, danced, and moved together.
But the moment that stood out above everything else was the children singing and signing Light a Candle for Peace. The music teacher had worked with every student in advance, teaching them both the song and its signs. When they came together, voices and hands moving at the same time, it was, by any account, genuinely emotional. There is something about children singing for peace that bypasses whatever defences adults normally carry into a school event.
Why Peace Day Matters Beyond the Day Itself
The school’s principal made something clear that is easy to lose sight of in event planning: Peace Day is not the destination. It is the starting point.
At Starbuck, as a newly formed K–8 IB World School, the team has refreshed their school mission to better align with the IB’s own. The Learner Profile is not something they reference once a year and put back in a drawer. It is the lens through which they approach events, lessons and everyday interactions.
International mindedness, one of the IB’s core commitments, is what guides them to look at their own community and the wider world with empathy. Peace Day is the most visible expression of that, but the intention is for it to be visible every day.
5 Things Any IB School Can Take From This
1. Start with one unifying idea. A book, a phrase, a theme. Something simple enough for a five-year-old and meaningful enough for a thirteen-year-old. For Starbuck, “purple people” did that job for the whole school.
2. Let students lead. Poems, posters, bracelets, spoken reflections — none of it was scripted. When students are given space to express peace in ways that feel authentic to them, the results are always better than what a teacher would have planned.
3. Use a visual that represents unity. The paper chain worked because it was tangible, it required every single person to contribute, and the final result was impossible to ignore. A simple activity can create a lasting image.
4. Make it part of the culture, not just the calendar. The celebration means more when it connects to something the school already lives by. Link it to your mission and your learner profile, and Peace Day becomes a reflection of who you are rather than something you do once and move on.
5. Bring in community voices. Inviting local leaders, youth advocates or student role models extends the message beyond the school walls. Peace is a shared effort and the people in the room should reflect that.
Sources: IBO