High school leavers awards can be a fantastic way to celebrate individual students and help tie a fond memory to their time at your school. One of the most important parts is choosing the awards themselves.
At MedalStudio we’ve helped create bespoke awards for hundreds of Year 11 Leavers nights, so we figured we’d share some of our favourites to inspire you.
We find that the best Year 11 leavers awards are the ones tailored for individual students. While there’s always the classics like “Future Prime Minister” or “Future Oscar Winner”, it’s the unique ones that celebrate students less in the spotlight that can be the most meaningful.
We’ve put together some of our favourite awards we’ve seen below, along with some advice on planning out the awards evening. We hope they help. Let’s get started.
The Funny Ones
Eight categories with a story behind each. Have a sentence ready for every one when you read the name out.
- The Stationery Collector. A pencil case that could stock a small shop, in highlighter colours that don’t have names.
- The Common Room DJ. Wherever they go, the tunes follow.
- The Fashion King or Queen. Pushed the limits of the school uniform all year, halfway to the catwalk.
- Dancing King or Queen. Always busting a move, whether that’s in the corridor or up on the stage.
- Main Character Energy. Walks into a room like there’s a camera on it.
- Best Double Act. The two who’ve been a package deal since Year 7. Order two of these.
- Drama Queen or King. Can turn a lost planner into a three-act tragedy.
- The Reunion Organiser. Already thinking about the venue for 2036.
The Sincere Ones
A night of nothing but punchlines runs out of steam somewhere around award eight. These six are meant straight.
- Classmate of the Year, voted by the students.
- Teacher’s Choice Award, voted by the teachers.
- School Spirit Award. For the student who embodies the school’s ethos and values, in the corridor as much as the classroom.
- Rising Star, for the most improved. The biggest distance travelled rather than the highest grades.
- The Hermione Award. Had read ahead, annotated it, and offered to explain it to you.
- Resilience Award. For the student who had a hard year and kept going. Worth saving for late in the running order.
Most Likely To
Predictions are the safest way to be funny about a sixteen-year-old, because you’re talking about a version of them that doesn’t exist yet.
- Most Likely to Be Prime Minister
- Most Likely to Be an Inventor
- Most Likely to Be a Future CEO
- Most Likely to Be an Astronaut
- Most Likely to Go Viral
- Most Likely to Be a Pro Athlete
- Most Likely to Win an Oscar
- Most Likely to Paint a Masterpiece
- Most Likely to Be a Standup Comic
Keep every prediction pointed at something good. The version that goes wrong is the one predicting a bad outcome.
Planning the Awards Evening
The evening lives or dies on how the list is drawn up, not on the category names. Two decisions do most of the work.
Cap the wins
Without a cap, four people take fourteen awards. One award per student, with the sincere categories drawn from a separate pool, spreads it across the year group.
Prom or assembly, not both
Prom and a leavers’ assembly are different rooms. Prom takes the funny categories well. The assembly suits the sincere ones, with parents in and staff speaking. Running the same list twice takes the air out of both, so pick one or split the list deliberately between them.
Plan the categories early. Agreeing them across the staff room takes longer than expected, and anything physical wants ordering two to three weeks ahead.
Where Year 11 Leavers Awards Go Wrong
Read the name and picture the student showing it to a parent. If that makes you wince, change the wording.
The line isn’t about the category, it’s about who the joke is on. The Fashion King or Queen is a compliment about a choice someone made. Class Clown, Chatterbox, anything about a student’s body or their family, and anything predicting a bad outcome are jokes at their expense.
We recommend reading every category against the students who will actually receive them before anything is printed. Your head of year will spot straight away what a name will mean to a particular student.
School in-jokes also age better than celebrity references. A joke about the Year 11 mock-exam biscuit incident still works at the reunion. A list built on this year’s pop stars won’t.
Making the Awards Look Like They Matter
Awards work best when they’re high quality and meaningful, especially if you can sneak a funny moment into the design (we can help you do that). That gap between the joke and the object is what turns an inside joke into something still on a shelf at university.
A printed certificate is easy and it lives in a drawer. A medal gets worn out of the building and kept. Our medals for schools cover the volume end where every leaver gets one, and our custom awards range has the acrylic and hybrid pieces that suit a headline prom category.
Personalisation is what stops the award looking like it could have belonged to anyone. The school name, the year, the house, the student’s own award title on the back.
Our design team puts your artwork on your choice of base free with every order. If you want the medal itself to be a shape that means something, a crest or a mortarboard or a film reel, our custom shaped medals can be cut to any outline. You’ll see a proof within a working day, turnaround is two weeks from artwork approval, and we can handle a late top-up if your numbers move.
Running something similar for a team? Our funny sport award ideas cover the end-of-season version of the same night.
Wrap-Up
The lists that land come from real moments, and the sincere categories carry the same weight as the jokes. Sort the names first, decide whether they’re going out at prom or in the assembly, then pick a format worth keeping. When you’re ready, our design team will work up the artwork before you commit to anything. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the night.
Updated: 31/08/2026