10 Surprising Uses of School Wristbands in Enhancing Student Safety & Communication

What Are School Wristbands?

Wristbands have become increasingly popular for a wide range of applications in schools. With a variety of materials and design options, they allow organisations to work to their requirements and budget. Our Tyvek and paper school wristbands are a durable, cost-friendly, and fully customisable solution that enables you to display your chosen artwork and text for multiple consecutive days.

Tyvek® Wristbands™ are made from high-density polyethylene which is extremely strong and waterproof. Graphics can be printed in mono (black) onto several different colours, including neon, to make it easy to identify various schools and classes or to clearly emphasise important medical information in case of an emergency.

Our eco-friendly paper wristbands are made from durable, fully recyclable, and biodegradable FSC paper. They are a sustainable alternative to Tyvek, which is not as easy to recycle. These wristbands offer a white base to print onto in full colour and are perfect for handwriting variable data such as daily achievements in class and student identification for school trips.

What Are the Uses & Benefits of School Wristbands?

There are so many important uses and benefits of personalised school wristbands, so we’ve put together 10 of the top ways you can apply paper and Tyvek wristbands at your school, college, or university for the best results.

1. Emergency Contact Information

Our child’s ID wristbands are a reliable solution for ensuring children are always carrying personal identification and contact information in the event of an emergency.

This is particularly useful for offsite events or activities with large crowds, especially for students with limited communication or who are too young to remember important information.

2. Medical Information

Similarly, our child’s ID wristbands can be personalised with vital medical information. This means that wherever children require assistance, anyone who reads their wristbands can provide the appropriate support or find someone else who can. This is especially important if students are on field trips, lost, or in an emergency away from their guardians.

3. Ticketing for Events

Tyvek or paper wristbands can be fully customised to your requirements, making them perfect for events.

If your school is running a fundraiser, party, carnival, or any other event – school wristbands can be used as entry tickets or to identify families who have pre-paid for certain amenities, such as food and drink packages, raffles, funfair rides, or activities.

4. Identification During Field Trips

School wristbands can be used during field trips to colour-code students, making it easy to identify and organise them. One colour could be applied across the entire school, or separate colours could be applied to set groups.

You could also customise wristbands with your school’s branding and contact information in case other schools attend with the same or similar colour wristbands.

5. Communication with Parents & Guardians

Paper and Tyvek wristbands are a fantastic way to ensure important messages that children may forget to tell their parents or guardians are communicated after school. This could include “I bumped my head today”, “check my school planner”, or “I need [item] for class”.

As paper wristbands require scissors for removal, they are sure to be noticed when children ask for help taking them off.

6. Recognition & Rewards

Our paper school wristbands are perfect for daily recognition and reward systems, where different achievements can be written onto the wristband by hand for the student to take home with them at the end of the day. This might include rewards for reading, spelling, participation, helping another student, and much more.

Pre-printed school wristbands are also ideal for reward systems that you have standardised in your classroom, such as great attendance, moving up a level, student of the week / month, and so on. This is a fantastic way to make your students feel recognised and incentivise them to continue their efforts.

7. Visitor Identification

For schools frequently accepting external visitors, personalised wristbands can be designed with sleek and professional visuals to represent the school.

This is a great way to reinforce the school’s branding and safety measures, while ensuring staff and students can quickly identify strangers as authorised visitors. Visitor identification of any kind is crucial for ensuring the safety of everyone in the building.

8. Buddy Systems

Whether in school or offsite, you may pair or group students into buddy systems to make it the responsibility of the students, as well as the staff, to look after one another.

A great way to actualise this concept for the children is to introduce colour-coded, patterned, or numbered paper wristbands so that they can visually recognise their buddies and keep them close by.

9. Lunch Time

School wristbands are a cost-effective way to colour-code food allergies or pre-paid meals. This is important for ensuring the well-being of at-risk students, as well as speeding up queuing times by enabling staff to easily identify different meal options.

This can make a huge difference to lunchtime operations, especially if children struggle or forget to communicate their requirements.

10. Celebrate Birthdays

Finally, school wristbands can be used to highlight your students’ birthdays to the entire class. They can be pre-printed with generic celebratory messaging or with space to handwrite the student’s name on the day.

This is a great way to make children feel special and lift their spirits on a birthday they must spend at school.