The book of bad juju said
...Also, i personally think that focusing entirely on classes was a mistake, and that we should shift our focus towards extra-curricular activities like clubs, weekends, and similar.
I think I mostly agree with this point. Schoolwork doesn't allow for much freedom and is ultimately less interesting because of that. This is especially true in Japanese classes, which I can tell you from experience, almost always consisted of lectures and guided reading followed by worksheets with note-taking in between. Although I do think there is time during homeroom and lunch for interactions at school. After that would be club activities or free time for students to do whatever they want, at least during the week. As for weekends you can basically do whatever you want. For example, you could take your expensive camera and take interesting pictures of a certain gaijin senpai who doesn't notice you... >.>
Since it's been a week in school already students should have a pretty good idea of what club they want to join if they haven't done so already. Since clubs accept students from all three years it's a good chance for them to intermingle. Also, some trivia about me (because why not). I went to high school in Japan. During my freshman year I was in the cooking club. My tamale's were very popular.