High school years

It's like exploring tombs, defeating the mother plant, or climbing a mountain. These are not things I will be doing every gen/save file but it doesn't mean I will never do them again.

You can edit the auditorium and school to change things up. Find a copy on the Gallery if you're not much of a builder yourself. There's mods for HSY as well if you don't mind mods.

Among the households I rotate around, only a few have teens, so I don’t get to play teens very often. And I don’t follow them to school every day — it tends to be more like every other day, so that I can do things with other members of the household. And I haven’t yet taken any teens to prom as I’m saving that up for towards the end of their time at high school. So I still enjoy the school experience and it makes my households with teens feel very different from those without teens.

I still do it with all teens. I love both, active school days and prom.

I'm currently playing 3 members of my family in Chestnut Ridge. Actually 4 now that Hannah and Elliott have had a baby. My teen, Amelia, Juliette's daughter, is back in Willow Creek with the rest of the family so I haven't been playing her recently. Once I get a handle on horse training and infant training I might move her in.

Like @FreddyFox1234 I didn't go with her to school every day. Just 2-3 times a week.

I no longer follow them to school, if that's what you're asking. My Teens still do attend high school, though. As for Prom, it's not for lack of trying. (I believe I must have a mod or cc that's interfering. My Kids get the reminder, but even when I click yes, and choose which Sims to attend, nothing happens. So sad. I had their parents create a Prom in the gymnasium at Copperdale so that they could enjoy dancing with classmates.

ETA: I read somewhere on these forums that kids have a better chance at the graduation ceremony, if we just send them to school, rather than follow them there. That's the main reason I'm sending them by themselves. I'm just now wondering, too, if that could be causal as to why they can't get to Prom?

I don't follow them every day, but go with them a couple of times each week. I also send them to prom every Saturday until they are no longer a teen.

I definitely follow my teens to school almost all the time.
I definitely ignore the tasks on the checklist most of the time. Those are boring and repetitive.
They still get silver or gold for the day as long as they attend class. Out of the 7-hour day, only 2 hours are in class, so I can spend the other 5 hours on socializing or skilling or having fun or music or art or science or athletics or crafting or chess or computer stuff, depending on what I felt like putting in the school.
What you do with those outside-of-class school hours makes or breaks the high school gameplay I think.
In my legacy game I've been making a new school for each "world" each generation (of course it's always in Copperdale but it's fun to pretend).

Prom? Maybe not every week, but every teen goes at least once.

My family I have currently been playing that has a teen is concentrating more on a a new home in Chestnut Ridge, a wedding, and making money for a barn and horse. So I have just been sending the teen off alone to HS currently.

Last time I sent a teen to the prom, I put her boyfriend in her household temporarily, so they could vote for each other for jester and royalty so I could take pictures. The prom worked fine, but is quite limited on time.

I love High School Years so I always have my teen sims attend school and go to prom. I honestly think it’s just really fun to follow them to school and cause drama with other teen sims. My teen sims always have a thriving social life whenever I follow them to school.

And I love going to prom too just since it gives me an excuse to have my sims wear pretty dresses and all that.

Right now I'm playing the decades challenge and the school doesn't really work well with the earlier decades, so I send them without going. I will likely go with some of my future generations, at least occasionally. I get bored if I go every day, so I mix things up and follow different members of the family at different times.

As for Prom it's way too often, so I go to some of them. I wish we could edit them out of the calendar and choose how many to keep, same with career day and the other HS-events. Make them a bit more rare. I've also changed the teen lifespan to last about half the current length (I play on long lifespan, one calendar year is more than enough).

If I could wish for anything it would be the option to put school in any world we choose, so we could go to different schools in different worlds. I have yet to live in Copperdale, but think I might when it's time to send my kids to school in this save. Either that or make a dorm for them to move to.