This is an emotional time for me.
My boys have had a wonderful 8 years at Primary school. Seems like only yesterday that I was queuing up outside the nursery in the beating sun as their tiny 3 yr old faces beamed through a glass door when they spotted me! I remember their first day when they marched in without a backward glance and I returned to my car to have a good sob. I have watched them enter that school ever day with a smile on their faces and a swing in their step. I can’t remember one day where they didn’t want to rush in happily!
Education aside for a moment, The most memorable things for me as a parent, and for their grandparents too, have been the wonderful shows and concerts: the nativities in KS1, sometimes being Joseph or a wise man, sometimes a sheep or star, and Mary dropping the baby Jesus in year 1! the beautiful carol concerts in KS2 with their voices echoing around our local church , the ‘Mermaids and Pirates’ summer musical is still etched in my memory in year 4, as is year 6 remembrance assembly and their leavers show. I still picture the laughter and pride in parents faces at all of those things, us all wiping away tears and smiling sympathetically at each other, and willing them all to do well. From the children that perform with huge confidence, or wave manically at their Nan, to the ones that have a massive meltdown on stage and end up on a lap somewhere. We have loved cheering them on madly at sports days, at the football tournaments, standing on freezing cold fields watching inter-school cross country and hockey matches.
The trips: I’ve waved them off to zoos and farms and week long camps and outdoor pursuits and football tournaments and museums and theatres and Harry Potter world.
Other memories – Bike ability and road safety training, The achievement assemblies, The Easter bonnet parades, the Maypole dancing, the fancy dress events, the reading mornings, the royal wedding picnics and street parties, the Olympic and World Cup celebrations. I’ve loved every World Book Day, every Superhero day, every ‘wear spots for Children in need’, ‘Red noses for comic relief’ and ‘wear yellow for stephen sutton’ Charity. The scurrying round Sainsbury’s at 9pm trying to locate two yellow Tshirts! Phoning friends for random clothing items and searching my costume cupboard at work. These are things that won’t happen at high school and we have enjoyed every one of them. I’ve been to award ceremonies for design competitions where I’ve shot up the M6 at 5pm not realising they’d won a prize in Stoke in Trent on behalf of Our school, I’ve seen my boys poems and stories published in two books, thanks to our school, that now sit on my bookcase. I have proudly watched them entertain the elderly, or donate food items to the local community and raise money for charities. They have met successful authors and professional musicians and actors, they have sung live on ‘sign to sing’, they have organised a Victory in Europe cream tea, they have baked cakes for charity, they have taken part in a Live radio broadcast in school.
Then we come to education. The science weeks: dressing up in lab coats and silly wigs and creating rockets and volcanos, The literature weeks: Roald Dahl themed activities, visiting authors and poets, the rabbit problem week, History topics: creating roman villages and weapons, dressing up as Saxons and re-enacting wars, dressing up as Victorian children and visiting Shugborough or the Black Country museum to bring it to life.
Maths weeks: fun activities and challenges and Writing and reading weeks: with prizes, trails and the chance to be published. Intervention programmes to help their confidence in reading and phonics. Art: spending hours on the dining table constructing art work for half term projects or making Easter bonnets. Colouring competitions, design a bike trail round school Grounds, Smiling at the crafts they bring home at the end of every term and cards they make me for Xmas, Easter, Mother’s Day. (I’ve kept them for when they’re older)
Music: watching guitar and violin concerts, and proudly watching Mrs Merrimen’s school choir perform at village events. They always had the wow factor and outshone every other local school! That reminds me – watching their teacher dress in a werewolves mask at Halloween and leaping out on the older kids 😂!
Which brings me to the staff- My boys have met many teachers, assistants and head teachers along the way, as well as childcare staff at wraparound and after- school clubs and Governors, and I am grateful to each and every one of them for investing their time, their energy, their patience and their pride in our children. I am a teacher. I know how draining and thankless it can feel at times. It is not a job, it is a vocation and a passion. So I think it really important to say thank you to all staff we have met along the way.
I also spent many hours (5 years) volunteering on the ptfa in our school, for two reasons. 1. To give something back to the school 2. So my children would see me involved in their primary years and remember it fondly. Hand on my heart, The children are just the nicest, most happy and polite children. They were such a pleasure to run events for. I may never get those hours back of working tirelessly and thanklessly to organise, create, shop, build and run fetes, fairs, sales, discos, easter trails, film nights, quizzes, ticketing bottle after bottle, blowing up balloons, building Grottos and running BBQ’s; so many exhausting charity fundraising events, but my children remember everyone of them! (They’ve helped at most of them too)
Primary school has given them fabulous opportunities and I am so grateful that they have grown into caring, responsible sensible, kind and charitable young people thanks to their primary school years. I will truly miss this place for my boys. This safe haven that has nurtured my children for more hours in the week than I probably have! So thank you Primary school for protecting and teaching and caring for and enthusing my children.
I tire of the negative I hear from some. I think people lose sight too easily of how special our school really is and what a great start in life our children are given. So take it from me, 8 years down the line, my children have had the best experience.
There is a saying ‘ungrateful people complain about the one thing you haven’t done for them instead of being thankful for the thousands of things you have done for them’.
I am a grateful person so ‘Thank you’. You have enriched my whole families lives and been a huge part of us all. We will always remember you with such fondness. Primary school years are the nicest.