It's the end of the world as we know it....

..... a slight exaggeration. It is the end of a huge part of our family life this week, however. Our youngest child will be leaving primary school on Friday and with her ends nearly fourteen years of a long and devoted relationship with Wickham Market Primary School. I remember sitting at toddlers holding her, a tiny windy baby in my arms, and calculating, to my alarm, that I would be in the playground until 2020. In 2008, this seemed an endless stretch of time. I had a little boy in Year 1 and another in nursery and was firmly embedded in school life.

Writing this, I’m aware that no little voice is shouting, “Mummy!” I am not being interrupted by indignant re-tellings of who did what to whom and no-one needs me to join them in the toilet for urgent wiping enhancement. Peace reigns. My first little boy is now nearly 17, 6-foot tall with a growly voice and big muscles. My nursery child is staring his first year of GCSE work in the face and trawling through all his homework on Teams. My daughter is crashed out on the sofa, exhausted after the toils of school.

Covid-19 took Year 6, screwed it up into a ball and hurled it out into the stratosphere. No SATS (hooray!) but also, no Year 6 production. No summer term of hormonally-driven drama (yay!) but also, no leavers’ assembly, at least not in the traditional way.

Thrice-blessed Head of Wickham, Helen Murray and her team have come up with a genius idea to help the Year 6 parents experience the last assembly. We will be in our cars on the playground, listening to our children singing the leavers’ song and no doubt wiping tears from our eyes.

There will be no anxious queue snaking up to the hall doors, no PTA raffle, no hugging and saying goodbye afterwards. This year group will look back on their final days at primary school in a very different way to everyone else. Writing this, I feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I’m not a crier.

It’s important to focus on the good and the encouraging, however. Learning has continued, albeit in a different way. There are many happy memories to treasure. The children are going on to high school, a whole new adventure for which their years at Wickham have prepared them.

Over the years, there have been times when I dreaded and even feared the playground. Tears, bullying, mean behaviour – and that was just the parents. For the past two weeks, I’ve been walking in and savouring the huge expanse of green, the play equipment bought with the blood, sweat and tears of many PTAs over the years, the trees, the bushes and the atmosphere. So many last times. It’s sad. I’m sad, if I’m honest. I didn’t want it to be this way. Like all the other Year 6 parents, I wanted to sit in the audience cheering on our children up on the stage and agreeing that they all looked ready for high school. I was so looking forward to the leavers’ assembly, with the heady mix of emotion. We won’t have that, but we have so many other things to be grateful for.

I’ve been a Wickham parent for so long that I’m as much part of the furniture as the out of reach football in the gutter and the benches by the grass. From a practical point of view, life will be easier in the next academic year. 2019/2020 was the year of three children at three educational establishments. By September, we’ll be back down to two.

We’ll write thank you cards, of course, and I will bring my present to the front office so as not to embarrass my daughter. Actually, though, this blog is my thank you to all the people who work so hard to make Wickham Market Primary School a great place to be.

Thank you all. I’ve loved being part of your community.

Images from Pixabay

Ruth Leigh blogs at Big Words and Made Up Stories. You can also find her on Instagram: ruththewriter1.