End of an era

Certainly nobody cried, unless you count Susan McCrae bursting into tears when Mark McKinley called her a rude name. I think we just had lessons and went home on the bus like any other day.

But at my youngest son Albert’s leaving assembly last week, people were blubbing like babies all over the place. Not the children, of course. We grown-ups were the gibbering wrecks while our offspring laughed and grinned throughout the whole farewell performance.

Our little village school, thankfully, hasn’t gone down the same extravagant route as some schools, organising leaving proms, complete with limos and commemorative DVDs, for 11-year-olds.

Still, no matter what primary school your children go to, moving on to secondary school is regarded as a very big deal nowadays. Primary school is a special place. For some, this kind and nurturing environment may even turn out to be the happiest place they have ever been to. Now on the threshold of young adulthood, they are about to enter a very different world.

Faces full of hope and optimism, our children all spoke about how much they are looking forward to moving on to the next stage of their lives. As they stood up at the front of a packed assembly hall, they recalled amusing stories about the mischievous little boy who once pulled his trousers down in class and another who locked someone outside in his underpants.

The football tournament where their team won the cup was another abiding memory, although many remembered the year before when they lost but were caught in a hail storm and got soaking wet, which was just as much fun. School trips formed lasting memories and the children spoke of the amazing experiences they enjoyed. One boy recalled staying awake singing to himself all night long because: “I missed my mum.”

By the end, as they were presented with a class photograph, autograph book and pen and, in turn showered their teacher with gifts and a hand-made card, we parents were snivelling into our handkerchiefs.

But why?

Many of us were probably acknowledging that it was time for us to take a step back. It’s what our parents and their parents did before us. But, in this age of social media, the world, and childhood itself, has changed and that’s something most of us are wary of.

The grip we have on our children is weakening, and that can be difficult to accept. Some of us, who don’t have younger children at the school, are also losing contact with a whole community. To me, the assembly marked the end of an era.

Secondary school isn’t the same.

No one stops at the school gates.

Our children keep us at a distance and certainly don’t want us meeting their friends’ parents.

Primary school is more like an extended family, one which I have been a part of for 19 years. I remember coming to visit the school for the first time with him and his younger brothers, one of them just a babein- arms, when we first moved to the area. As I walked down the path to the school gate and looked across at the surrounding fields, with sheep grazing, and hills and woodland in the distance, I knew, before I even saw inside, that they would be happy here.

I have walked down that same path many times since. It’s the route I have taken when I have brought each of my boys for their first, momentous, day at school.

Last week, as I walked along this same path to the final assembly, I glanced in the reception class. I caught a glimpse of a small boy hanging his jumper on his coat peg, and the chairs in the classroom, which all looked so tiny.

That is where all my boys started.

They used to sit in little chairs and hang their coats on little pegs. But then they all outgrew them. And now my youngest, my baby, has outgrown primary school.

The time has come to move on…