Congratulations to the Class of...

We had our Leavers' Day at school today. For those of you who have no idea whatsoever what this means, here's a quick guide: basically, we all gather outside and collect our yearbooks/leavers' hoodies, then sign each other's shirts and take pictures with friends. It's an incredibly English experience, especially as it's always slightly awkward trying to sign shirts as people are wearing them. Then we had an assembly- in which, I don't think that I've laughed that hard for ages- then we heard the last ever school bell (or I didn't hear the last school bell because it was too loud in the hall) and we left.

It was surprisingly enjoyable, although very hot, and the pictures taken were all very lovely. The assembly contained a slideshow of all of our Year 7 photos (highly embarrassing, although most were actually very cute) as well as videos of the Senior Tutors wishing us good luck (apart from one, who teaches Physics, who simply sang the Electromagnetic Spectrum song, which is a classic GCSE Physics song that none of the other teachers understood).

But it's still the end of an era, even if I'm not necessarily upset about it.

Secondary School has the biggest impact on you, I think. It's during your time at Secondary School that you start to go through puberty, friendships fall apart, and new friendships are built. You become more aware of the outside world, you start to form your own moral codes, you maybe even begin to start dating someone.

When you move up to Secondary School, you all go to the same school as the people you grew up with at Primary School (the ones who saw you as that tiny little four-year-old and went to your parties). Sure, I only stayed friends with three people out of my class of sixteen, but I often saw old friends around the corridors, or sat next to them in lesson, or chatted to them in the lunch queue.

But now, we'll all be going to different places. I've known most of these people since I first went to pre-school, the rest since Reception. That's about 11 years of my life. And we'll be spreading out across Cambridgeshire- going to Hills, Long, Comberton, CRC, Parkside, and more.

And then in a few years, we'll spread out even further, going off the university (if we are that way inclined) around the UK, or even abroad.

And we'll probably never see each other again. Which seems weird, because we've spent so long living with at least the knowledge that we exist.

I wonder who else remembers some of the things that happened. The one who called his article about the black death, "Another One Bites the Dust". The one who had to be covered in blue face paint in order to play the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. The one who was so hyper in our leaving party that she ran around the field multiple times. The one who laughed so hard during our production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that she couldn't continue with her lines. The one who was almost crushed by the scenery during a dress rehearsal.

Memories of before Secondary School even happened to me, and then today brings all the (bizarre) Secondary School memories to the forefront again.

And I'm not really sad about this, more bittersweet, I guess. Maybe I'm just reminiscing, before I move on to Sixth Form and grow up even more.

Then again, looking through my yearbook reminds me how much we've all grown over the past five years- which is both really weird and pretty cool.

So this is a goodbye to the Class of 2019, as well as Year 6 class of 2014. Best wishes to all of you, and congratulations on finishing Secondary School!