Middlest Leaves Primary School

 I must be getting old, that's what I keep thinking! Now I have two children at secondary school and I can very much remember all of these parts from my own childhood. 

As our Middlest takes to the front of church to read out her leavers speech and I can only think of how proud I am of the young lady she's becoming. She's very, much my go-to, my partner in crime in a lot of things, ask her to do a job and it's done, most of the time I don't even have to ask. Funny and witty, smart, sporty and popular, she was very much the person I wish I was at school! 

And her time at primary school has been amazing, she's loved every minute. She's really lucky and built such a tight group of friends. Her (excellent) year six teacher was telling me how capable she was, but also how she's learnt she can rely on her friends and how some of us never get that. 

The last few weeks have been mad with everything going on, and that's the main reason I haven't posted. With three children in school and my wife being a teacher it's always going to be full on. I've done a lot of running around, ferrying children to different things. With a class party, play performances, dance performances (not school related), and a few other things! 

The best part, for me, was being invited to their end of year trip. I checked with Middlest first though, but she was happy for her dad to come. I had a message on Saturday asking if I would be able to go to the safrai park with them on Monday - I'm DBS for the school ( I run a club on a Wednesday and was in school a lot when my eldest got type one diabetes) and have been on a lot of school trips over the years, so I jumped at the chance. The head teacher was going to go but had to drop out. 

It was honestly such a perfect day, I've joked that if you've ever seen the film "About Time" where the guy jumps back in time to relive certain days, this is one of the ones I'd pick (the whole weekend in fact). They are a lovely class and many had been to nursery with her, or been to the playgroup I used to run, so I knew every child. This whole class seems to care about each other deeply, I didn't see anyone get left out the whole day, and that's really unusual.

They weren't that interested in the animals if I'm honest, but were very interested in the rides! The safari park is very much perfectly pitched to 11 year olds (there were a lot of school there) and it was small enough that with three adults we could look after them all as we went from ride to ride. I went on everything and Middlest did as well, showing no fear (well maybe a bit when we got asked to step off one ride so they could test it as it wasn't working right, then got back on it). 

We got home shattered, but happy, I then had to drag us to scouts, which was also perfect. We went to the park on what was a perfect summers evening, played rounders and ordered some pizza as an end of term treat. Chilled out and lovely, I crawled into bed early and didn't even wake when my wife came up. 

Her last day was lovely, she had such a great time with her friends, and the school did such a lovely leavers service for them. It's a shame the whole class can't stay together as they go on to their secondary schools. I feel guilty for splitting up her friendship group, but I've no doubt she going to make lots of new friends and keep the ones she's already got. 

She is a wonderful person and I love spending time with her. I feel so lucky to have been able to do some much with her over the years and the school has been great (although I moan sometimes) with asking me to help and be around my children even more. 

She's going to do exactly what she wants in this world, and I'm going to support her every step of the way.