To Year Six,

You are going to have to bear with your parents today.  Speaking on behalf of the Year Six parental community, it is going to be a tough one.    The walk to school nearly left me an emotional wreck this morning, handing over presents to teachers who often do a better job than I of looking after you, and seeing you all, too tall for primary, but still little in our eyes.

How can you be leaving primary?

How can we be that old?

How are you ready to enter a world of timetables, GCSE’s, multiple teachers, buses to school and pick your ‘healthy’ (pizza) lunches.

Time has sped up once more, because I know it was merely days ago when we first walked into the playground and handed you over to ‘Miss’ for the first time.

You won’t remember, but us parents do.

We turned up on day one, you were wearing ever so slightly too big school uniform, clutching a bag to your chest, looking nervously at the other small people in the playground.

We, the parents, were filled with nervous apprehension, what if you got too tired, what if someone was mean to you, what if no one offered to cut up your lunch and you were left with the terrifying responsibility of trying to handle a blunt knife alone.

What if you didn’t miss us during the school day and what if you did.

The start was emotional, but probably not as much as the end.

We have watched you grow, from tiny little dots in the playground to being the top of the school.  You have learnt what subordinating conjunctions are, and we have to pretend we know too.  You can read books that we enjoy, watch films that we will happily endure.  You have grown up, got boyfriends and girlfriends (I wasn’t ready for that!).  Your underwear drawer is no longer full of pants and vests, but instead knickers, boxers and bras.

You have done us, the parents proud.  Came home with reports that say what a star you are in class, they seem not to reference the hormonal moody kid that sometimes resides at home.  You have a firm group of friends and you all promise you will remain best friends next year when school scatters you into a million different forms.  We know that some friendships will fade and others last forever, but that is not our tale to tell – it is your lesson to learn.

And today, for us the parents, we don’t just say goodbye to a school we feel safe in, we also realise that many of our friendships were formed on the playground and now we need to see if they stand the test of time.  For my year sixes, we have only been at this school a year, but yet my friendship circle is the school mums who befriended us when we moved into our new home.

So give us today Year Six, to kiss you goodbye at the school gate, to openly weep through the leavers assembly, to drink wine after school to help continue the denial that we are now the proud owners of secondary school kids.

We know the road ahead will be tough, we remember teenage angst,

We love primary, where you are nurtured, loved and safe.

Yet we know you are going to continue to grow, to achieve and learn.

This chapter is closing, we have a six-week break before the next one starts.

We can start preparing tomorrow, but just give us today.

Squeeze every second of fun out of your last day, and we will see you with tissues at the Leavers Assembly.

Love

A Year Six Mum