Milestones Matter
Our lives are full of milestones and at the end of each academic year, Prep pupils (and parents) find this last week of term to be full of poignancy and reflection. The air is full of remarks of “I can’t believe where the year has gone” and “it seems like only yesterday they were starting their first day at school”. We want to honour those milestones and so it has been a week of celebration assemblies, certificates being handed out, shirts being signed and thank you cards being exchanged.
On Tuesday, we held the annual Year 6 Celebration of Achievement Evening. This event combines the formal part in the hall with each child standing on stage as their Form Teacher recalls anecdotes and favourite memories, a disco for the children, a BBQ social for the parents and newly introduced this year an exhibition of the pupils’ work. We had musical interludes, funny poems and impassioned speeches. Despite the barmy heat of 33 degrees, the momentous nature of our Year 6s graduating on to Senior School, kept all ears engaged and quite a few eyes teary.
For the exhibition, the pupils had selected interesting topics to create presentations on such as clean water issues around the world, space exploration and animal welfare. They proudly stood by their graphs, diagrams, interactive QR codes and prose, and explained their research and conclusions to the parents and staff. To see how delighted the pupils were in the quality of their own work and how interested they had become in the topics they chose, was deeply rewarding as an educationalist. They had taken ownership and as a result they felt empowered.
On Wednesday, another highlight was the Year 2 Celebration Assembly. This marks the end of Key Stage 1 and the step into Key Stage 2 where the children continue to take on a little more independence. The video showing each child at age 3 and now at the end of Year 2 brought into clarity how our youngest pupils grow from being reliant on their parents and the staff to striding out ahead. The children sang to us, they presented on stage and as always they impressed us with their calm confidence. Each one received their personalised pencil case, gifted to them from our parent group the Friends of Brentwood School. They are now ready for Year 3 and the next step along their education journey.
Today culminated in our end of term assembly with all pupils from Foundation to Year 6 joining together to give thanks to those who have helped them along the way and the pupils that have taken on positions of responsibility. We sang songs together, reminding ourselves of how important it is that we feel and know we are a community.
We have a lot of photos to share with you, so please keep an eye on our Flickr account over the summer
As our summer starts to stretch out before us, I wish you and your families well,
Alice Goodfellow
