Reflection

Hi again,

I hope you've all had a lovely week. I was looking through some old posts I did the other day and found this saved in my drafts, never posted. I thought it was probably worth a share but maybe not. I will add some extra on the bottom for the last two years at Sixth Form. Enjoy...

I looked back over my years (all 16 and a half of them) the other day. Not sure why - I was in a thoughtful mood - and I thought about how nothing has really stayed the same until recently. School has obviously been a massive part of my life and before that I can't really remember all that much.

When I was in primary school, (Aston-on-Trent Primary School - a tiny local village school where everybody knew everyone) everything was a big game. My imagination ran wild and I was argumentative and unbelievably stubborn. I had a couple of steady friends I called my best friends for the first half of primary school. Then we all drifted apart and I found another 2 girls who I called my best friends but we were much closer. One was a closer friend than the other but at that point in our lives we were both a bit on the fiery side and we had huge heated arguments where we ended up screaming at each other and refusing to talk to each other. The other girl was lovely and really quiet and always ended up walking away from us both to stop the other shouting at her (she was wise and clever even when we were 7). We always got over the fights though - not that we ever apologised to each other. We were both too proud for that. Looking back, I should have apologised, we both should have. It didn't ruin our friendship but it would have saved a lot of frosty silences. So Caitlin, I apologise for all those stupid arguments - not that I can remember what any were about, petty things I'm sure.

Then we all moved to secondary school, Chellaston Academy (or Chellaston Foundation School and Technology College as it was then) and got split up. I was in a form with 3 boys from Aston Primary and I didn't know anyone else. But as you do in situations like these, I made friends and soon I had a best friend who I sat next to in all our lessons except when the teacher had a seating plan. However, this didn't really last that long as halfway through year 7 she announced she was moving to Singapore at the end of the school year. By this time, I'd made plenty of new friends, through people I met in form and people I met by joining clubs and sports teams (netball predominantly)
So on we moved to year 8, where I became closer with Katie, a tall girl from netball who I shared some classes with as in year 8 we were 'set' slightly more than we were in year 7. By year 9, my friendship circle had grown once more and I was socialising with lots of different people. I had another best friend in addition to Katie and the three of us were close.
Once we moved into Key Stage 4 (years 10 and 11), the two halves of the year we were originally put in disappeared and I was in classes with Ellen again (the quiet girl from Aston). Katie and I moved away from the other friend and she started to talk with Caitlin and Ellen and the four of us have been steady friends from then on.

Everything was very jumbled until year 10 for me, then it started to settle down. It's taken a while to find out who those real friends are and what things are for me and which things (for example English and Art) most definitely are not. School is a hard time I think and a lot of people don't give much credit to things they've learnt whilst being there. People say they hate school but without it, where would we be? I wouldn't have met half the people I know if it hadn't have been for school. You learn much more than your ABC's at school I've found.

Year 11 was a super busy year (or I thought it was, turns out it was a bit of a doss compared to Sixth Form really) with GCSEs and having my first proper 'serious' boyfriend. But I came out of it quite happy and confident I had more than the required 5 Bs I needed to get into Chellaston Academy Sixth Form.

August came and I did, I was chuffed to pieces with my results and I got where I wanted. September came and suddenly I was in Sixth Form where the staff treated you very differently to the way they did in lower school. You were an adult, they understood that you were there because you wanted to be, not that you were forced to be like you perhaps were in lower years. I found myself again with a different jumble of people whilst still being close to Katie, Ellen and Caitlin. Externals from different schools also joined our Sixth Form but the majority of people were from Chellaston and I had known them for 5 years already.

I imagine it must've been hard being an external, I tried to make any that were in my classes feel welcome and I made some more friends through classes, friends of friends and stuff like that. So once more, my social circle widened. I'm lucky I think to have been part of such a big group of people that all get on so well. We are the second biggest, maybe even the biggest, group in school but we're all quite close still, even there are smaller factions within the main group.

Year 12 contained some great memories, the most prominent of which is the Uganda 2013 trip which was the best month of my life and holds such a special place in my heart and always will. (I will be writing a post about Uganda soon as my blog sort of missed out on this development!)

Now I'm two weeks away from finishing year 13 and under lots of pressure from myself to do well in my upcoming A-Level exams and get into university where I want to study Chemistry. I identify with having 8 best friends who are all my best friends in different ways. Despite drifting away from Katie a little, this year we became closer again and are as strong as ever. My two girls from Aston are still here with me, 11 years later! I can't thank those two enough for the amount they've done for me over the years. A boy I met in Chellaston is also there and he is the one person I can rely on to cheer me up no matter what, he just gets me. Then there are 4 'externals' who I only met in September 2012 but play such a big part in my life now that they had to be included.

A rollercoaster ride that has lasted 14 years is quickly approaching its end and I feel like I have made some lifelong friends and some fantastic memories along the way. With more ups and downs than I think I could ever process, school really has been good and I have loved it. Even those terrible Monday mornings.