But it is, perhaps

To my Class of 2018 - I think we did good!

This speech has been a working document since December 2015 when I started to write down my thoughts on my year group so I would not forget the things that made me happy and mad!

 I have thought about this day for many years and what I would say. I have also tried practicing not getting emotional, but by the end of Term One this year my cover was blown so lets not kid ourselves! I have agonised over this speech and I have dreaded delivering this from before you had entered this school. It was back in May 2012 that I was summoned to Mrs Chevell’s office (the Deputy Principal at the time) where she asked me to be the Year 7 year adviser for 2013. I tried to back out and said ‘no way’. I tried to use the excuse that my own children were still quite young and that I worried that I would not be able to give as much to one of the largest years groups (at the time) to come through Cecil Hills High School. But the real reason was that I have always dreaded having to say goodbye to you. I have always joked around that I would have to get Mr Hickey to do the year adviser speech as I would be the one in tears in the corner, but I feel that many things happened for a reason in 2018 and that I needed to depart Cecil before you all did. Maybe it was all fate to make this all easier on me.

I remember meeting you in Year 7 and feeling like an expectant mother, wondering if I would get along with you and if you would like me. It was a lovely time of little smiling faces, crisp white shirts hanging off tiny bodies, perfectly ironed shorts, appropriately hemmed skirts, polished black shoes and flippy high ponytails. Oh how things change! Fast forward to the senior years where I would spend my time scrutinising the length of my girls' skirts warning them to get the hems down to a suitable level or asking the question, ‘surely there is a larger size female senior shirt in the uniform shop?’ As the boys began to tower over me, so did the bulging biceps. If I had a dollar for every time I told one of the boys to roll down those sleeves, I would be a millionaire!

Mr Hickey and I have always taken this role very seriously. We have always felt responsible for you and have tried to guide you in your actions. Both of us have felt privileged and understood the important role we have played in shaping you into the young adults that you are today. I have always felt like we have been your ‘at-school parents’. Mr Hickey has been the fun loving dad, often telling lame Dad jokes, who would never attend a camp without a bag of sporting goodies like frisbees and soccer balls to keep you entertained.