Ava Ryan

  Last week I sat my last ever high school English exam.  I wonder if I'll ever read Shakespeare again. I’ve grown somewhat fond of old Bill over these past four years. He cops a lot from unenthused high school students and he's not even around to defend himself. In Year 9 it was A Midsummer Night's Dream . We dressed up with fairy wings and plastic swords and each received a part to act out. The play read to me like it was written by someone on drugs. Then it was Romeo and Juliet , which delighted my teacher who indulged in dreamy retellings of her romantic holidays in Italy. (I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Baz Luhrmann film. Definitely felt like it was made by someone on drugs). In Year 11 it was Othello , and for our senior year we read Richard III , which I really loved. We even went to see a live performance of it at the Seymour Centre which was a treat. It made me realise that the best way to approach Shakespeare is to see it performed. Hopefully, I can watch mo...

That was fun. To the Class of 2024… THE POWER OF OUR COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE IS NOT TO BE UNDERESTIMATED. Let’s say that you and I started year 7 together. I still remember that first day with a strange clarity. We sat on the floor of the old hall, our shiny shoes on the shiny wood. We got handed a sheet of paper that had our email address on it. If you were there with me that day, we would have spent roughly 1200 days at school together. And what about those kids who I went to primary school with? Well, that number would look something like 2600 days. A special few of you I have known for even longer than that. There is something to be said for spending day after day, week in week out, year after year together. We fell into rhythm and routine with each other, ebbed and flowed from class to class with the certainty of the tides. We mapped out our tracks across the school, and sat in our favourite seat in each of the classrooms. We learnt the sound of each other’s laughter, our quirks and...