Throughout the course of a St. Clement’s School year, assemblies provide an opportunity to educate, entertain, and share. We use our twice-weekly get-togethers to learn more about each other and the world around us, to display our talents, celebrate our differences, and to grow together as a community.
Many of these occasions are highly moving, but few are as emotional as the annual Grad Class Farewell Assembly.
As the 2018-19 school year enters its home stretch, the Graduating Class had one final assembly last week to reflect on their time at 21 St. Clements Avenue. While an occasion for celebration, the Farewell Assembly is also a time for laughter amid recollections of life at SCS, and sadness at passing on from friends and familiar surroundings. For some, however, it’s a time of great emotion.
St. Clement’s has long been a family school where daughters follow mothers and grandmothers, sisters follow sisters, and cousins navigate the hallways together. Before a backdrop of family photos at the assembly, some of those Legacy Clementines shared reminiscences of attending school with a loved one.
There were confessions of yearning for a baby sister even more than they had longed for a unicorn, or of revealing that they had known that their junior kin had been secretly borrowing things from their wardrobe for years. However, when the Grads started to reminisce about the shared morning commute or of regularly bumping into their sisters or cousins by the lockers, the realization set in that life is about to change.
The Grads’ candid recollections were heartfelt and moving, and as a graduating sister or cousin bade farewell to a younger family member, there was barely a dry eye in the East Gym.
Thankfully, alumnae have always been an integral part of St. Clement’s School and this year’s Grads know that they are always welcome back at SCS.
