An evening out for a Proud Mummy

Friday night was presentation evening at school and to my surprise, I received an invitation to attend, through the post. I wasn't surprised that one of my children was getting an award, I was surprised as I didn't know they had a presentation evening.

The presentation itself was at 7pm but the evening was to begin at 6pm with a buffet and drinks.

We arrived alittle before 6pm and I was glad we did as it meant that we could grab ourselves a table. Later arrivals just had to stand precariously around the room. I was so relieved that I had decided not to dress up as there weren't many people dressed up and it was way too hot for that.

They had the School Steel band playing (Don't they always) and we were enjoying it so much that the Assistant Head had to come and tell people that the food was there for the taking. Of course DS didn't waste any time and was front of the queue.
There was 100 pupils and their families and masses of food. There were also glasses of wine for the adults and orange juice for the children. After DS came back with his mountain of food, DD and I went to get some food too. There was so much to choose from like little cheese sandwiches; sausage rolls; cheesy rolls; pizza; mini quiches; tuna sandwiches; egg and cress sandwiches; little salad cobs; cucumber sticks; carrot sticks; cauliflour; broccoli; other raw veggies; chicken nuggets; vegetable nuggets; onion bajis and then there was a huge plate of little cream cakes of all varieties as well as a huge basket of fruit.

We sat down with our huge plates of food and listened to the band. At this point I suddenly felt very lonely. Lots of people were milling about chatting to other parents and I didn't know anyone. I did spot someone that I know. Her daughter was in the year between DD & DS but they were all in the same gang at infants school. We always used to walk to and from school together and they only live in the next street yet I haven't seen her for over a year. I kept trying to catch her eye and eventually managed to catch her as we were walking into the hall.

We took our seats and the presentation was immediately underway. DS was 3rd and they were speeding through it, I didn't even get a chance to clap him as he went up as I was too intent on making sure I could get a picture. There was a big massive screen in the corner (Which reminded me of being at a football match) and as the child came up to the stage their name and the award information came up on the screen. Unfortuantely I didn't get to photograph that as it was so quick. As I mentioned earlier, there were 100 children receiving awards so it went on for quite a bit but I knew quite a few of the children so that was nice that I could at least applaude other children I knew.



The guest speaker for the evening was Alan Brown. He is a former pupil at the school and is now known for being the executive producer on such shows as The Apprentice and Dragons Den to name but 2.
Even I found him very inspirational as he talked about his time at the school including a story about Brian Clough which brought a tear to my eye. He went on to tell about how he ended up working for the BBC and a small event which happened at school which mapped out his whole future for him. I was quite emotional and excited at the end of his talk.
When Alan finished, he was asked if he would do the big unveiling of the plaque to officially open the new hall as they have recently had it refurbished.