End of term.

Last night I went to see our not so small grandson's summer show at his primary school. This is the show for which I was asked to concoct a skunk costume at short notice. He was one of many skunks and, setting aside all modesty, I must say his skunk costume was far superior to most of the others. His mother and I wanted to get a picture of the skunk child but there was little point in my trying to do so during the show; pictures of the backs of other parents' and grandparents' head are never appealing. After the show he had torn his headdress, made in school, to pieces, as had all his not so small pals. So, no photos. 

Every year the school puts on a performance by the year six children. That's what used to be called Junior Four in old parlance: top juniors, eleven year olds. I am always amazed at the range of size in a bunch of eleven year olds. There are the quite small ones, often boys who will remain short until they are about 14, when they will suddenly put on a growth spurt. Some boys, of course, at 11 are already hulking great brutes who look as though they should be out at work. The girls range from the petite, who could still be eight years old, to the tall and willowy, who could be sixteen year olds already. The unfortunate ones are those who are neither tall nor short but chunky, showing early signs of the sturdy middle aged women they will one day become. I really should not be surprised at this range. After all, I have in my collection of photos a picture of my Junior Four class, with exactly the same variety of shapes and sizes. Nothing changes. 

The "show" is always a masterpiece in the art of finding something to involve all the year group. Getting sixty children on stage is no mean feat. One of the staff involved said that when they meet to plan this, just after Christmas, they all agree that it is the hardest bit of planning in the whole year. Inevitably it has to be a musical, so that even the quietest, shyest, least extrovert children can be coaxed into taking part. This year's was a Robin Hood affair. Who knew that there were skunks in Sherwood Forest? 

As you might expect, performances varied. One character, Little John, whose main comic feature was his squeaky voice must have lost a lot of laughs because his squeaky voice disappeared and was inaudible beyond the edge of the stage. However, the main characters on the whole were splendid, clearly well cast. Robin Hood revealed talents of which even his parents were unaware: a singing voice that projected without the aid of a microphone, an ability to deliver his lines with perfect comic timing and thigh-slapping worthy of the best pantomime actors. 

The jokes were uniformly bad: real groan-out-loud jokes. Some of them were aimed at the adults and may have needed explaining to the young ones delivering the lines. And then there were the usual breaking-wind jokes. The stuff of pantomime, of course! 

The school's head teacher, despite having seen early rehearsals, the dress rehearsal and every performance, laughed at loud at each one. She must be easily amused or perhaps she is just so proud of her children that she felt the need to give them every encouragement. 

The best thing about such a performance is the children's evident enjoyment. Clearly they were having an excellent time. For some of them this may be the only time they ever share in the glory of a stage performance like that but others will possibly go on to greater things. And if it's not on the stage, this will have given them the confidence to stand up and address people, without too much fear of making fools of themselves. 

And what a way to end their primary school career. I hope secondary school does not prove to be a disappointment after this. 

And the end is not yet over. There will be a Year Six party in school and a school prom, at a local hotel. The latter has been organised by parents. But when did eleven year olds start to have proms? I remember just over twenty years ago when we organised a prom at the sixth form college where I was working. In fact, we didn't call it a prom; it was a leavers' ball, in imitation of the balls that took place at universities. It was a new idea or at least we thought it was. And the students loved it. The boys wore tuxedos and the girls, or their parents, spent huge amounts of money on proper ball gowns. Even the staff who attended dressed up appropriately. 

Before we knew it, every college was organising a leavers' ball. Students turned up in stretch limos. And the amount spent on dresses went up and up. And then, suddenly, students joined the college having already had a prom at their high school. Just as the name "secondary school" had morphed into "high school", so the end of year dance had changed its name to that other American term, "prom". And the college leavers' ball lost a little of its magic. 

And now there is a prom at the end of primary school. Our daughter has been out purchasing a suitable outfit for her son. He reports that one or two of the boys plan to wear a tux. Really! What happened to the school disco? What happened to childhood? 

Then there is the politics of it all. This school prom has apparently been organised by a particular clique of parents: the in-crowd perhaps. Our daughter and a friend have volunteered to help with the supervision of the prom as a kind of statement if defiance. The clique do not really approve of them. Goodness knows why not. Perhaps they are too educationally well-informed. Perhaps their faces just don't fit. Anyway, aware that the organisers do not actively want them to be involved, they have volunteered, knowing full well that as many helpers as possible are needed. Knowing our daughter she will probably take over! 

Such are the end of term shenanigans that go on around here.