Ellie Goulding, The Pretenders and Stephen Mangan

From comedian & writer Paul Kerensa: 
Today is my daughter’s last day at her school. Onward and upward, elsewhere, next term. There’d normally be a big assembly where they’d sing the school motto: Reach For The Stars by S Club 7. A mini-graduation day, throwing mini cardboard hats in the air. And a chance to visit the new school, meet the new teacher, find out where the loos are. Instead it’s Reach For The Mouse now it’s all gone online. My daughter’s met her new class via video call. Thankfully she’s had a few brief mornings back at the old school, saying goodbye to old friends, old teacher, old desk. 
It’s a weird end to the academic year. I think we like closure. They say when one door closes, another one opens – but if you don’t see the first door close behind you, it feels a bit... ajar. Doors left open, might feel a bit, I don’t know ...drafty? Without full-on graduations, summer balls or final get-togethers, we might have to celebrate achievements more individually. Draw a line under what’s passed, from afar. It can be unsettling. I remember St Paul’s reassurance to the church in the city of Philippi: “Keep putting into practice all you’ve learned and received – then the God of peace will be with you.” For me, school’s a distant blur, but I’ve learned a lot this year. Hopefully it will stay with me. The writer and deep thinker GK Chesterton suggested this... “The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.” 
Or put another way: when we leave school, maybe we take the good stuff with us, and I don’t mean our child’s library books we forgot to hand in. (Sorry. Dad job fail.) Perhaps with that door only half-closed on our academic years, we’ll have a foot in the comforting old world, but a foot pointing forward, to new places ahead. Then, in the words of that singing septet in the school motto, we reach for those stars, climb every mountain high...