Taking Control

Chapter Four - Schoolin' Life

I was super excited to start primary school in September 2008. I actually remember my first day. I arrived later than everybody else but I'm pretty sure it was planned to be that way, I'm not exactly sure why but when I got there everyone was in assembly so I remember having to sit alone with the teacher for 10 minutes before all the kids arrived from assembly. I remember spending break time sitting in the classroom with all of my new classmates and mingling with everyone, just talking about what 4 year olds talk about. I loved school in reception, I found it so much fun. Everyone was friends with everyone, there were no real dramas apart from petty lunchtime arguments that were normally resolved within 10 minutes. I do remember my reception teacher hated kids which probably wasn't the best characteristic to have when you're looking after 4 year old and 5 year old children. She would always jump to conclusions and make assumptions with absolutely no evidence to back them up. I was a well behaved child when I was in school yet I still managed to get told off by her a handful of times. We had this play area that she explicitly said not to draw on and I listened to her but someone else had drawn on it and I got the blame when this girl snitched on me even though I genuinely hadn't done it. Another time she told me off was for "spitting at a boy in my class" when actually I was just talking to him and some spit happened to fly out of my mouth. She just wasn't a very nice woman and I still don't understand why she decided to become a primary school teacher but I guess we will never know. As I said before, I made friends with just about everyone in reception. Three of my friends from reception: Jess, Gabbi, and Jodie are still some of my best friends to this day and it's incredible to see how our friendships have stood the test of time. Jess lived on the same street as me, just 4 doors down from my house. We had the same postcode and everything and we saw each other every single day. Our mums became best friends too and we had many play dates and spent many evenings and days in each others houses. My mum also became best friends with Jodie's mum and the same applied, we spent a lot of time at each others houses. I was a very talkative and outgoing child, also very thoughtful and caring. I was a little too hyper at times but I was incredibly cute so that made up for it. I remember in the reception Nativity play I had to sing Shine by Take That with 4 other people from my class, with a fake microphone made from a toilet roll tube and a tennis ball covered in fabric. I had such a fun time and I loved my 3 minutes of performance time even if it was more of just a cute gag than an actual serious performance. I think I figured out my love for boys in reception too because I very vividly remember having my first kiss with a boy named Tyler. He was 3 years older than me and he actually lived on my street but it was in school that he kissed me. I was basically walking around school asking boys to kiss me and then he complied and we kissed. After that I decided kissing was gross, sorry Tyler! I do also remember having my first "boyfriend" in reception and his name was Oliver. I basically just told him that he was my boyfriend and he was okay with that so that was that, he for sure didn't know what I was asking him though. I had an obsession with buses and he used to pretend to be a bus and take me to different sides of the playground. In Year 1 I had been "dating" a boy for a while and then I decided he was my husband on Valentines day and I tried to get him a card that read "to my wonderful husband" which my mum found out about and told my teacher who had a talk with me which was kid of embarrasing. My recording experience started young when in Year 1 the whole school recorded an album together. They basically hired professionals to set up recording equipment in the hall and we sang different school songs the entire morning for the album. I forgot exactly what we ended up calling it but it had a cute name and a cute album cover some girl had drawn. I remember getting the CD and being so proud of myself because I truly thought I had made it. It was around this time that I wrote my first ever song Mirror with the help Harriet. I was 6 and she was 7 at the time and to be fair the song is actually really cute. "Look in the mirror uh uh, and you will see a face just like, just like, just like me, so turn around and figure it out, I can see you, you, you, you can see me, me, me, I can see everybody, especially you and your family." Me and Angel made some music videos to school songs too which was actually kind of random, I don't understand why I decided to make them to the school songs of all songs. During a half term in Year 2, I went to a drama club that was being held at another primary school in the next village. I remember it being very eventful and the first time I got into some real drama. None of the people there went to school with me so I didn't know anyone and I decided to sit with these two girls called Ellie and Cody. I remember Cody being really sweet but her "cousin" Ellie was out to get me for some reason (I later found out they weren't actually cousins and that they were lying.) I couldn't understand what it was because I was always nice to her and she just didn't seem to like me yet still I would spend every lunch time that week with her and Cody. I don't remember all the ins and outs of it but there were some kind of fake rumours (obviously petty ones like I kissed someones boyfriend or something) and it got pretty messy to say the least but it still didn't really change my experience. I don't remember much about the production we put on but I do remember I had to borrow my grandad's hat as I was playing an elder so that was fun! After that week I thought nothing of Ellie again, that was until about a month later when a new girl started at my primary school. I knew she looked familiar but I just couldn't put my finger on it. She was in my class for almost an entire day before we were both painting in the last hour of the school day and after talking we realised who each other was. You guessed it, it was Ellie. The girl from the drama club who had it out for me. This was going to be fun. Just like she had done in the drama club, Ellie had it out for me yet again. This time I couldn't escape it though. The drama club had only lasted for one week over a half term, now she was at my school and in my class trying to steal my friends. I remember one day she teamed up with my best friend Jess at lunchtime and they became best friends for the day which really riled me up. I felt like Ellie was taking everything from me. One day we got into a huge argument and things esculated when SHE made it physical by placing her hands on my face and squeezing my cheeks. I of course started crying and ran to the teacher with a group of other people who were actually on my side. Ellie began to cry as everyone was shouting at her calling her a horrible person AND THE TEACHER STARTED TO HUG HER. HER. THE MEAN GIRL. WHY NOT HUG ME, THE VICTIM? I don't remember her getting any kind of punishment but I have no idea what happened after that. Somewhere down the line we became friends for a little while and a group of us had been picked to go to another Primary school in Lincoln for the day. It was in a rough area of the city and the standards were completely different to what we were used to. It was an eyeopener and I definietly remember feeling very lucky to be from a nice area of the city and attend a nice, clean school. This one girl at this school for whatever reason came right up to me during lunch time and pinned me up against a fence. Ellie and another one of my friends tried to stick up for me and they both ended up pinned up against a fence also. I don't know why I had an invisible sign on my head that told other kids my age to pick on me for no apparent reason but I really felt like I did, and the parallels are insane to my life right now as you will later find out. One day me and Ellie had one of our many many many arguments when she said she would save a seat for me in the dinner hall and didn't keep to her word. I wrote "I hate Ellie" on the shed and it turned into the biggest drama of the year. Everyone hated me for a while after that and claimed that I was bullying Ellie which wasn't really the case. I lost a smiley face which was basically a reward system and if you lost three smiley faces in a term, you couldn't take part in the end of term class treat. Fortunately I was mostly well behaved so I only ever lost one smiley face during my entire primary school life. For the remainder of primary school, me and Ellie had a very on again and off again friendship. One day she would hate me, the next I was her best friend. I never actually knew when I was friends with her and when I wasn't but this literally went on from when she joined in Year 2 right up until Year 6. We had too many petty arguments to count and looking back it's actually kind of funny. She was skinnier than I was and she never let me forget it and it actually shocks me now to think about some of the things that came out of her mouth at the age of 8 (I just want to make it clear that I sort of find this funny now and I don't hold anything against her, we were literal children so I don't think this defines her character today by any means.) She would make me do laps around the playground to help me "keep fit" and become as skinny as she was and I wasn't even the only person she did this to. She did this to a lot of the girls in our class. She would also check all of her friends lunchboxes to make sure they didn't have any fattening food and if we did happen to have a chocolate bar she would yell at us and claim that she was just looking out for us because she wanted us to be healthy and skinny. I don't know where she heard all of this but she was 8 years old so surely she couldn't have just plucked this from out of thin air. I of course don't think this defines her as a person now though. I haven't spoken to her in almost 5 years so I choose not to judge her by the person she was as a child because I have no doubts that she has changed and evolved and I wish her nothing but happiness and success. My story with Ellie doesn't end there and it only gets much juicier in secondary school, but you will have to wait a while until I get to that point in my story so just hold that thought and don't forget the name Ellie.