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Summerhill School

Summerhill School

Editorial/ Signing off

Evie, with some parting words

Where to begin?

I often find myself lying awake at some odd hour of the morning with a head consumed by memories, a habit many can relate to. As I wander down long-forgotten roads of awkward romance, public embarrassment and several other terrible teenage blights, I find tranquillity in those odd eerie hours by looking back with a fond heart of the many happy memories I have made over the years. I promise not to bore you with odd recollections of my family and friends, instead, I shall attempt to warm your heart with a small collection of my fondest memories of the Constellation.

It all began some few years ago when a very shy version of myself sought refuge in an English room of our school. During this time I met a teacher who would later teach me many great lessons about both English and life. When the Constellation first began it was run by a girl called Charlie who like many future members of the Constellation was practically bursting at the seams with ambitious ideas and spectacular dreams for our tiny school newspaper; she led our small team with great pride, pushing us to write brilliant articles about life in the wonderfully weird world of school.

Next came my predecessor, Dan, a talented writer with brilliant wit. Dan carried on the legacy that Charlie initiated by writing a series of short stories and increasing the number of articles we published. During Dan’s time as editor-in-chief, the Constellation grew into a wonderfully large family filled with incredibly talented people. Dan is probably the main reason I was Editor for the Constellation as he frequently gave me responsibilities and referred to me as his right-hand man. I have many a comedic story of Dan but none as funny as the time he tried to explain the Russian Revolution to me. Now what you must bear in mind is that I was only 13 at the time and had little to no understanding of the word communism, but that didn’t stop Dan. He sat there for a whole lunchtime and drew a messy spider diagram of Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin whilst throwing around random dates with the hope of me understanding it. I didn’t, but it was quite amusing to see him get wound up by my constant “what?”, “why?”, “which one is that again?” However, the most important memory from this time was when Dan asked me to take over the Constellation. I immediately said no, out of pure fear that I would run it into the ground, but slowly I came around to the idea and a few months later accepted the position.

Now, to give you a time frame I began my role as editor-in-chief in February of 2020 and let me tell you running a newspaper based on school activities whilst in a lockdown is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. Unfortunately, there were a few months when we were unable to publish but when we returned to school in the September of 2020 the Constellation returned too and, in my opinion, we came back stronger than ever. We decided to take a different approach by using the Constellation as a platform to display incredible works of creativity. From art to poetry to book reviews; we had it all.

However, now my time as editor-in-chief has come to an end, and it is with great sadness that I have to announce that the Constellation will be ending too. Currently, the Constellation is a team built of fantastic Year 11 students, which sadly also means that there will be no one left to produce those aforementioned amazing pieces of work in a few weeks. So now we must say goodbye. Writing, for many years, has been a way for me to escape, and without the Constellation I doubt I would have ever fell in love with it the way I have. I hope that the spirit of the Constellation will carry on for many years to come, so that others can find the love that I have. I would like to say thank you to every student or teacher that contributed to the Constellation over the years. I think I can speak on behalf of every member of the Constellation, both past and present, that without Mr Findon the Constellation would have not been possible, so to him I owe the biggest thanks.

Goodbye,

Yours truly Evie