The Beginning Of Our Legacy

By Kaylee Campbell and Caitlin Lai-Thom

As Grade 8’s Caitlin and I were asked what legacy we would like to leave behind when we matriculate. When we polled our peers, the general response was that most Grade 8 students want to leave St Peter’s College having achieved their full individual potential. Some examples of this were: Lead in the play, dancing lead in the dance piece or being lead chorister in the choir.  Some students want to win the award for Photo of the Week or paint a magnificent picture. Others want to wear a white blazer, be voted a prefect, or head prefect. Some students want to master the instrument they play or achieve honours for their favourite sport. Others want to be team captains.

 As a Grade I think we really want to leave behind a legacy that no-one else has managed and one that isn’t very easy to live up to. We want to be the Matric Grade that welcomes in new pupils with a smile so they tell their parents, who tell their friends. Eventually, word will get round that St Peter’s is the school about which Grade 7’s say: ‘I want to go there, I want to be like those Matrics.’

We’d like to leave behind the legacy of being a well mannered, well spirited, well behaved group. A legacy that makes people to say: ‘WOW look at them, what an amazing school!’ A legacy about spirit so when we play against other schools, whether it’s at home or not, the other schools fear us and are too scared of being shot down if they try to intimidate us. To be the school that makes social responsibility seem like an everyday action because we have been brought up that way.

I’m sure we would all like to leave our own type of legacy to do with something personal. I think one of the most important legacies to leave will be as a Grade or even as a school. Big things are not achieved by people who walk alone. It will take a collective effort to be known as a well-mannered, well behaved and well spirited bunch. We will do this as a Grade, helping each other along the way.

Everyone has left some legacy somewhere. It may have been at a previous school or even in a country we lived for a while. Sometimes we do leave legacies that we probably shouldn’t have left, intentionally or not. There are legacies that no one wants to leave like walking across the Matric lawn too many times or not knowing our place in the school. The idea is to have a legacy where the good things outweigh the bad.

I think that some Grade 8’s are scared to share their ideas of the legacy they want to leave behind. They are scared to tell anyone about it because they might laugh. Be brave and share your legacy.

We need to think about what we want to do when we leave high school and university. We need to be serious and think about the future.  This will impact on the legacy we leave.

Good relationships are very important. Having a professional relationship with your teachers, principal and coaches can make school and sports so much easier and more fun. Think about it: if you don’t like a specific teacher you usually don’t like that subject, you don’t work hard and so you do badly in tests. That is definitely not a legacy you want to leave.

 
In conclusion, this Grade 8 group should leave a legacy of using what this school gives us to make us great. Our greatest fear is not that we are weak, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

We should be remembered as the grade that learned hard lessons and kept trying to be better than before.