Great events in February

Due to our winter holidays and the busy schedule at school, it's only now that we have had time to write about the two great annual events at our school:  the school leaving party of the third year students and after that, the grand ball of the second year students.  But here we go now:






Goodbye elders



Thursday 14^th February was an emotional day for everyone in our school and especially so for our third year students who were having their traditional school leaving party, that is the "Penkkarit" event.




What is "Penkkarit" you ask?  It's an event where the third-year students dress up according to a theme they have chosen and they are also having an "Abi-show" and an "Abi-video" during that day. This year our third-year students chose to dress up as animated cartoon characters, and I have to say that the costumes were all well made. There were Hercules, Lightning Mcqueen, and even one member from the Teletubbies showed up and many more memorizable characters.

The "Abi-show" was a grand spectacle in its own right. I would imagine that it was an especially nice event for the third-year students as well as for our teachers who were being "punished" for being so hard on people during their three-years of time in FES. Teachers were made to participate in a series of trials and tests and according to how they fared, they were allowed to continue their trip to the Heaven or the Underworld. Only one lucky teacher received the endless glory and was allowed to enter heaven, in this case Disneyland. The Abi-show ended with an emotional "baby-video" in which there were baby pictures of our third-year students.

The "Abi-video" was also a hilarious event. Basically it was a video made by our third-year students and it contained a series of miniature movies in which the students made fun of our teachers. It was all in good spirit and I have to personally say that most of them were outright hilarious.

The day ended when our dear seniors loaded themselves on a truck and drove away in to the horizon, everyone looking for new adventures and eagerly waiting for their cruise on the sea.



Written by Ismo 1B


February 15th

A night to remember

Finally the day was here. The day we had been waiting for since we were 10 years old, well at least us girls. It was our time to be princesses and dance the whole day with our princes. It was the day of the Old Dances. In Finland it’s almost the same thing as the Prom in America, but here we practice the dances in advance and then perform them for the audience which consists of our parents, relatives and friends. 

We started practicing the dances at the beginning of December. During the first lessons everybody was a little tense but our team spirit grew fast and soon everybody was looking forward to those lessons. We had nine dances to learn and it felt really hard in the beginning. Luckily we had really good teachers! We managed to learn all the nine dances in time.

And then the day came. We needed to be at school at 10. Everybody woke up early so nobody was late. Five minutes before starting, we were standing in the hallway and everybody was really excited. As soon as the first song started playing we noticed that there was nothing to be nervous for. Everything went well, except for a few broken dresses and a couple of black toes.

Before the big night show we danced in the 'Syke' sports hall  in an open ceremony and some couples also went to dance in the Old people’s home or a kindergarten. Then we all went home to relax a little. 

The headmaster's speech in the morning.

In the evening we performed the dances to our closest relatives and friends, who we had invited to come. The night was perfect! Our school’s first graders had done an excellent job with our teachers by decorating the gym. We were able to remember all the nine dances plus the dance we had planned by ourselves. After the dances we took hundreds of photos and danced some waltzes with our guests. The night was soon over, and as the light was turned on it was time to change our clothes and leave for another place. The dancers went to eat in a restaurant and after that to have some fun with each other. It was our night and time to celebrate us being the oldest students in the school!

Written by Eeva 2B