By Lucas F., Langley Sixth-Grade Student

My name is Lucas. I came to Langley in fifth grade. If you’re coming to Langley as a new student, and are nervous, I can help you by sharing my story.

I was nervous when I came into fifth grade. I didn’t know what to expect from everyone. I had only met a handful of people before my first day. I was scared to leave my old friends. When I came to Langley, that all changed.

My nervousness quickly turned into excitement. I was welcomed by all of the teachers and students in fifth grade. I remember one of the first projects that I did, within the first week, was a poster to represent one of Langley’s core values. My core value was respect. My partner had been at Langley for a long time and she made sure that I got to write down my ideas on the poster as well. Our poster ended up being very colorful and cheerful and there were a lot of polka dots on it. Also, within the first two weeks, I had some friends already. The teachers made me feel very comfortable and they were always really nice and helpful.  

Before coming to Langley, I had been looking forward to many opportunities at my current school. But, when I started at Langley, I realized that there were a lot more opportunities here as well. For example, I was elected as an advisor to the head in the spring. The role of the advisors to the head is to represent their grade by sharing ideas and suggestions with the head of school. This helps the school become a better learning environment. Also, I competed in the Geography Bee. I was very scared when I got on stage. But my determination overpowered my fear. I tried my hardest and I ended up winning The Langley School Geography Bee.

There are some fun traditions that we have in fifth grade that also helped make my
transition to Langley easier and helped me make new friends. One of them is Camp Highroad. Camp Highroad is an outdoor camp designed for team-building. We went there for two days, one night. I was feeling very nervous as I had only been at Langley for a month and a half. When I got there, we broke into groups. Most of the people I didn’t know. It didn’t matter, though, because we had a lot of fun and we did a lot of activities. One of the things that we did was a gigantic zipline. It went through the treetops. Everyone cheered each other on. It was extremely fun.

Another tradition is the fifth-grade Oxford-Cambridge cricket match. We got to learn cricket in P.E. for about a month and at the end of the unit we played an all-day cricket match as a whole grade. I remember that I had fun learning how to play the game and even though I got out right away, I still had tons of fun playing the actual match. Another thing that we do in fifth grade is a musical. Every year we learn a musical and perform it in front of the whole school. It is really fun. We get to learn how to act and perform. Also, it is a great experience to do something with the whole grade.

In fifth grade, we did some really fun projects. In math, we got to create our own road trip. It was really fun because we had to work out how we wanted to do it and where we wanted to go. We had to try to get as close to the budget as possible. Another project that we did in science was the cell project. We had to take pictures of cells with a microscope camera and identify the different parts of the cell. It was very fun to see the cells and compare them and see how they looked.

In fifth grade, we also get to have first-grade buddies. What we do with these buddies depends on the day. Some days we read to them, some days we play outside with them, and some days we do projects with them. Once, we even watched a movie with them. It is really fun for both grades, and for fifth grade it is a great leadership opportunity. It is also a great way to have fun with younger kids and get involved in the community.

My fifth-grade year was great and thanks to my teachers and friends and the many fun activities we got to do, I felt like part of the community right away. I am now in sixth grade. I have made good new friends, yet, I have still kept my old friends. I am looking forward to another great year at Langley!