On the eve of their graduation into the big world of High School,students from Magpie Primary School and Miners Rest Primary School were joyous in recreating the photographs from six years earlier.

“It’s really exciting ‘cause you get to see then and now and it’s a huge difference with changes,” said Hannah.

After many years of playground fun and hard learning, graduating students were sad to leave yet excited to begin a new journey into high school. James said he’s looking forward to the next stage of his life but will miss the friends going to a different high school.

“I’m excited for the changing chapters and I’m sad about friends moving on,” he said.

Shania said the biggest change will be transitioning to a bigger school where she will go from one of the biggest to one of the smallest students.

“I’m nervous because I’m used to this school, I’m not used to a big school,” she said. “I’ve been a big school pin, now I’m going to a little school pin.” 

Hannah said she was thankful and will miss all the school staff.

“I’ll miss all my supporting teachers who have helped me and my principal,” she said. “Even if they weren’t my teachers I’ll still miss them, they were really great.”

Some schools in Ballarat finished as early as last week, so we thought it would be an appropriate time to wind back the clock and cast an eye over when this year’s grade 6’s first started school.

As part of our annual production Big Steps, Little Feet, we featured Ballarat’s school starters back in 2011.

Now, it’s time to take a look back at those photos to see how much they have grown.

Flick through the gallery above to start reminiscing.

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