“It comes in flashes. Crunchy sand settling beneath my bottom as I sit under the tall play structure shading me from above. Cautiously peering into the small peaked house to get a glimpse of the giant and mysterious tortoise, Turtle Dove. Walking into the kitchen with counters head height to get a peanut butter apple slice at snack time. It’s been more than 30 years since I stepped onto the Broadway campus stage during my First School graduation and sung ‘make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.’

“My parents found The First School through close family friends Robin and Nick. After I had completely shut down at my previous preschool, my parents brought me to The First School in the hope that a new environment might help. The warmth and emotional safety of The First School gave me the space and confidence to try, and test, and explore friendship and identity. It gave me a place to build some of the foundational elements of who I am today.

“Coming back to The First School with my daughter Parker Dare has been totally bizarre and wonderful. She is in the same place, with the same play structure, with the same turtle, and some of the same teachers! It is the same safe nurturing environment. And yet, her journey is totally different.

“Parker Dare will be at Pine Street this year and I am already emotional about her graduation a year from now. We were lucky to welcome Parker Dare’s brother Dak to the world just a few months ago and I look forward to getting to watch him start his own First School journey before too long. I hear the First School opened 50 years ago. I am in awe thinking about all the lives that have been shaped here. And all those still to come. And grateful that my children and I are among them.”