TeenTimes:The sleeves on my school jumper are beginning to fray and there is a rather large hole in the elbow. The soles on my shoes are worn down and the covers on my books are dilapidated. These are signs: it is now finally time for me to leave.

My time in school is done and, with only a few days before I bid farewell to this familiar place where I have spent most of my life, I have begun to reminisce on my school days.

Back in September 1992, I was a sweet (I say this in the kindest sense of the word) two-year-old, dressed in a pressed pink smock and black patent shoes. I had looked forward to Montessori school so much, it was an exciting day in my young life. However, little did I know I would have to part from my mum. Having been walked hand-in-hand to my classroom, I smiled and thought what fun the place looked. Ten minutes later, tears stained my face and my optimistic view of school life had vanished from my mind, after being rendered free from my mum's clutches and left desolate in a classroom of other children, each dressed the same as I was.

Day by day I adjusted to my new lifestyle, making little friends, and sharing my feelings of loneliness and abandonment with them. At lunch we drank milk and ate Marietta biscuits, discussing the problems of the world: what cartoon we would watch on TV that afternoon or comparing our brightly coloured leggings and LA Gear runners, and other issues of importance. In between hours spent in the mud in red wellington boots, I managed to fit in some education. In my early days it was mainly learning sums, adding and subtracting, tracing sand-paper letters and drawing insects.

However, my education has progressed since the days of adding and subtracting and I have acquired great knowledge during my school years, learning many things. Often I wonder how important these things will be in the future, but what is the harm in acquiring such knowledge? The working principle of a small motor appliance, the battles of Alexander the Great, and even the life-cycle of metamorphic rocks.

My school days have flashed before my eyes. It seems only yesterday that I was an innocent, young first-year, searching dementedly for classroom 305 - I never found it - but now there is the stark reality of the Leaving Cert, which signals the end of my days in school. Soon I will swap my turquoise ensemble for a more trendy attire and perhaps I will wear a coloured hair-bobbin or even let my shirt hang out. My freedom is unfolding before me. No longer will I have to stand in a line of military precision, adhering to the orders of teachers; I will be my own boss.

In saying all of this, I am going to miss the place, no matter how much I dislike learning Irish, poetry and maths formulae on sunny Friday afternoons. I know that next year I will be longing to return to school for just one more day; after all, it has been my second home for 15 years. School has taught me manners, subjects of an academic nature and imposed rules upon me, but I have learned so much more. I have learned things that will stand to me throughout my life and I have had the chance to do, see and experience great things - not to mention all the amazing people I have met.

Now it is time for me to move on, it is time to enter the real world. So, farewell school.

Barbara Feeney, aged 17, is a sixth-year student at Mount Anville Secondary School, Goatstown, Dublin 14

Articles of 500 words are welcome from teenagers. E-mail teentimes@irish-times.ie and include a phone number