The entrance ceremony at a public senior high school

Last year, I wrote about my first experience at an entrance ceremony at a private senior high school year. This year, I can write about my experience at my first public senior high school entrance ceremony! They were actually quite different.

The public senior high school ceremony had less hype and grandeur. But, it also had much more queuing time! But on balance, I actually preferred the public high school's entrance ceremony. Even though I normally don't like queuing for anything! 

Despite arriving punctually, we had to queue for about an hour to see the classroom list that was posted at the entrance to the gymnasium, where the entrance ceremony took place. And we were nearer the front than the back of the queue.

We finally arrived to the class list about ten minutes before the ceremony was due to start. The people after us were ushered to other smaller lists and missed out on the perceived excitement of seeing the main list pinned to the door. The entrance ceremony still ended up starting late, but only about five minutes late.

Why I liked the public senior high school's ceremony better is because it was succinct and to the point. Even though they called out every single of the 350+ student's name, with each student responding and standing up and bowing, and the school principal giving a (lovely) speech, the ceremony part was finished in less than an hour.

Unlike the private school, the public school did the teacher's introductions after the ceremony was over, when everyone was so much more relaxed. The students also had a briefer time in their homeroom and the parent's classroom time was also much shorter. 

We did have to queue for 20 minutes to get a photo by the "entrance ceremony" sign on our way out of the school. Whereas I didn't have to wait at the private high school. But overall, it was a very relaxed experience, and I got a really good vibe from her school.