Last day of school

Marching band, just what an 8 year-old loves

The small one and I tried to go the Parc des Bastions on Wednesday, and were confronted by marching bands followed by troops of school children variously dressed up as treasure chests and pilots. Inside the park had been transformed into an 8 year-old's wildest dream. At the end of the year Geneva puts on a big party for all the children in its primary schools as they move up a year - it's like the school trip to the zoo, or the theme park, but instead of each school organising their own trip, the city does it for everyone. Like the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games each school had a child marching at the front of it carrying a sign with the schools name on it.


They call the event  the promotion,  so presumably, like in other parts of Europe, if you don't make that grade you don't go up a year, does that also mean you don't get the trip to the party?  That's pretty harsh on an eight year old. The park was full of fairground rides, bouncy castles, actors on stages, all the kinds of fun things that kids don't want to miss out on.

Oh No! C'est la porc!

We stood in Place de Neuve behind crowd control barriers, whilst lots of small children and their teachers walked past us.  Brilliantly, unlike pretty much any other parade I've ever seen of children, they were all smiling - they knew what was in store.
Not only were there marching bands and marching children, but incredibly there was local media! Next to the parks main entrance an enormous screen had been put up broadcasting video footage of the parade, and switching it around with two ladies sat at a news desk commentating on the event.  I couldn't believe that the local media has sent a news presenters to cover it! They even had a roving reporter mixing it with the crowds, shoving their microphone in the faces of on looking parents and school kids. the whole thing completely blew me away, so much investment in the end of term of a load of school children!
I'm not saying the money was wasted, I'm just wondering if it couldn't have been spent on something more, well, educational - it looked like the whole thing was a serious effort.  There was scores of police around the park, lots of crowd control, and extraordinarily, a number of tram routes had to be shut down or re-routed, to allow the march to come up Rue de la Corraterie that leads on to the Place.
The small one and I were looking for somewhere to play so we thought we'd try the other end of the park, we walked all the way around the railings, but every gate on the perimeter was closed and locked. Not only was it locked, we were being actively discouraged from entering. At one of the entrances, the only one that was actually open, the police were stopping people from getting in.  The measures to make sure you couldn't get in to the park were serious, and very, very cool. The park offers the opportunity for the authorities shut up a large area in the centre of the city to host something for its citizens without the need to resort to all kinds of temporary fencing, that you see in London whenever someone plays in Hyde Park or where ever.

Geneva police ready for anyting, including 8 year-olds

We walked around the outside of the park, from the front entrance in Place Neuve, with its marching bands and crowd control barriers, to the quiet street at the far end that leads up the hill to old town. The quiet at this end of the park was and large TV screens broadcasting the local media discussing the event, and a roving reporter sticking their microphone into small kids faces.  It was  Because the event occurs annually (at least for the police, if for those poor kids who fail to get promoted, that the police have signs saying the parks are closed, and they have had these signs laminated.  If I wasn't a parent then I suspect the temptation to take one as a souvenir could have been far too great to resist.
Unfortunately the day was grey and overcast, and just a few minutes after the little one and I had discovered we couldn't get into the park, rain drops began to fall. So being in the vicinity of my office we dropped into a chorus of "ahh" and "how cute". Happily the rain didn't last too long, maybe a few minutes at the most, so I think the kids got to have their day of fun. Anyway, to day is the last day of term for the kids in Geneva, so for the rest of July and August they are off. It makes you wonder what their parents are going to do with them during the summer. Can't wait to find out how it all works, but I've got a few years to wait yet.