LEIGH CAMPBELL: 'I repeated a grade at school. Here’s how I feel about it as an adult.'

I remember it so vividly that I can't quite believe it didn't happen last week.

It was the summer holidays. I’d just completed year one, and we were about to leave for a holiday to Queensland. 

I was laying in mum and dad’s bed, staring up at the pitched ceiling, creating faces in the knots of the timber with my imagination.

Mum and dad came in and told me I'd be repeating at school. I’d be doing year one again.

“It will be great because you’ll have two sets of friends,” mum reassured me.

But I didn't want two sets of friends. 

I was only interested in the friends I already had.

While you're here, we went on an intimate date with the wonderful Leigh Campbell. Post continues after video.

So much so that when a little girl from kindergarten had asked me to play, I told her to beat it because I was a big year one girl and didn't play with kindy babies.

Now I was the baby, not bright enough to go up a class with my peers, and I’d be the one asking to play with the girl I had turned away.

I was gutted. 

I didn't understand why it was happening, and I certainly didn't understand my own feelings of unworthiness. I assumed I wasn't smart; I wasn't good at stuff. 

I wasn't good enough.

Oh course, now as an adult, I understand. I’m 40, so I've had some time to process it.

I started school quite young. I’m a March baby and started when I was four, about to turn five. I probably should have started a year later when I was five, about to turn six, but as so often with females, I was socially ready. 

Just not academically.

Subconsciously, and coupled with my nature, it kicked off a quitters attitude in me. If I wasn't good at something, or didn't enjoy it right away, I would quit. I guess I figured I couldn't get any better at that thing, even if I tried, so I stopped doing it before I could be told so by someone else.

The things I was naturally talented at, like art, and drama and sometimes writing, I loved. Because I was good at them I was praised, and that felt like the opposite of not good enough. 

It created a chasm between subjects at school. The topics I didn't understand made me immediately frustrated, and I checked out before I even tried, for fear of being told I wasn't good enough again. 

The topics I did enjoy were all I wanted to do. I fiercely loved and vehemently hated parts of school. There was no middle ground.

As I entered my teen years and the latter part of high school, the social benefits really started to show. 

I was one of the first who could drink legally, and who could get their driver's licence. I was 18 when it was time for my rite of passage – Schoolies week on the Gold Coast – when friends were still 17. I didn't need to break any laws to revel in the giddy hedonism of being an almost adult.

Image: Supplied.

At that stage, the academic aspect had unfolded naturally, too. It turned out I was never going to get a perfect score in the HSC (which, unironically, I never competed in as I ended up leaving school halfway through year 11). 

If I had started school at age three or age seven, I was never going to be a heart surgeon or engineer. I was a creative at heart and creativity is only a small aspect of the curriculum, regardless of how old you are or what school you go to.

Of course, mum was right. Mums are always right. I did end up having two sets of friends.

Image: Supplied.

And as for that little kindy girl who turned away in the playground when I was high on the power of grade one? She welcomed me into her friendship group all those years ago, with little six-year-old open arms. She’s been my best friend ever since, coming up to 35 years.

Thanks, mum, you made the right call. 

Feature Image: Supplied.

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