It was time for the fortnight’s excitement, hard work, learning and adventures to come to an end yesterday, as students graduated from Oxford Royale Academy and readied themselves for departure home and into the next stage of their lives.

Programme Director Dennis led an inspiring graduation ceremony in the Catz marquee, emphasising how far students have come from the beginning of two weeks, and how they have achieved this together. Each student was presented with a graduation scroll, and for those students who had shown exceptional effort or achieved particular academic heights, there were special awards.

From the ceremony students processed across the finely manicured (and pleasingly angular) lawns of St Catz to the sparkling dining hall with its lofty ceiling and warming rays of light that forge their way through the windows to strike the walls in perfect, unbroken lines. There students were treated to a magnificent three course dinner, where they reminisced about the two weeks that were now behind them, and made plans for ORA reunions in the future.

Fully fed and ready to crank things up a notch, students returned to the marquee, which had, whilst they were dining, been transformed with lights, neon palms and sprays of feathers into a full-on carnival carousal, and now just awaited its revellers. Students were joined by their ORA counterparts in Queen’s, with any lingering friction from the Great ORA Debate earlier this week long forgotten and smoothed over. Students danced and chatted late into the evening, and whilst they were ready to climb into their beds at the end of the party, they could only let themselves do so once they had vowed to each other that celebrations would continue over breakfast, and that their friendships would remain strong in the months and years to come. Congratulations, all!