It's been six years since Tiarni Mara first appeared in The Canberra Times, when she was a little girl about to embark on a big adventure.
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Like hundreds of other children across the territory on that day - Monday, February 4, 2013 - she was starting school.
It's such a common rite of passage it's easy to overlook, but the Mara family let The Canberra Times and our readers into their lives for that personal, emotional moment, and then again on Friday to share the final moments of Tiarni's primary school experience.
After the holidays the new adventure of high school will begin. In the meantime, many parents will be looking back, reminiscing about the day they sent their tiny child off into the world of big school in what was very likely an oversize uniform and an proportionally huge school bag.
They will no doubt think about their child's achievements throughout the years and about the pride they felt, and those emotional times when their children faced their first set of challenges. Tiarni's mother, Rose Mara, certainly is.
For many of the 5000 graduating children, primary school is where they started to become their own person. Primary school was where Tiarni developed a love of sport.
Now, she's a keen soccer star, coached by her dad Sean. She hopes to take her sporty skills to another level and play for the national premier league one day.
Mrs Mara is proud of who her "happy and resilient" daughter had become.
"She's sporty and loves being outside but she's always happy to come in and help me with dinner. She's the only one of my children that offers to help," Mrs Mara said.
Tiarni said she liked the song Dance Monkey by Tones and I and hoped to play it with her friends when they celebrated their graduation together.
Mrs Mara said she looked back at Tiarni's first day of school as a special day for the whole family because it was the start of a new era.
"We had just moved to Canberra from Melbourne and I hadn't made any friends yet, so Tiarni was my only friend at the time, when she started school it was a really big deal for me," she said.
Mrs Mara said that quickly changed when the mothers at Curtin Primary embraced her.
"That's the thing about Canberra," she said, "It's so community focused."
Tiarni is taking the step-up to high school in her stride. She said she thought it would be mostly the same as primary school but she was looking forward to more frequent physical education classes and fewer Indonesian language classes.
Tiarni's little sister Channel joined her at Curtin Primary this year. They said they would miss being together next year.
As for many children, Tiarni's school experience wasn't without its challenges. Mrs Mara said friendships and peer-group dynamics were tough to negotiate.
"It's the first time that people can really feel hurt," she said.
"It just doesn't stop, they have a tough day at school then they come home and it's online. There's no safe space anymore," she said.
Mrs Mara said she was anxious for her daughter about the changes that will come with being in high school.
Mrs Mara, who also has a 15-year-old son, said she was well aware of the challenges of being a teenager.
"There is a part of me that wants to protect her, but not too much, I don't want to stop her from experiencing real life, " Mrs Mara said.
But she is also enjoying watching her daughter grow and evolve, she said she looked forward to Tiarni finding her place in this world.
"It will be really interesting to see which direction she goes in life and what her interests will be."
