Good afternoon everyone,
It’s an exciting moment for all of us to celebrate, one where we conclude 13 long years of countless homework, parent teacher conferences and last minute cramming.
As international students, we are amazed by the energy, focus, and excitement brought into graduation festivities here in Sweden and we are incredibly grateful for all of the work the school community has put into making sure we can properly celebrate this great achievement next to all of those who have helped us along the way.
When we first sat down to write this speech, we hit a bit of a roadblock. It wasn’t only because we were sleep deprived but because it isn’t easy to properly remember and honour these past two years filled not only with an incredible amount of stress but with great friendships, both with our classmates as well as with our teachers and staff.
So, we started reflecting on our time here.
On the transition from the annexes, on changing lockers, on the coming and going of friends, on all of the routines that slowly became normal without us even realising it.
As an international school, there is a constant change in SIS shaped by people who come in in the middle of the grade, last-minute moves away, and many tear-filled goodbye hugs.
And while change can be exciting, it is especially known to be bittersweet.
Part of us loves the idea of new beginnings and new places. But another part wants to hold on a little longer to the small moments that made these years what they were. The moments that seemed ordinary at the time, but somehow became meaningful:
Like trying to open room 424 20 times because the button never worked, running away from fish days even if we only had 10kr in our account, or opening a new CAS update from Ms Laura at 2am only to discover we had to rewrite all of our reflections again.
And before every big change, we begin to notice those details even more. We try to memorise them somehow, so that when everything changes, a part of them will stay with us.
The truth is, we will probably all remember SIS differently.
Years from now, some of us might forget that our principal is a lady of sealand, or that malignant code to Norra Latin that betrayed us every time we were late to class. But there are some things we don’t think any of us will forget.
We will remember practicing our final IOs for our parents at 3am while they begged us to go to sleep. We will remember sneaking off to 711 during our 3 minute bathroom break.
We will remember staring at a projectile motion question being just as confused as our physics teachers, and eventually giving up because if we don’t get it, no one else does.
Most of all, we will remember how we got through it together.
Because surviving the IB was never an individual effort. It was teachers staying after class to explain something one more time.
It was staff making sure this school was a place where we could learn every day. It was parents supporting us after every bad test, every stressful week, and every difficult moment.
And it was us — the Class of 2026 — being there for each other every single day.
We studied together, stressed together, complained together, and somehow made it through together.
Through fish days, CAS reflections, EE drafts, and all the moments where graduation felt impossibly far away.
And now we’re here
and Change is inevitable. Some of us are scared, some excited, and most of us are probably both.
But even as our lives change, and our memory of SIS fades and reconstructs itself, I hope we all leave feeling like we were part of something bigger than ourselves
— a community that supported us, challenged us, and helped shape who we are today even if we’re not a perfect reflection of the ib learner profiles.
So today, we want to say thank you.
Thank you to our teachers, for your patience, effort, and for always pushing us to do better than we thought possible. All those teachers who made sure we didn’t only enjoy their class, but every minute of the day. Personally, we would like to thank Ms. Paloma Nunez, our dp language coordinator, who has treated us as her own daughters for the past two years, for the good, the bad, and the in between.
Thank you to the staff, for everything you do behind the scenes to make this school feel like home.
Thank you to our parents and families, for supporting us through every difficult day and celebrating every success with us even when we couldn’t see it ourselves.
And finally, thank you to ourselves, the graduating class of 2026, for showing up for one another, for persevering, and for making it to this moment together.
We survived the IB, or at least, like Schrödinger’s cat, we can think we did until we open the results on the sixth of the seventh.
And now, like everything else at SIS, things are changing again.
We’re all about to leave this version of our lives behind and become different versions of ourselves somewhere else.
But that’s not something to be sad about, we don’t need to fixate on every mundane moment we used to experience and try to ingrain it deep into our brain. I mean, at least according to my parents, twelfth grade is one of the most memorable years of your life, more than university, more than your first job. Don’t take it from me, take it from them, you really won’t be able to forget us, even if you’d like to. Instead of obsessing over those moments, hold those reconstructed memories close and remember the community that made them special to who we are today
Graduates, thank you for making these years unforgettable and we wish you good luck in whatever change comes your way.
Even as you carry a piece of SIS with you, remember to keep making room for what comes next.
Congratulations class of 2026!
