Mae, Roxie and Soyona british school headcanons
grew up in North London, specifically the Barnet area (city girl Roxie my beloveddddd). she absolutely gives the uptight, frantic energy of someone who grew up in a busy, bustling city like London. plus she has The Accent
Barnet also has quite a high population of Indian people
she was raised by immigrant parents who wanted her to assimilate more into British culture (sadly England in the 1990s when Roxie grew up was pretty racist. still is now
went to a pretty “nice” primary school (age 5–11). it was pretty multicultural, but a lot of the Indian girls spoke Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Gujarati, etc with each other, and Roxie didn’t feel like she belonged with them
was kind of a tomboy in primary, and preferred to hang out with the boys and play football (sigh... soccer...) at lunchtimes on the field. she’d go into her afternoon lessons with grass stains on her knees and slightly messy hair
lived for the gym equipment and climbing ropes and ladders that she used maybe twice in her entire primary school life
always had the school lunches and i don’t know why
she was sooo proud to get her “pen license” in year 3 (it meant nothing but my gosh she hated writing in pencil so much)
mumbled along to singing assemblies every Thursday morning
she had people she hung around with but spent most of her break and lunchtimes reading. liked Enid Blyton the best. she’s read the Malory Towers series cover to cover at least ten times. she related a lot to Darrell (shoutout to the amazing Malory towers drama series on bbc iplayer!)
speaking of, she loved doctor who ever since she was a kid (the old series biggest crush on David Tennant (she has a thing for Davids XDDD)
she loved playing bulldog (game where two teams started at opposite sides of the playground and had to run past each other. this ended about as well as you’d expect). i feel like in primary she was a very rough and tumble girl
she spent most of her time from year 4–6 studying for an entrance exam for a really prestigious all-girls’ grammar school (school you have to pass an exam to go to) and managed to get in. but it was a very high pressure environment and she had to really be stricter on herself
she also struggled to get used to so few people actually wanting to do football with her. she sat out on the field for her whole lunchtimes in year 7 waiting for other people to hang out and no one ever came :(
always took the tube into school. she’s an expert in navigating the overstimulating hell that is the london underground
sports wise, they probably did the basic stuff like football, netball, athletics, and also did lacrosse and sports that require fancy facilities and expensive equipment
took sports day incredibly seriously. she was sports captain for her form and was coordinating races everyone did. she herself probably did 800m (no one else was doing it) and was part of the relay. she’s not that fast, but she is in decent fitness
she loved the school trips where they would wander around a museum or something with a clipboard. all three of them love them tbh, but Roxie goes on them the most because there’s a lot of museums in London. she is a regular at the natural history museum
did her dofe up to silver. she gave it a good go but a five day expedition was Too Much for her
really enjoyed doing tours around the school
gcses: triple science, geography, French (she had to do a language), religion, and pe (her team sports were football and netball, and her solo sport was athletics)
was probably a subject prefect or something /derogatory
a levels: biology, pe, maths
spent her early childhood in Holyhead, Wales. her parents are from Camden, London (where Mae’s va Kirby Howell-Baptiste is from) but Mae really does not give the vibes of a city girl
her parents moved to Wales because they wanted to raise their children in a quieter, calmer environment
Mae spends a lot of her early childhood walking around the seaside, going on long cliff top walks, and looking for fossils at the beach (i don’t actually know if there’s fossils in Holyhead but let’s say there are)
many family holidays were taken to Llantwit Major for fossils
she mentions her uncle having a fish market in London, which he could’ve started in Holyhead (seaside town with probably a lot of fishing opportunities) and moved to London for the economic benefits (London (and most of the South of England lbfr) hoards the country’s wealth
proficient in Welsh but has quite an English pronunciation of it
her primary school was very “nice” (inverted commas because it’s nice in an upper middle class white way; she was one of maybe three Black girls in her class
she didn’t have many friends. she kind of bounced around friends one at a time, and none of them really stuck because she was a pretty weird kid and people were quite put off by her
hugs fan of Biff, Chip and Kipper books when she was in reception-y2
she was the sweetest reading buddy (thing you do when you go to a younger class and help your assigned reading buddy read through a book) when she was assigned her’s in year 4. she felt like an older sister and she loved it
absolutely adored the world book day fairs when they’d go to her school and she could buy short stories with a pound, or with coupons. she was the first one there last one to leave. she was incredibly bookish
only one who actually tried in the singing assemblies
loved programming the bee bots in ict lessons
loved roast dinner wednesdays. it was the highlight of her week easily
also loved the plain iced cake + sprinkles + custard combination for desert
adored the magic of Roald Dahl. her favourite was Matilda, and she could probably recite half the book from memory at some point. also liked George’s marvellous medicine. she definitely tried to make a (non lethal!!) potion of her own. For Science
did not like her year 6 leavers school disco that much. she stood to the side of the dance floor and got kicked out of the bathroom by the mean girls gossipping in there
she showed a lot of academic potential in primary school, and Holyhead is a very small area, so her family moved to Kent, England
her secondary school was generally a very friendly place, very community oriented
her best subjects were consistently the sciences, but she worked hard in everything
actually really enjoyed food tech. since she made The Fruit Salad in year 7, she’s been doing it, and is a very competent cook
very proud to get her bunsen burner license in year 7
definitely was on the netball team in secondary. she’s okay at it, but she’s always been very tall so everyone wanted her on her team. she has terrible aim so she was always goalkeeper or goal defence
took house points very seriously
cried at her first detention because she thought it would be on her permanent record (it was only a lunchtime babes don’t even worry)
did her dofe all the way up to gold. she was very dedicated, and liked the feeling of accomplishment
gcses: triple science, geography, French, food tech, child development
a levels: biology, chemistry, psychology. she was prepping to go into medicine, but she knew she was always more interested in dinosaurs. the two interests kind of merged and that led her to study dinosaur brains
actually was head girl, or at least part of the head girl team
grew up in the quiet suburbs of Oxford — it’s full of old buildings and castles that she loved exploring, and it grew her interest in history
afaik quite a lot of rich people there, but Soyona’s family are not that rich; she worked for her money
went to a pretty average primary school. wasn’t terrible, wasn’t excellent
if she was born 5 years later, she would’ve adored the Rainbow Magic Fairies books (for those of you who don’t know, it’s a series about two girls going on adventures with different fairies. it’s great. i loved it)
hated how everyone messed around in art lessons. when everyone else was tidying up she was putting the finishing touches on her piece and putting it on those little white wire racks to dry
she was the deputy of the manhunt for the missing gluestick in every other art lesson
she was the only girl in her class who got paired with a reading buddy who was a boy, and she hated it. she warmed up to him eventually but he would never sit still (this was me lol
read a lot of Jacqueline Wilson books
playing in pe and sitting under the giant rainbow parachute to play games was the highlight of her week
sitting on the benches in assembly in year six felt like the achievement of her life. she was so proud. she felt so important
if loom bands were a thing when she was in school (they weren’t lol they’re much more recent) she would’ve been all over loom bands. she has looms, hooks, all sorts of colourful bands, the whole shebang
secretly cried on primary school leavers day. she got so emotional but she was so embarrassed and only went to her mum to cry later
was one of the mean girls gossipping in the bathroom of the school disco
she went to an absolute shithole of a secondary school. there was a fight in the corridors every week, and someone probably got stabbed there
look at Soyona. that is not someone who went to a super cushy secondary school. that is someone who went to the worst school in the county with chairs and desks held together by gum under them and paint peeling off the walls
year 7 was when she started dyeing her hair. she also straightened it a lot (it’s naturally a bit wavy) and generally treating it incredibly badly. rip Soyona’s hair get well soon <3
she always snuck her phone into lessons in the pocket of her blazer and kept texting her friends through her lessons. out of her friend group she was the only one who got caught :(
rolled up her skirt so often. she was always getting in trouble for rolling it up poor girl
she was one of those people who wore makeup even though you aren’t allowed to
if she was born earlier, she definitely would’ve vaped. she definitely drank underage though. she had her first drink at 13
the one who almost threw up in year 10 when they were dissecting eyeballs
got through most school days on either a slice of pizza or a sausage roll from the canteen
did her bronze dofe (certification you get that universities like. you have to volunteer, develop a skill, learn a sport, and go on an expedition) and hated it so much she swore never to do it again
in sixth form, she definitely tried out to be head girl but didn’t get it (it went to someone more popular
gcses: triple science, history, French, art, business
a levels: biology, business, maths. she didn’t know what else to do so she picked maths because universities like it
