Yesterday was my daughter's middle school graduation ceremony (or, as they call it, "promotion").
Since I don't know why they use "promotion" instead of "graduation," I'm not sure if I find it irritating, but what I do find irritating is when 366 kids have to walk and have their names announced and the principal asks that folks hold their applause until everyone has been announced but 75% of the kids get huge whoops and shouts. Most of the time I say "whatever," but occasionally, some group keeps it up long enough that it becomes difficult to hear the next kid's name (which I assume sucks for that next kid's family).
The other thing I found odd (but not rising to the level of irritating) is how many folks made a HUGE deal out of a middle school graduation in terms of massive bunches of balloons and flowers and money necklaces and what-not. I was talking with one of my daughter's friend's mother, and she was saying, "I feel like the 'bad mom' for not having any flowers or anything." I said we didn't get anything for our daughter either (and hadn't gotten anything for our son two years earlier) because it's just middle school, and 90+% of the kids will be attending the same high school next year (in the district where we live, six elementary schools feed into two middle schools, which feed into one high school). It's nice to have a ceremony, but it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
In our district, the mascots for the two middle schools are Lions and Eagles, and the high school mascot is Griffins. I don't know why, but I think that's vaguely clever.