More school talk...

Okay, so I am really impressed with the school my kids started attending 3 days ago. I know it's still early days, but I really can't see it deteriorating any time soon!


Of course the only school systems I have to compare it too, are the ones in South Africa (both my kids school, and my own) and way....way....way back, when I was in school in Zimbabwe and the UK. Back in S.A. my kids were in government schools. My oldest was in Grade 1 with 37 other children, a few of them battled with English, and one couldn't understand English AT ALL!! The children who were doing 'well' had to help those who weren't coping, and became like 'little teachers' themselves, because the teacher just couldn't cope with 37 children all on her own. ( I am not surprised!!) The first grade teacher actually admitted that she had so many "difficult" children, that she spent a lot of her time trying to help them keep up, and was forced to leave the more "advanced" kids to their own devices (so to speak). It is very sad, to see how these teachers battled along. I often used to pass the classrooms and hear them screaming at the kids, I am sure it was often out of pure frustration! Once a term we would have parents day, where we would queue up outside the classroom, and get to spend about 5 minutes chatting to the teacher, to try and make sure all was in order with our little ones.


Since Monday (when the school year officially began), I have had ten emails from the school. That's right.....TEN!! Three from the principle, and the rest from the teachers my kids are going to. I have been to two separate grade orientations, met the teachers personally twice, and met the chairman of the PTO twice. It's actually hard to get used to! I'm not used to having so much interaction with the teachers. The one teacher even said she doesn't mind us phoning her in the evening, just as long as it's not too late!! (can you believe it??)


The classes are not allowed to have more than 20 children in them, and Kellan (my second grader) has 2 teachers. One takes the class for Maths, Social Studies & Science. Whilst the other takes him for language and arts. And they are SO organised! Every parent gets Internet access to their kids school records, I could go and look at everything my child has done at school, his grades, homework, syllabus and textbooks.....EVERYTHING!


So as you can tell, I'm pretty excited about the school here. And what is so wonderful is seeing how excited the kids are about going to school. It makes my life as 'Minister of Home Affairs' a whole easier!!