Back to School

A. has now started at the Canadian International School so we have been waiting with bated breath and fingers-crossed to see how he gets on. It will be his third school in 9 months having finished at his kindergarten in December and then spent a couple of terms at the local ESF. We attended a "parents orientation" breakfast last week and it was amazing to see how teaching seems to have changed since those long ago days when I donned my short trousers and deep navy jumper to attend primary school. Although billed as a breakfast event the presentations lasted until around 10:30 and we heard from everyone from the head teacher to the School nurse - all with powerpoint presentations and hyper-text links to the relevant part of the school website. Communication was a big theme with teachers and support staff all emphasising their roles, aims and how they could be contacted (mainly email). It was very impressive and generated a very positive buzz among the 100 + parents who attended. For a school with 1,600 + students it has managed to avoid the rather impersonal air that large learning institutions can sometimes develope and E. and I were suitably buoyed by the experience. Last weekend was spent preparing A. for his first swimming lesson today. The weather was excellent and as a result the pool water was like a warm bath - perfect for swimming. A. made a huge breakthrough in donning his swim-goggles and swimming underwater for the first time. Of course having cracked it he spent the next couple of hours hurling himself into the pool from ever greater heights and then his 2 year old sister decided to follow suit so I spent most of the time catching V. and reminding A. to keep his mouth closed as he jumped in. Great fun was had by all. His swimming lesson also appears to have been a success although as usual trying to get A. tell us about his school day was like trying to get blood out of the proverbial stone. One of the hand-outs at last week's orientation was an extract from a newspaper article about how to elicit information from students about what they did at school. I am glad that we are not the only ones who are forced to adopt a combination of the cross-examination technique of George Carmen QC and the persistence of the Spanish Inquisition to find out what we are spending our money on!