A new year, one month in and one full week back at school!
This time last year, I was stressing about Pup starting high school – and now I just feel silly! It seriously was a waste of energy because this year we cruised through the start of the year. Except for the ‘Textbook Issue” that is. Two days into the new term and Pup informed me that he doesn’t have any textbooks BUT all his classmates do. This confused me for a while because I assumed that he would be given a form to take home requesting payment details… Because it was now a Friday afternoon, I decided not to worry about it until Monday. And we all know those teachers and staff simply do not hang around on Fridays unless they really have to – and then they can be just a little bit cranky…
I phoned the school on Monday and spoke to a lovely lady, who asked me if I had the newsletters emailed to me. I replied, “Yes”. She then asked if I had the last one from last year. Fortunately I did because that one goes to my ‘junk’ email account, so I could honestly reply – Yes again… She then told me that the form was attached to the email. I responded that I didn’t see it and she replied, “Nobody did”. I’m still confused about how the other kids got their textbooks in the meantime…
Poor Cub is now in year six and Wow! The homework has been a massive shock for both of us. For the last two years he had the same teacher and her homework requirement were sporadic and bordered on almost nonexistent. This year he has a new teacher and she must really have loved homework when she was a child. Each day, (including Fridays) he has to write out a times tables four times, write out 25 spelling words, 5 sentences, read for 15 minutes, complete a handwriting task, and help with some housework. Then there are two other tasks to complete during the week and those choices range from discussing his religious beliefs with an adult to playing a board game with an adult to researching his favourite element and creating a chart for it. As Nana put it, when is it Cub time?
You’d think there would be some sort of uniformity in how much homework and what tasks were required. Pup never had that amount of homework in Year 6 or 7 so I guess it depends on the teacher. Fortunately Cub loves to read and does so anyway. Can you imagine if he was a ‘non-reader’? He already makes his own bed and sometimes helps out with dinner, so I reckon that counts as housework. I have the privilege of signing off on each task (daily) too so I have homework too! I wonder how many parents are going to cheat and simply sign for those tasks…
So far Foal is enjoying Year 2. The highlight is his teacher’s bird. It spends the day in the classroom ringing its bell and apparently when she starts talking about “boring stuff”, it starts shrieking. Then she covers it up and it quietens down for a bit. She seems to be really strict so fortunately Foal is well behaved.
The school is also phasing in a new school uniform. Foal has decided that he does not like it and will not wear it. This from a child who can be very stubborn! Even as a baby, it took us all of winter to get him to wear a jumper and all of summer to get him out of it. Hopefully when he is the only one in the school wearing the old uniform, he’ll be more inclined to change over…
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