First day of school

Today was Angel and Star's first day at school! The schools here have an "intake day" near the end of the school year when children who are moving schools go to their new school for the day, and others have a taster day in their new year groups. They get to meet their new teachers and classmates, to learn their way round the school, and generally find out what to expect when the new academic year starts in September.

So, by eight o'clock this morning both Angel and Star were dressed in a passing imitation of school uniform (black trousers / white shirt), bags and lunches packed, and ready to go. Angel's personal spies had already found out for her what class she would be in; Star still had to wait and see. Angel spurned the offer of a lift in favour of walking with J-next-door; A-next-door opted to come in the car with Star and myself. We regrouped at the school, checked in, and I left Angel waiting to be taken off to her new classroom, and Star in the school hall with 130 or so other new Year 5s waiting to be allocated to their classes.

Fast forward seven hours ... Angel waves "hi and goodbye" to me as I wait for Star and heads back home on foot; Star emerges tired and over-excited but happy.

How did it go? Both girls are happy with their new classes. Angel is not with any of her close friends, but is with a good friend of J-next-door she already knew, and they have teamed up happily. Her classroom is the IT suite (IT = information technology = computers), which is considered a perk as they get swivelly office-style chairs and a computer on their desk. However, it does mean they have to go to other rooms for most of their lessons so end up as a peripatetic class. They also have the teacher reputed to be the nicest of the Year 8 class tutors. As well as some introductory stuff they had three taster lessons - history, music and "food technology" (which in my day was known as cookery!). History was declared boring, music good, and food tech "a bit odd" (they couldn't do any cooking today, so ended up writing "healthy" menus). At lunch time Angel went on a mission to find out the name of every child in the Year 8 playground, all 150 of them. "I knew quite a lot of the girls," she said, "but none of the boys, so I went up to everyone I didn't know and asked who they were." Right. You know how it is with homeschooled children. They suffer from lack of socialisation and find it very hard to mix with others. Not.

Star found herself in a class with R, one of her closest friends, and another old friend, H. These three went to nursery together as tinies; R went to one school, H to another and Star to none at all, and now there they are sitting in a row at middle school. What goes around, comes around! Star also has another friend from Brownies with her. She is happy, and so am I ... if I could have picked her classmates I couldn't have done better. Her class teacher, Mr.W is reputed to be nice but quite strict, which is just exactly what Star needs. They spent most of the day on "getting to know you" games and activities.

Of course, today was a fun day and it will all be different once real work starts next term, but I'm happy the girls have got off to a good start. I had no doubt that Angel would settle easily, but being with these particular friends bodes very well for Star.

As for myself and Little Cherub ... we had a good day. I decluttered my wardrobe and got rid of two bags of clothes, then in the afternoon took Cherub to the library and to the toddler group at our Church, where she almost came to blows with a small boy over possession of a toy mobile phone. Cherub may be small, but like her eldest sister is not shy and retiring!