School reports

While we were away in October we missed Angel and Star's scheduled parent-teacher evening and the opportunity to get feedback from their class teachers about how they are doing at school. This week we spoke to both teachers on the phone. Guess what? Despite having never been to school before, both girls have settled in beautifully and got glowing reports. I got the impression that the teachers were a little surprised at how easily they had adapted to school, though they were too polite to say so - I am no longer offended by the assumption that home educated children must somehow miss out on proper socialisation, just amused!

Angel's teacher was delighted with her - apparently she is well behaved, polite, working well, popular, throwing herself into everything with enthusiasm and a delight to have in a class. And you would never guess she was new to school.

We expected a good report of Angel, but Star was more of an unknown quantity given her natural out-of-the-box tendencies. Again her teacher was very happy - she is "bright, breezy and buoyant", behaving well, sensible(!), sociable and generally an asset to the class. Interestingly, her teacher was anticipating problems with her as she was very hyper at her taster day back in July, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the hyper classroom monster he was expecting didn't materialise.

So ... so far, so good. We may still be in the honeymoon period, but at least it is encouraging that the girls have both got off to a good start. And I admit to feeling a little smug that at least two teachers now know that homeschooling does not mean deprived, unsocialised children who would struggle to cope in a classroom. Ha!