One missed day due to fever.
Welcome to my son and new children’s germs.
Sigh.
Tag Archives: School
When You Walk To School…
You get to see the men unloading trucks in front of Iceland and get to watch the lift on the back of the truck go up and down.
You get to see a train at the train station and get to watch it leave.
You get to see how many front doors you can count.
You get to jump into puddles.
You get to say hi to lots of dogs.
You get to carry an umbrella.
You get to point out all the flowers and berries you see.
So who would want to drive?!
And So School Begins…
And Adam had a very wet walk to and from school today. But we did it. More importantly, he did it, with really no fuss. Despite being soaked by the time we got home. And cold!
Although I gave us an hour to go the 1.3 miles to school this morning, we did it in my actually predicted time of 45 minutes. So we’ll leave the house 10 minutes later tomorrow, giving us a bit of a cushion, just in case.
Of course, that 45 minutes includes the million years (hyperbole at it’s best) it takes to get a green light at Finaghy Crossroads. We probably actually walk for about 35. I kid you not.
To be fair, we have three lights to wait for, but the one at the Crossroads definitely takes the longest!
The nice thing about the walk to school is that it’s mostly down hill.
Which, obviously, means the walk home is mostly up hill.
But we made it home in about 45 minutes as well.
Including the 10 million years waiting at the Crossroads…
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off To School He Goes…
So, as I’ve mentioned, Adam starts pre-school in September.
Which means a new childcare situation.
I hate this.
Forget the fact that I hate the telephone and would rather email and text people.
There’s the fact that you never really know if the person or people will be good at looking after your children.
But I do need additional care for him. I currently have about 24 hours a week childfree. 16 of those tend to be used for the company, whether working for clients, looking for new clients, doing my books or what have you. That leaves 8 for everything else I like to do without a small boy underfoot, like clean the house and get some rest.
Preschool is only 15 hours per week, 3 hours a day. I will in reality probably have 2 hours a day to due commute time.
So I’ve just gone from 24 hours a week to 10…
So our goal is to find someone or some place to take care of him for at least 2 days, adding at least 8 hours to my childfree time.
Still not ideal. But 18 is better than 10.
So I’m looking for a child minder or a nursery who will pick him up from school and hold onto him for the afternoon.
Anyone local have any recommendations?
Adam’s Next Great Adventure…
In the UK, every child who turns 3 is eligible for a 15 free hours of pre-school the following September. In Northern Ireland, unlike other parts of the UK, this is not guaranteed but depends on funding and space availability. Adam’s day care may have funded places in September, and his name is down for this, but we are exploring other options as well.
So today Adam, Simon and I went over to one of the local primary schools that has a pre-school, or playgroup as they call it, attached.
And loved it.
It’s a very small school, one class per grade and Adam might go there from playgroup through P7, as it’s called here. We put in our application on Wednesday and then hear if he has a place at the end of March.
The only problem with sending him there is it is only 2.5 hours a day, although 5 days a week. And, I think, it’s too far for his current day care’s pick up programme, so I either need to sort alternative child care a few days a week or figure how to work in only, about, 10 hours a week, which is how much time I will have minus Adam’s commute back and forth.
But, I must say, Mummy wobbled. He’s so little! And we’re looking at primary schools! It’s so different from the US.
Unless things have changed from when I was a kid, you went to pre-school or nursery until you were 5, then kindergarten and then first grade at 6.
Here you go to pre-school at 3. Start P1, which is pretty much kindergarten, at 4. And what amounts to first grade at 5. A whole year earlier than I am used to.
There is also the fact that his birthday is in June. The cut off for pre-school admissions for Northern Ireland for September 2012 is age 3 at 1st July 2012. So he will be one of the youngest in his class. Totally opposite from what I am used to, as my birthday is in February (less than a month, in fact) and was always one of the older ones in my class.
So I’m still a bit shell shocked by it all.
But it seems to be a good school and will be one of the, if not the, first choice for us for his primary for sure. I love the classrooms, with tables rather than desks and many multimedia aspects to each class, whether that means computers or the Egyptian head from paper mache made by the P4 students. I love the fact that our tour guide was P6, so about 10, and was articulate and polite. And amazed when I told him that I do for a living what he was learning in his computer class, where they were working on laying out pages for magazines and posters.
I love the fact that the uniform is a jumper (sweatshirt material) in the school colours with a white polo underneath, rather than the shirt and tie I see so many young kids in around here. Yes, even at 3 and 4 years old.
So it was a good day and I learned a lot about schools here in Belfast.
But I’m still a bit wobbly.
MY BABY!