Schooling up here is a little different to school in the city. And it actually prefer the way things go up here-so afar!
When we had a visit to the school before the kids 'officially' started I was amazed at how friendly the other students were. Kaitlyn was introduced to the class and by the time we left the kids had all remembered her name and were asking where she would be sitting. The students in Bradley's class were the same. Now that I've met some of get the other mums we have got to talking and they all gangrene with how friendly the children are. Because this town is a mining town it means there are people coming and going frequently. The kids learn how to make friends fast with all the newbies and are a very welcoming bunch of students!
As far as actual schooling goes it's pretty different too.
For Kaitlyn this means NO IPADS!!!!! Yippee! It was so nice on Monday to sit in a classroom as parent helper and see the teacher using a whiteboard and story books to teach the children. It's been a long time since I've seen that. The kids were all listening and responding and doing a great amount of learning with no need to be sat at their own desk on an iPad not interacting. It was nice to see pre primary as a social, fun learning environment again :-)
The only down side I've found for Kaitlyn so far is the homework. She still has nightly reading and sight words which I'm good with but not only does she need to read the sight words but she has to be able to spell them as well!!! I think that's crazy. Thankfully though she is given 5 words at a time and she doesn't move on to the next words until she has learnt these ones. At her last school she got a new set of words whether she knew the old ones or not and she was given 10-20 words at a time!! So I like that she can take her time to learn them before being bombarded with the next set.
Bradley's class is just as friendly. He has a teacher that looks almost younger than me but is great with the kids. In his class in the morning the kids get a little whiteboard and marker and we sit down with them and they practice writing their name, numbers and drawing shapes. There is always some nursery rhymes playing in the background and it just has this great atmosphere.
Each classroom has a fridge for the kids to put their lunch boxes (as in summertime even the best ice blocks would melt up here) drink bottles are also kept there to keep them nice and cool.
The main school classrooms are all upstairs-something about allowing cool breezes or something like that!
There is also a lot of teachers coming and leaving so most teachers are fairly young-straight out of uni. But they seem to know what they are doing better than a few I have seen in the city!!
One of the main car parks for the school is right next to the tourist centre so come 2pm (pick up time) the carpark is full of grey nomads with their camper vans and caravans. Also once a month a meat truck comes and a seafood truck also comes and they use that carpark. We've also had a Simmos ice cream van for the last couple weeks in that carpark. Busy little carpark it is!!
Perhaps the absolute hardest part of this new school for me is the start and finish times.
In Perth the kids started at 8:50 and finished at 3pm.
Up here the kids start at 8am and finish at 2:10pm.
In Perth we woke up at 7:30 in the morning to get to school by 8:40 for the before school activities, now we leave home at 7:40am to be at school for 7:45 for the kids before school time with parents.
It's killing me!! I'm a morning person, but I'm a 'let's start our day at 8am' kind of morning person.
Getting up at 6:20-getting showered and ready and then having the kids up at 6:50 is killing me!! And the kids are wearing out a lot earlier in the evenings too I've noticed-though I see that as a positive :-)
Kaitlyn's first day of her new school
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