school update
Sep. 20th, 2009 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Or on how painful it is to be a parent (a follow-up to this previous post
So after two weeks of worrying and two nights of lying awake in mental anguish, we are finally after all moving t'younger son to the private school where his brother goes. I am much relieved. We know that school, we know its faults and its advantages, my mind is at rest.
England sucks you into the class system, whether you want it to or not. Sending t'son to the (state) village college just did not feel right. I went to a tutorial evening at the school on Thursday with some concerns and questions, and none of the three people I asked (form teacher, year manager, school principal) could really set my mind at rest. Also, their answers contradicted each other, and there seemed to be a certain amount of 'oh, I don't know'. I really was not reassured.
We rang t'older son's private school in a state of desperation on Friday morning, and they still had a place available! Twice we turned them down, and third time lucky!
We then sat t'son down in a café in town and talked about it all with him but this time we were not swayed by any of his arguments. He has by now made some friends at his new school so the situation is not the same as it was last week where I was upset because he was so sad and lonely. But I realise it's not only about him being happy, it's also about me (and us) being happy. It's tough for him to have to re-start all over again at yet another new school, only two weeks and 3 days after having gone through it once, but in a term's time this will all be behind him, and we have to think of the next five years not just the next five weeks.
God, it's hard being a parent, not knowing whether you've made the right decision or not, and having to decide for someone else. I remember the very first decision I had to make for t'older son, when he was about 2 minutes old and a mewling babe, and the midwife asked, 'so do I have your consent for this whateveritwas injection?' You have to give it to newborns or not at all, so there was no time to do research or get opinions, and we had to decide for him.
But I'm sleeping again, and today I lay in the sun with Turgenev's Torrents of Spring, a marvellous novel, by the way, so my mind has calmed down.
So after two weeks of worrying and two nights of lying awake in mental anguish, we are finally after all moving t'younger son to the private school where his brother goes. I am much relieved. We know that school, we know its faults and its advantages, my mind is at rest.
England sucks you into the class system, whether you want it to or not. Sending t'son to the (state) village college just did not feel right. I went to a tutorial evening at the school on Thursday with some concerns and questions, and none of the three people I asked (form teacher, year manager, school principal) could really set my mind at rest. Also, their answers contradicted each other, and there seemed to be a certain amount of 'oh, I don't know'. I really was not reassured.
We rang t'older son's private school in a state of desperation on Friday morning, and they still had a place available! Twice we turned them down, and third time lucky!
We then sat t'son down in a café in town and talked about it all with him but this time we were not swayed by any of his arguments. He has by now made some friends at his new school so the situation is not the same as it was last week where I was upset because he was so sad and lonely. But I realise it's not only about him being happy, it's also about me (and us) being happy. It's tough for him to have to re-start all over again at yet another new school, only two weeks and 3 days after having gone through it once, but in a term's time this will all be behind him, and we have to think of the next five years not just the next five weeks.
God, it's hard being a parent, not knowing whether you've made the right decision or not, and having to decide for someone else. I remember the very first decision I had to make for t'older son, when he was about 2 minutes old and a mewling babe, and the midwife asked, 'so do I have your consent for this whateveritwas injection?' You have to give it to newborns or not at all, so there was no time to do research or get opinions, and we had to decide for him.
But I'm sleeping again, and today I lay in the sun with Turgenev's Torrents of Spring, a marvellous novel, by the way, so my mind has calmed down.