Illness and business and stupid Blogger have caused me to post too little in recent weeks. I miss it. Random observations are getting backed up, and then dribbling away into the ether.
My daughter went for an introductory morning at her Project School this morning, to great success. The kids were brilliant, played away at their tables while the headmaster gave a talk, we met her new teacher, who seems lovely, and approachable. She had a play, then we went down to the hall for a drink and a biccie and I had a chat to some of the parents, introduced my daughter to another girl who looked like a likely friend, same age, same height, and within seconds they were racing up and down and playing, we got invited to her birthday and made plans for summer playdates. Excellent!
Her mother said she feels shy herself, finds things like today a little daunting. My take on this is that you just have to brazen it out - those of you who know me will know I have no problem talking to people - and talking and talking - I was painfully, horribly shy as a kid, I would just go red and stand in a corner, I HATED parties and would be in the kitchen asking the mum if I could help, anything to avoid the torturous, seething agony of Pass the Parcel. So when I hit my teens and was meeting big groups of people I decided to just go for it, and made up an outgoing, jolly persona to get me over the shyness. It's been irritating at times, but I still think it's better than being beet red in a corner (though I am still afflicted with self conscious blushing, just less so, thank god).
Anyway, I had to drag my daughter out of there, she wanted to stay, she wants to go now. My own negative feelings about primary school are washed away in a tide of Love after this morning, I can't wait for her to get started. The class will be 29 strong, better than I expected, but good old Mary let us down at not bringing it down further. It should be more like 12, but at least it's not 35. I hope that much of what's wrong with primary school in this country is in the process of changing, and that the Project school will really embody the child centred approach they project. For the class of 29, they had to turn down 140 - there are (soon to be)56 Project Schools in the country compared to 3,000 denominational schools. It seems our govt is very slow to respond to public demand, doesn't it?
5 comments:
I am still afflicted with self conscious blushing, just less so, thank god
hehe I get that too, I used to be horrendously shy as a teenager and to make up for it used to drink far too much to get around it.
Aw! Well, may I say that you're doing remarkably well in your twenties :)
Glad you liked the school, Jo, it's great, isn't it
Super biscuit cake by the way.
are project schools like 'educate together's?
Yep, that's the one.
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