Alfie's School Visit

The New Zealand education system is a little different to other countries, in that children start school here on the day they turn 5 years old.

(Actually in theory you can choose to make it any day you like after their 5th birthday, with the law stating only that they start school before the age of 6. But in practice most kids start on the day they turn 5).

This makes for quite a unique system where the 5th birthday is a hugely important milestone, and new children are drip fed into school throughout the year, rather than all starting as one class at the beginning of term.

Before their birthday most schools give the child the opportunity to go and spend a couple of hours at school a few times, the "School Visit". Due to the timing of Alfie's birthday (following the summer holidays and public holidays) it meant that he only gets one school visit before he turns five and that was today.

We weren't too worried as he's pretty familiar with the school already, having spent lots of time dropping Molly off and collecting her and attending various school functions. He's also fortunate to start early in the school year while the class is still only very small - there are currently only about 8 children (although that will grow as the year goes on). But small is good I think, for a little while anyway, just while he gets used to the changes.

So off he went, clearly full of nerves but also full of excitement and being very brave. He met his new teacher (who happens to be Molly's old teacher), met his classmates (some of whom he already knew, including one of his best mates), hung his bag and hat up and ordered me to leave. All good so far.

As far as I can establish, what happened next was: he listened to the other kids doing "news" about teddy bears, he did some drawing and some reading. Then it was time for morning tea, and they all went outside to eat. Molly and her best pal Lara came down to see them and organised a game of "tag" and here's where it all went a little wrong.....

When I returned to collect him at 11am, he was sitting on the floor by the teacher with a big egg on his head, a bump and a graze and an icepack looking very sorry for himself indeed. He'd been running too fast and collided with a big piece of wood. Ouch.

Currently he is not looking forward to starting school for real next week!