First week at school

After all the paperwork hassles, the boys were both admitted to their respective schools and started classes on Tuesday. Rio at Floreat Park Primary School, and Sol at Churchlands Senior High School. Rio is in Year 4, and it is fairly similar to what he is used to at Doncaster, with a few big differences: school is in English rather than French, except for the language class which is Italian; they have to wear a uniform, including a big floppy hat that must be worn outdoors at all times, including winter; each student is assigned to a "house" (his is called Perry) and if they do something good, they gain points for their house (like in Hogwarts); and there is a wide range of lunches for purchase on a daily basis (he is looking forward to 'bacon blitz' - doesn't quite sound like it would pass the healthy food test in Canada!). He will be learning recorder in music, and next term he can choose between tennis and Tae Kwon Do as his 'special sport' (squash was full already, and anyway, probably wouldn't have made much sense for him to do a beginner squash program). He is leaning towards tennis.

For Sol, the transition is more striking, because he has a different teacher and different peers for each class. He is also in a school that is five times as large as what he is used to, with 1500 students over 5 year grades. He was assigned a buddy, Eric, who is not actually in any of his classes, but he has made friends in his classes as well, so has been able to get help finding his way around as needed. He has the usual core subjects, plus woodworking, art, cooking, and Mandarin. His Mandarin class seems to consist of doing one worksheet and then playing on the computer (not educational Mandarin games, either!). Needless to say, the parents aren't too impressed, but he seems happy with it. Sol is in a House called Floreat, which is a nice coincidence since that's our neighbourhood. The school Houses are all named after beaches in the area. They gain points more through sports competitions than through doing good deeds. Floreat is in last place in the house ranking at this point, so he will have to help them to win some points.

Chris has been working from home most of the week and has been doing the bike ride to school with Rio, but we are hoping to figure out another after school plan for him so that Chris can work from the University as intended. I was hoping to find some after school activities, but nothing has materialized yet. I went to check out the squash club today - lessons cost $70 for half an hour, and a court is $32 for an hour, so that's not going to be a regular option, unfortunately! The closest junior squash program is half an hour's drive away, so we'll have to figure out how/whether they can participate in that at all.