Brand new MN Little Italy (22)

[Francagoestohollywood]

hello, ciao, etc

Believe me geordieminx, you do not want "unbearably hot". It does what it says on the box. Anyway, don't worry, Naples in sept. will be quite hot enough, esp. compared to Scotland. You should have been on this thread in july btw, when some of us were due to go to the UK and hoping it would rain and be nice and cool. I for one got my wish. Anyway, I've ony ever passed through Naples really (on my way to Ischia mostly), so no specific recommendations, but worth seeing and just experiencing really. Definitely get off the boat and sample the cakes at least.

Welcome back Franca. Brangelina is alive and well and posting on a BIDET THREAD

Ciao tutte!!! Am back, got back yesterday after a wonderful 3 weeks in Toscana. Was Sicily lovely Franca? Have you been on your mountain Sput? Is Rosa back? Everyone else? Pippi come back!! Brange are you around lurking? Hope alls fine with you and may join you on bidet thread

Welcome back Gio :)
I have been back and forth, every time we spend the night in Rome we do next morning on the beach, which is fun. This week is the last though before school starts again.

We are back on Wed so last few days and sun is forecast !!!!!Its going to be tough leaving this time worse than usual but will have lots to keep me occupied when we get back.
Hi Brange as am sure you will be popping in for a peak !

Hello I am back too... Not sure about you girls but I am freezing here - I am sureit was about 15 degrees when I left to go to work!

BTW, anyone else starting asilo this week for the first time (well, pre-materna actually)? Getting nervous but I WILL NOT SHOW IT!

Hello my dears, nice to see you all again

at Brangelina on the Bidet thread... they are difficult to resist those threads, aren't they? I wonder if we should start a massive, controversial bidet thread to lure all our missing little italians back

Gio, I saw your pics on fb and you all look fantastically happy, I gather you had a lovely time in Tuscany?

Minerva, yes, I remember I was very apprehensive when mine started nido (I think they were younger than yours) even if I was convinced it would have been a good experience for them.
Now, my youngest is starting prima elementare and I feel even more stressed, mostly because I'm not sure if she'll have the teachers, thanks to the cuts...

Eh, no teachers? The cuts are taking effect here too but I have not heard of anything as "dramatic" around here (at least not on the "Messaggero Veneto"). When will you know?

We are sending her to a private pre-materna (she is 2) as no other choice in our comune, so in theory there should be no issues...

I feel the imact of my holiday has alreay disappeared into thin air...

Minerva, sorry I was being melodramatic
My children do "tempo pieno", where there are usually 2 teachers alternating (one does math/science the other italian/history etc) and often teaching together (the famous "compresenze", used to do projects, laboratori etc, which is one of the best thing of tempo pieno).
But the reform has cut the hrs to the teachers (so no compresenze anymore) and apparently our school has lost 3 cattedre this year, this means that the teachers will have to work in more than 1/2 classes.
Also, if they are lucky, only 1 teacher will be "di ruolo", the other is temporary, so we don't know who he/she is, and when she/he will start.
And another thing. 3 yrs ago, when ds started the classes were smaller (20/21 pupils), this year they are bigger (25)

OK, but I can see how that would lead to some anxiety on the first day!!!!

25 sounds fairly normal though - perhaps not ideal but doable if there is at least some turnover between the teachers.
I am no teacher though (that's one profession I would have never chosen ...) and we were only 12-13 when I was at primary school (small village though...) so I really know nooooothing.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good holiday though - mine was fab despite the fog we found in COrnwall...

I'm a bit anxious, yes. And given that I pay my taxes etc, I expect to have what they had promised, iyswim...

Awwwww Cornwall... I'd love to go to Cornwall

You can tell that I'm a bit p* with that gelmini, eh???

So am I - I do not think all her ideas are bad, but I just do not think her new system as a whole is a step forward towards a better education system.

Over here private schools are slowly realising this and the choice and quality of what's on offer is actually improving, I have to say. I would hate it if the whole thing became a two-tier system like the UK...

Cornwall eh? I go there all the time (in laws are there)... Just bloody far!!!!

Some of her ideas on the reform of the University aren't that bad, though it is not clear how they will be implemented.

But the indiscriminate cuts to all the levels of state education (while still funding private schools) are shocking imo. They are just cutting resources, why, for instance cut the hrs to the teachers in scuole materne? What's the pedagogic need?
I also don't think that the quality of Italian private schools have raised in the meantime. There is not a single private school here in Milan where I'd be 100% happy to send my children.

Cornwall is far, I know. We used to live in devon, it took us a long time to travel back to Italy.

Are private schools really publicly funded? Why, I wonder. I know nothing about all this tbh. I was talking with someone a while ago about a private school in Rome, according to them the private schools here are really authoritarian, is this the case generally?

I guess the materne are an easy target aren't they? I never heard anything re our application in Rome, but highly unlikely to get offered a place. As it turns out that would be ok as with DS's language difficulties I don't want him to be exposed to Italian at this point, but otherwise I would be annoyed.

I believe the plans are for Catholic schools to receive some kind of state funding, but I am not sure where we are with that.

Here private schools (especially primaries) have upped their game massively - smaller classes, native speakers as English teachers, have got Invalsi scores higher than the local/national average (!), uniforms etc... Not sure about the authoritarian aspect Sputnik, but then I do feel that the Italian system is a bit more "authoritarian" than the British one on average.
I think the implementation of the Gelmini ideas is truly shocking: for instance I could understand cutting the second European language if that meant improving the teaching of English, but what does she do? She cuts one AND the other. Madness.

Hi - back from mil's in Italy - I'm alive - ds had a much better time as he had a little friend to play with for 3 entire evenings (!).

But the weather was naff (hotter in London) but that's OK as ds doesn't do hot.

Spent three weeks at my mum's to recover.Back in London now and getting ds ready to start school (sooner the better).

Hum - I thought that Italian schools were fairly 'secular' - oh god - please don't let them follow the british model of faith schools. But that's because ds will never benefit from a faith school so it's sour grapes on my part, obviously.

Hope everyone had a good summer.

welcome back giveitago, glad you survived! Whereabouts is your mil again?
Sput you might find you get a call re materna, loads dropped out of ds's class by November!
Had a meal out with a friend last night and felt rough and tired all day! didnt drink that much wine either. I am a lightweight and not worthy of the nationality British anymore

Hi Giveitago, welcome back, glad you survived your mil!
Italian state schools are theoretically secular, but children do 2 hrs of RE (mostly just catholicism) a week. They just do 1 hr of english per week .

The majority of private schools are run by nuns, priests, catholic organizations

Catholic private schools (only if they are "paritarie" I believe) get funding from the ministro dell'istruzione or the regions.
Often funding is given directly to the parents who have children at private schools... I remember watching an episode of Report on rai3, basically families get 1000 euros... and pay 7.000 euros instead of 8.000 euros fee. Hardly benefitting families on lower incomes who want to send their kids to a private school.

Why are they funded? To lick the Vatican's ass and to get rid of state education (another interesting thing was the law passed by Moratti when she was ministro dell'educazione to fund private universities...)

Scuole materne comunali (those managed directly by the council) are on average excellent here in Milan, and I really can't understand why they wanted to touch them.
I'm appalled that you haven't heard from your materna yet Sputnik .
I remember I enrolled dd in february and the graduatorie came out in May!
I totally agree with you that for master sputnik an english materna is the best.
And I think I would have been immensely tempted to send my kids to an english school. But the one in Milan is extremely uptight and it seemed to me too "fighetta", while I'd have loved the scruffy, fluffy, inclusive English school

Gio, I think you should be ashamed of yourself |!!!!!!!!

I am a lightweight too, more than 2 or 3 glasses and I am a wreck the next day.
I was told at the time by the materna that our chances were worse than remote, in our area there are about 3 times more children applying than there are places. I think it's like that in much of the periferia.

Anyway, I'm also wondering if my DCs have maybe been "lost in the system" during our change of residence, as I ought to have been contacted surely about DD re the elementare, which she would have been going to if she wasn't at the English school. Wonder if they will wake up about that.

Welcome back btw Giveitago, sounds like you were here for Ferragosto, it warmed up again after that. Right now it is pleasant.

We are back in Rome now after longish stretch in the mountains, we discovered an english-speaking family actually on our road, they moved in not long after we left. Anyway they have 2 boys similar ages to our lot. They run around barefoot, it is very refreshing but the paese disaproves, obv. Anyway we had a great time bitching about schools, colpi d'aria etc etc while our DCs entertained each other :)

Ah ah at the running around barefoot and the colpo d'aria... We also had to laugh at the questionnaire that we had to fill in for the asilo - one of the questions was "come sono vissute in famiglia le piccole malattie del bambino?". I bet they would not ask that in the UK. We answered "in tutta serenità".

There are two English-speaking schools in Udine (which is frankly amazing given that the population is less than 100,000 people). One is American and one is more British. We chose the British one because it was really in an old (and a bit tatty) building and we liked the infant teachers (one is a cockney and the other one a Canadian with mad bright yellow hair!!!!)...

I wouldn't even know how to begin to immagine how to answer that question!

So has your DD started then yet MI?

So we are all slowly coming back to reality !
Back here and I am in a strop with it all . The house is ok coming along but the plumber needs to get his tubes in action as things are riding on him right now. Have unpacking and so much sorting out to do. Thought dd was going back to school on MOnday now it looks like Thurs ( could have stayed in the Uk for nipotinas birthday party). DH was a git yesterday after all that I went through the night before ( Nonno was taken into hops with heart probs at 3am so I diddn't go back to bed raced round like a loony to get us all set and obviously was upset at leaving anyway) I got no words of sympathy, nothing and it was obvious how upset I was despite not crying in front of the dd. ANyway nonno is ok now they have no idea why it happened he is on new drugs and it could have been them but I wish I haddn't been leaving when he was in !
I really don't know much about the schools I feel that I just have to accept it I hate the thought of not giving the dds the best but until we get the letter about the elementare that we can choose from and we go and see them then I feel we are pretty much tied up. The only British school is in Mestre and its a bus ride away. I feel that putting dd in there is not fair on her for making friends and things . I went to a private school and in all the local events I was always the odd one out as I diddn't know anybody and some of the kids were so mean as I went to the posh place. NOt putting dd through that .
MInerva when were you in Cornwall ( and where ?)

thats good re an English speaking family nearby Sput, very important to have people who understand colpo d'aria etc . I am worrying myself however because alongside my intolerance for alcohol I am also sniffing away with the signs of a cold from the cambio di stagione. Oh and I wrapped ds in a robe instead of letting him dry off naturally on the beach after being in the sea in the August heat much to my mate's disgust. Need to have a word with myself methinks!
Rosa am sorry to hear about your Dad but glad he seems better now. Must have been horrid having to leave when he was still in. Hope you have managed to get plumber moving!

Rosa, I am for you!! Poor you - I am glad nonno is getting better and things are improving now, but I am sure it's extra stress you could do without.

In Cornwall we we normally stay close to Hayle (DH is from around there originally so lots of family).

Re: the schools. DD just started pre-materna on wed - no public option here for that age so we have to go private and in the centre town as no local private either. Next January we will face the choice of keeping her there or moving her to the local state materna from nest Sept. I suppose we are lucky in that we know that we have a place at the local materna and primary. However, we have no idea if they are any good (not visited yet) and if they aren't, we are stuffed as the only option then is private in a different comune.

And unfortunately I do think it matters - my sister and I went to the local not very good media and going to liceo/ITI was a colossal shock. I survived, but my sister struggled a lot, lost a year and any interest in education. Even if it all ended well thanks to $$$$$$$$ in private tuition, a lot of positive family support and the fact she found her "niche", my sister feels she has a huge educational gap and finds it really hard to think about that period of her life (15 yrs ago!).

I am sure it's not supposed to be this hard - this parenting lark ...