Sorry I've been gone for so long....
We went off to Devon with the dcs in August, then dh and I managed an unexpected 4 days alone in Brighton (thanks to my wonderful MIL and aupair) before the end of the summer hols...
Then suddenly the dcs were all going back to school and my extended maternity leave was coming to an end.....
It all happened in a bit of a rush, at the end....I realised I had absolutely no clothes, no shoes, no nothing, so spent a week pretty much living at Brent X in every childcare break, and then last Monday was D-Day :( :( :(
Tamara found returning to nursery really hard. I think it was a bit like S, LaT - she was in the same classroom as last year, with the same teachers, but all of her friends (and I mean all) had been moved into the other 2 classrooms with different teachers and children. I still don't know why T was the only one left, but I fought the school for weeks and they wouldn't budge....[grr] Even though we had talked about it all summer and about how she could go to the other classrooms to see her friends when she wanted (there's supposed to be some sort of 'free flow' system), the reality of arriving in her classroom on 5th Sept and not knowing any of the other children hit her :(
I found it really upsetting, as she was always so happy there, even on her very first days last year, and suddenly she was massively clinging and close to tears every morning.
Getting better now, though, but its been a difficult couple of weeks....
Meanwhile. DS also had a very rocky start to Yr2...he from being very chilled and happy to coming home really highy strung and out-of-control. Then last week, just as I went back to work, we had a class 'meet the teacher' evening.
The new teacher introduced the evening with "As you know, this class had some serious problems last year...."
No, we didn't know. It hadn't been communicated to us, and it went a long way to explaining the weird changes in ds' behaviour back at school.
Anyway, about half the parents were up in arms about it. Oh, and that's when I found out that ds had been in a fight that day....because the school hadn't notified me, and ds hadn't told me (I'd only got home at bedtime) but the teacher referenced "2 children did x and y" as part of her talk and one of the other mums came over and told me it was her dd and my ds at the end. Every other parent in the room knew, because their dcs had told them.
FWIW I stayed behind and had quite a strong word with the teacher....she was saying 'oh, well we deal with those things in school, i don't expect to tell the parents everything...and anyway, you weren't there at collection' and I suggested that if she wanted to make it common knowledge at a parents evening she should make sure the relevant parents were informed first.....
Sigh.
In the meantime, I've gone back to work to a completely new job with a new manager and no clue what I'm supposed to be doing....
So, DH and I are rethinking our school choices....DS is in a private junior school but we're not entirely blown away by it, and another school in the area has become government funded (ie shifted to state status) over the past few years....we're thinking about putting the girls down for there, instead, and possibly even moving DS over as a 'sibling' afterwards....its a great school with much much better facilities and I think it would take a lot of pressure off the whole working thing if we weren't committed to 3 sets of private school fees. Any thoughts?