Category Archives: School

Back to school in eight steps

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It’s a week of mixed feelings here as the old routine kicks in again. Last week, my mornings were quite tolerable (and I say this as a non-morning person). Up at 7.30am, out the door by 8.15am, and, wallop, I was at my desk by 9am. No cajoling children into school uniforms, no bullying them out the door and no 30-minute detours to deposit them at school.

At exactly 6.30am today, this all changed – thanks to the early-bird school starts in Dubai, which, quite frankly, make my workdays with no school drop-offs seem like a leisurely lie-in in comparison.

Aside from the early-morning mania, there are – as every school mum knows – numerous other factors that can make the back to school routine something of a challenge after two months of free-fall.  My eight-step refresher regimen runs as follows:

Step1: Return from overseas and get everyone over a flu-like case of jet lag. Once back on a semi-normal schedule, do this all over again when the alarm clock starts going off at what feels like the middle of the night.

Cheers fellow mums! We made it!

Cheers fellow mums! We made it!

Step2: Visit the uniform shop at the same time as 200 other parents, all accompanied by whinging school-sized offspring needing kitting out with uniforms, PE clothes, hats, shoes, lunch boxes and water cups. Try to avoid Organised Mum – yummy-mummy-of-three-hen-pecked-children extraordinaire, in the store to buy a wall planner with extra space for their endless after-school activities. (She bought new uniforms in June, long before the store ran out of book bags and PE shirts, and can also be found at the spa having regular back rubs to counteract the stress of educating her gifted girls.)

Step3: Spend an evening labeling your ‘shopping’, using iron-on labels or, preferably, a sharpie marker. You can practise for this by writing your child’s name neatly on a postage stamp in permanent ink.

Step4: On the first morning, pay special attention to your chosen outfit. Currently trending is gym wear, preferably black, with a ponytail that swings. (Think pert bottoms strutting into school in tight spandex). Whether or not you actually go straight to the gym from the drop off is entirely irrelevant. Hint: You may return for the pick-up in the same gym wear, creating the aura of a potential six-hour work out. A huge pair of sunglasses will hide a plethora of cosmetic tardiness, but make sure your nails and hair look groomed.

Step5: Channel your inner drill sergeant to get the children out the door. Drive 20km on Emirates Road  – try to avoid trucks and tyres on the road. As you get closer, be prepared to race other parents from the red light. Even if you only drop off one child, aim to manoeuvre your 7-seater SUV to within a hair’s breadth of the school gates, avoid eye contact, and lean across the steering wheel to call out urgent information about Henrietta’s tap dance class and Harry’s speech therapy.

Step6: If you’ve cut up a friend to secure a prime parking spot, give her a cheery wave as you alight from your car. Do not rush or run. Do not push or drag your child. Irrespective of the chaos of the first-day back, keep a relaxed, happy expression on your face as you wade through a 1400-strong crowd of children and parents, all jostling to find the right line and blinking in the bright sunshine. Greet each member of staff and wish them good morning. Train your children to do the same.

Step7: When engaging in small talk with other parents keep to the following subjects: how charming the children are, how much the children are growing, how lovely everyone looks, the weather. Never admit to another mother any homework not done, lost library books, tantrums endured either at home or in the car, diarrhoea or head lice. And have a story ready about the luxury, handmade yurt your family stayed in on holiday. (Yachts are so yesterday.)

Step8: Repeat, another 180 times, until the summer vacation rolls around again.

An 8-year-old’s embryonic blog

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Thank goodness that, for Son1, at least, the days of bringing back half a rainforest of artwork are over. This week, he’s mostly brought home exercise books, rather than the artistic creations exploding with glitter and glue that used to get piled up to the rafters during his kindergarten years.

The English, Maths, French, Arabic and Music books were certainly interesting to look at, but the workbook I enjoyed the most was the diary documenting his weekends. It was almost like an embryonic blog, with squiggly pictures and illuminating insights into his mind:

On the role DH and I play:
“Families are important because they take us places … They pay for cheeseburgers and crisps. They go to work to get money to buy toys.”

Before we busted him for getting up at 5.30am to play computer games:
“Happily, on Friday morning I played Xbox for 4 hours, then my mum came downstairs.”

Such a hard life:
“If I could make something disappear, it would be homework … and school.”
[“Tell me more,” wrote the teacher!]

In my next life, I’m coming back as an expat kid:
“On the weekend, I flew to Oman and stayed in a fancy hotel.”

On being small:
“I think it is great being a child because we don’t have to pay the bills. We can also fit through small holes, and adults can’t.”

Not Son1's, but this made me laugh. It was turned in by a first grader in the US, and marked by the teacher. The next day, the mom wrote a note: "Dear Ms. Davis, I want to be perfectly clear on my child's homework illustration. It is NOT me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint surrounded by male customers with money. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This drawing is of me selling a snow shovel.

Not Son1’s, but this made me laugh. It was turned in by a first grader in the US, and marked by the teacher. The next day, the mom wrote a note: “Dear Ms. Davis, I want to be perfectly clear on my child’s homework illustration. It is NOT me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint surrounded by male customers with money.
I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm.
This drawing is of me selling a snow shovel.”

Class list Jenga

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This week, many mums in Dubai found out which classes their children are going to be in from September.

Each year (and for Son1, it is an annual event), the release of the class lists is an eagerly anticipated event. Mums anxiously pore over the role calls; they take photos of the lists, and discuss at the school gate who little Sylvie will be mixing with next year.

(Believe me, I’ve seen mums sobbing over this).

As for the children, I’m not convinced they’re as bothered as the mums.

It might be different for girls, but for boys, shaking up the classes doesn’t seem to be too big of a deal – especially in a society as fluid as ours, where numerous children leave at the end of the school year anyway and September always sees a fresh crop.

Circles of friends are given a shake, rattle and roll

Circles of friends are given a shake, rattle and roll, with no bribes accepted

Son1 was given the chance to pick three friends he wants in his class next year, and the letter said they’d try to make sure he’s in the same class as at least one. (I hear some schools in the UK even let you name one child you’d rather not be with).

There follows a process of list building that I can only imagine is like playing Jenga, with the teachers not only taking friendship groups into account, but also gender balance, ability mix and personality clashes.

Far from just bunging the names in a bag and pulling them out, the decision-making must get complicated: “Sylvie makes Tallulah cry so we should split them, and we’d better share out Boris, Hugo and Tarquin because they’re gifted and talented – almost fluent in Mandarin with rocket-scientist aspirations – and make sure the football squad aren’t all in the same class.”

Repeat x140 children per year.

But, as I said, for us mums, that moment when the list is released can be a little tense. My eyes rapidly scanned the names of the children– of whom son1 knows about three, and (because we all know this is important too) I know one of the mums. Not bad at all.

Happy mixing kiddos!

The end-of-term talent show

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Could you? I know I couldn't

Could you? I know I couldn’t

Today was a nerve-wracking day for myself and DH (who wasn’t even here).

It was the day of the end-of-term talent show. Called ‘2JW’s Got Talent’, it was a more elaborate version of the end-of-term concerts we’re all used to attending – with judges.

DH and I were terrified.

We’d known about it for a week, and were aware the children had been practising their routines (magic, miming, jokes, lip singing, football skills, etc) in groups at school. Son1 had partnered with a friend, but then they’d broken up, and rather than join another group, Son1 had decided he’d go solo.

“Really?” we enquired, astounded that our shy son (who’s had to be encouraged to speak up in class) would even consider a solo performance. When he told us he was doing a dance, our astonishment grew.

The night before, I tried to find out from him if he really was going to bust some moves to one of his favourite songs, Meet the Girls of Norway (!), in front of at least 25 mums and dads with cameras, several teachers and all his class mates.

He got off the sofa, gave his body a shake, then – with arms and legs splaying everywhere – did a crazy four-second dance, which ended with him throwing himself on the floor.

Let’s just say, this didn’t put my nerves at ease, and as I drove to school today, I felt like I was going to an audition myself.

But, you know what, I’d totally underestimated his ‘talent’ – and I don’t mean the dancing (although actually the dance was great, even half-choreographed, with girl backing dancers). I mean the ability to get up in front of a crowd and perform, without feeling embarrassed or struck dumb with stage fright – and that goes for all the children.

Born to be a star

Born to be a star

There were, of course, the natural performers – in particular, the girl in a flouncy, tiered dress with fluttery eyelashes, lip singing to a song from Frozen and loving her moment of fame. And there were several boys who enjoyed their comedy act so much I thought we’d still be sat there at dinnertime listening to jokes (the teacher must have thought so too, as I noticed her desperately signaling to them to wind it up).

But, even the shyer children came across as confident youngsters. And that I realised, is one of the big benefits of education today – the belief and courage being instilled in these kids that they can express themselves, give presentations and think outside of the box. (In a few years’ time, the school has them attending mock UN conventions, and pitching entrepreneurial ideas in business clothes.)

“Were you nervous?” I asked Son1 this evening (just the thought of public speaking makes me shudder). “A bit,” he replied, “but then the teacher suggested I could have girls-of-Norway backing dancers.”

And that did the trick. Smart move.

School bags: A Pandora’s box

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So we’re in hospital this week with Son1*. Last night, it was DH’s turn to do the night shift, so I came home for some much-needed R&R and time off from ‘nurse duties’.

Son2, who I hadn’t seen in a couple of days, welcomed me home with a running hug – ie, he launched himself at me like a torpedo, and wrapped his arms around my neck.

Do pigs rap?

Do pigs rap?

Later, I took him upstairs to bed, and passed his school bag on the staircase. It’s not that I was fearful about what I’d find within, but you know how peering into their school bags is sometimes like opening a Pandora’s box of homework, notes about lost library books, crumpled artwork and permission slips.

But I knew I should check it, so I did (reluctantly). And in the communication book, I saw a note:

“Your child is a PIG in our school assembly.”

(I think to myself, I’m glad he’s not Muslim)

“Please send him to school wearing sunglasses, a medallion and ‘attitude’ clothes (ie, jeans, boots and a t-shirt). The children will be singing a rap song.”

Quite honestly? Styling a rapper pig look. That, I wasn’t expecting!

*Thank you to everyone who’s sent get-well wishes for Son1. Apart from scaring the nurses when the strongest pain medication didn’t work, and getting the surgeon up every half-hour last night from 1am-3.30am (I could have told them they wouldn’t get off lightly!), he is recovering and he’s being incredibly brave. We hope (everything crossed) to be out of hospital in a few days’ time.

An Easter bonnet (for a boy)

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Thursday is the last day of term for Son2 and his school is holding an Easter parade for the two Foundation years.

I always find Easter a bit of an enigma here as it’s distinctly unspring-like. While in other parts of the world, friends and family are experiencing the joys of spring and life bursting forth, in the UAE it won’t be long until life is scorched under the blazing hot sun. Easter Sunday is also a regular work day. Nevertheless, we make every effort to celebrate the holiday, and the shops are piled high with chocolate eggs.

The Easter parade requires a bonnet – to be made at home with the help of your child. So at the weekend, I attempted to interest my (non-creative) son in this task.

“NO FLOWERS,” he wailed in protest as I pointed out a hat I’d found online with daffodils sprouting out of the top.

xxx

Not a flower in sight

“No flowers,” I promised. “How about this one? Look, it’s a bunny coming out of a bowler hat.”

He’s still not impressed.

‘I’ll have this one Mummy!” he cried, on seeing a hat that looked like it must belong to a scarecrow. He was clearly overjoyed that he’d be able to go to school with a bird’s nest on his head.

The concept of making it didn’t register with him, though, as when I returned from Creative Minds on Umm Sequim (a gold mine for crafters in Dubai), he was genuinely surprised I hadn’t bought the hat.

“Did you get it Mummy?!” he asked hopefully, from the sofa. “No, we’re going to make it together,” I said, through gritted teeth. And there followed at least three hours where I channelled Blue Peter and singlehandedly, apart from a few minutes of gluing by Son2, attempted to recreate the chicken hat using a bag of Spanish moss, raffia, felt, a picture of a hen, plastic eggs and fluffy yellow chicks.

You might not understand this reference if you’re not from the UK, but I think Worzel Gummidge would be proud.

The ‘bear’-faced selfie

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It was the moment Son2 had been waiting for since the beginning of the school year: The day he got to take Bernie, the class bear, home.

Bernie arrived at our house in a bag, with his scrapbook – a well-leafed diary documenting his time spent with the families in Son2’s class. The pages were filled with photos, hand-written stories, speech bubbles, decorative stamps, evidence of baking extravaganzas and even a bear-class boarding pass.

You wouldn’t believe how creative it gets.

Son2 and I browsed the book together. ‘Oh look, there’s Bernie parachuting into someone’s garden, ” I exclaimed, my wide-open eyes settling on a photo of the bear floating into the family’s backyard underneath a make-shift canopy. “And here he is ON SKIS, in France!”

xxxx

Silently seeking attention

It got even better: Blow me down, but Bernie spent Christmas in Lapland. There were snaps of him playing in the snow, snuggled up in the log cabin and listening to music in his airplane seat. “Let’s take Bernie on a husky safari, then tonight, if we’re really lucky, we might get a shot of him gazing at the Aurora Borealis rolling across the sky,” I could almost hear the enthused parents telling their bemused children.

Our time with Bernie had much more of a homey feel. In the knowledge that on top of all the usual weekend chores, I had to find amusing things to do with a bear, I set up numerous photo opportunities – of Bernie reading books, cosy in his pyjamas, sitting on the kitchen table eating noodles and using his paws to scale the bunk bed ladder. In an inspired moment, he posed for a #nomakeupselfie.

I even remembered to take Bernie with us when we went to football, and in the car, took care to buckle him up in the back.

Son2 looked at me suspiciously as I fiddled around trying to secure the seat belt. It was a look that suggested he thought I’d lost my mind. “Mum, he’s just a toy, you know!” my 5YO reminded me, with a roll of his eyes and a casual glance in Bernie’s direction.

School narcolepsy

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So from the high that was Amsterdam, comes the bump of real life, and dealing with a problem that presented itself just before half-term.

You know something’s not right when you get a call from school asking you to pop in. I duly did so, the very next morning. And while everyone I spoke to couldn’t have been nicer (or more helpful), the writing was already on the wall.

My son fell asleep (twice) at school.

He denies it, of course. Son2 is not stupid and knows sleeping at school is frowned upon. He has an elaborate story about his friend L telling him to lie down on the grass outside and close his eyes. When the teacher found him snoozing on the little, landscaped hill, he was actually awake and just playing a game, he claims. Hmmm, nice try!

It’s possible, I suppose (a pig might have been flying past too), but I happen to know that the teachers are right; my 5YO is too tired for school at moment, because HE WON’T GO TO BED.

He resists sleep like there’s no tomorrow. Like he’ll get kidnapped in the night by the bogeyman and injected intravenously with vegetables. However tired he is in the late afternoon, at bedtime his eyes snap wide open, as though propped apart by matchsticks. He clamours for attention: “Just one more book!”, “Stay with me, pleeeeeease!”

What should be a fairly quick routine turns into a marathon, and it’s little wonder that there are many bedtimes where I feel like this afterwards…

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

Sometimes, 45 minutes later, I’ll creep past the boys’ bedroom, treading with a feather-light step so as to make no sound, and notice that Son2 is STILL kicking his duvet around.

What happens next is, because the schools start early here, his owl-like ways catch up with him: we have to literally drag him out of bed and prop him up downstairs. He’s caught up on some sleep over half-term, but mainly by sleeping later in the mornings, which doesn’t bode well for tomorrow, his first day back.

When the alarm goes off, I’ll be yanking him from a deep slumber again – what he doesn’t need to know is that I’ll be as good as sleep walking too.

Wish me luck!

Spit-mageddon

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Since it rains so infrequently in Dubai, it feels fitting that the events of today’s spit-mageddon are recorded on the blog. Here goes:

6.15am: Wake with an uneasy feeling. There’s a strange darkness creeping round the curtains; I peer out the window and see ominous-looking clouds.

8.15am: The children safely at school, I continue on to work. Suddenly, the sky is split in half by a bolt of lightening. Rain drops start falling.

8.15-8.18am: Spend several minutes trying to locate the windscreen wipers on the car.

9.30am: While the sky is still a pale-grey colour, and the sea looks glassy, the rain appears to have stopped.

10am: Rumours surface that the KHDA, the government body that oversees education, thinks there’s a cyclone coming, and is shutting down all schools, immediately.

10.30am: Rumours confirmed. Schools send text messages to all parents, telling us to pick up our children as soon as possible, by 11.30am at the latest in the case of Son1.

10.30-11am: The evacuation sends all the parents in the office into overdrive. Frantic phone calls are made to car pool buddies and housekeepers. “The children are coming home!”

11.10am: Mothers all over the UAE mobilise their resources and cancel their afternoon engagements. “I was planning on an 11am Ashtanga yoga class, followed by a gellish manicure and a triple berry smoothie at the Lime Tree Cafe,” I imagine inconvenienced yummy-mummies saying. “And the nanny insists on resting in the afternoon.”

11.15am: Manage to get Son1 and Son2 home from different schools, by hook or by crook, without leaving my desk.

11.20am: Yet, despite the dire weather warnings, the sky looks like this:

xxxxxx

Thanks for the photo B! Brightening up outside.

2pm: Texting DH who’s just landed in Melbourne, and three hours after the event, has received the SMS messages from school. “What’s happening?” he asks. “I can’t see anything like a cyclone on the wx map!”

3pm: Still no cyclone. Not even a downpour.

4pm: Will it, won’t it? The rain watch continues.

Rain watch at our office. Just *joking*. We were actually watching the Red Arrows aerobatic team performing loops and rolls above the Burj al-Arab

Raindrop-spotting at our office. Just *joking*. We were actually watching the Red Arrows aerobatic team performing loops and rolls above the Burj al-Arab

6pm: Drive home and hear all about how exciting it was when school closed.

Look at all this rain! Good job the kids were safe at home

Look at all this rain! Good job the kids were safe at home

The verb hunt

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A new policy I’m trying to adhere to is to leave work on time. Often harder than it sounds, the reason for this is two-fold: the traffic in Dubai is abysmal (again), and my children have seemingly endless homework that needs supervising.

Tonight, I came through the door and called out my usual ‘hellos’. Son2 leapt up from his chair at the kitchen table and ran at me like a torpedo, while Son1 peered at me from behind the iPad, shouted hello loudly, then went back to his game like a techno-crackhead.

“Right,” I said brightly. “Who’s got homework?” I knew they both had work to do; and they both knew I knew. There was silence. Son1 sank deeper into the sofa, and Son2 actually went back to the kitchen table to eat vegetables.

“It’s verbs tonight, isn’t it?” I said, rubbing my hands with glee.

Yes, glee!

You might be surprised to hear that, perhaps oddly for someone who writes a blog, works on a magazine and LOVES writing, I don’t actually know one end of a sentence from the other. A product of the 70s, I learned (learnt?) to read and write at a time when grammar was totally out of fashion.

Back then, British schools were going through a period in which the teaching of grammar was thought to be stifling to creativity (or maybe I spent my childhood staring out the window? It’s possible).

1374281_658095677542759_1305527163_nInstead, I sort of feel my way through a piece of writing – in the same way you’d produce a watercolour painting, I can put together the bare bones of an article, flesh it out and add some detail. A read-through at the end, along with a flurry of fairly brutal editing, polishes it off, and, voila, I’m done.

But ask me about sentence construction, the future perfect or irregular verbs and I’m at a bit of a loss really. If something is wrong, it literally jumps off the page at me – and I can usually fix it (which is what I do in my job as a sub editor), but I couldn’t give you a technical explanation.

Which is why I’m loving the fact that my older son is actually starting to learn all this stuff at school – not only can I refresh my own knowledge, but I can honestly say that witnessing him starting to grasp grammar is a joy.

Until I take it a bit too far. “A verb hunt. Great!” I enthused. “Let’s go through my magazines,” I suggested, and reached for a copy of the business title I work on.

“Now then, tell me, where is the verb in this headline?” I asked him.

Son 1 looked at the page, blankly. He tried, bless him. But it was a story on Iraq, aimed at oil executives, not seven year olds.

“Mum,” he said, quietly. “I really want to do the other homework. The 3D model of a landform.”

They’re going to the planetarium tomorrow, as part of their unit of inquiry on how the Earth works, and he’s so excited.

“Can we make an iceberg, like in the Titanic?” he pleaded.

Grammar was never going to compete, was it?