Tag Archives: Dubai schools

Ditching their devices on digital detox day (haha!)

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During this era of educational dystopia, my kids have started whining endlessly about having to go to actual, physical school. It sets my teeth on edge every time they grimace and say, “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

“Yes, you do,” I reply without fail, feeling cross. I blame all the school closures for this. For making them think it doesn’t matter if they miss school. That going to school is negotiable. 

“Can’t we do online school instead?” they wail.

“No,” I snap, my blood pressure rising. It isn’t up for discussion, in my books. How will they get through life if they think it’s okay to just absent themselves or hide away online the moment they have to do something they don’t want to do. 

I try to explain that the past two years are not the new normal, that the cancellations and closures, the rolling out of bed two minutes before online registration, the virtual classrooms, contract tracing, non-stop masking and threat of exams being suspended are NOT acceptable. But it’s been two years now. That’s quite a long time in their lifetimes.

I want them to learn that showing up – in person – is one of the most important things in life. But maybe I’m just being old school. It’s so hard to impart this lesson when Covid has encouraged a no-show, stay-away culture. 

Anyhow, their constant campaign to skip school was stepped up a notch on Friday, the last day before half-term. I heard all about how half the school would be missing due to being close contacts (probably true), and because lots of parents far nicer than us had given their kids the last day off (really?). They also told me it was digital detox day.

I laughed out loud at their dismay! I could imagine the teachers talking it up, telling the students they’d be on a digital detox the next day, trying to make it sound fun. And my boys visibly whitening, horrified at the prospect of not getting their electronic fix.

“Look, it’s only half a day,” I argued back to them. Fridays in the UAE for the public sector and schools are short, half-days now. Honestly my kids are home at precisely 12.05pm, in weekend mode. I’ve had to start going to the office on Fridays as it’s impossible to get a whole day’s work done with them – and their equally demob-happy friends – in the house.   

Happily (for me), they both went to school on Friday, and suffered (their words) through digital detox morning. I refuse to call it a day when it was only four hours.

“How was it?” I asked Son1 that evening.

“Horrible,” he replied and I found myself wondering if they’d actually switched the entire school wifi off (hehehe). I pictured him holding his phone in the recovery position, raised above his head, desperately hoping it would pick up a signal. 

I was tempted to tell my sons for the umpteenth time that I didn’t have internet as a child, and when I first got on the world wide web at home it was a noisy dial-up connection that crawled along painfully slowly while I grew older waiting for pages to load. But they think that was back in the dark ages.  

Back to school … and back home again

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I am beginning to wonder whether my boys will be properly in school ever again – and I mean full-time at school and with PE and activities and a fully stocked canteen where they can eat food not provided me. Maskless in lessons and corridors would be even better.

Have you noticed that some naturally withdrawn children are using their masks to hide behind? It’s like they’ve almost started adopting the masks as their face – like it’s part of their identity, their security blanket. They want to keep the mask on, even while playing sport, or at lunch they want to eat a bite, put the mask back on, take another bite, put it back on. 

The continued policy of masking at school just to be safe – with no end date in sight – makes me terribly worried that being over cautious has a cost, while the benefits are uncertain. 

Anyhow, I digress. Son2’s year got closed down this week, which is what I’d meant to write about. He – and all his friends – are thrilled. He’d left already on his bike when I got the urgent email from school about the closure. The bus kids had already arrived and been ushered straight into quarantine, sending mums back at work into a tailspin. 

I called Son2 to tell him to turnaround, and, of course, the news had travelled fast. 

“Is it true? Is school cancelled?” he whooped with delight down the line. In the background I could hear quite a commotion, like a party had already started. Cheerful voices noisily hollered to each other. Son2 began to cheer. The only thing missing from the jubilation was the sound of glasses clinking.

“Yep, you can come home,” I sighed. “They’ve closed down the whole year.”

“The WHOLE YEAR?” he replied in astonished amazement. 

“Yep, the whole of year eight.”

“Oh! I thought you meant for the rest of the year,” he explained, because honestly the way this term is going with all the cancellations makes anything seems possible. (He admitted later that this scared him a bit – the thought there’d be no more school all year. It’s actually, hopefully, just for a week – adding to the first missed week at the start of school.) 

He arrived back home shortly after, at about 8.05am.`My other son is on study leave, so was also home, but while he can be relied on to study independently, Son2 needed supervising to make sure he actually logged on to online school.

Later that morning, I heard raucous laughter through the wall – it went on long enough that I had to investigate. As I walked in, he quickly flicked his laptop screen from some software he’d been using to mess around with a friend back to the school platform, where I could see a weary-looking teacher talking in a small box at the top. 

“You WEREN’T IN SCHOOL,” I roared, feeling highly annoyed and at the same time utterly defeated. Because it really seems, doesn’t it, that Covid parenting has passed the point of absurdity?

Reading another email from school this evening about PE and extra-curricular activities returning, but “with a cautious approach” to “ensure our pupil’s safety remains a key priority” (the full programme basically not starting until after half term), I found myself ranting to DH about the insanity of cancelling healthy exercise – not to mention how much we’re paying in school fees for all this.

Still, it could be worse – a friend works in the school’s nursery and they’ve had to switch to online nursery. Those parents have all my sympathies! Perhaps we should all follow in the footsteps of the group of 20 mothers from Boston who met up outside a local high school, to stand in a circle – socially distanced, of course – and scream.    

Enough already! Please make the disruption stop

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25 of the craziest Covid meaures from the past two pandemic years

The ultra-contagious Omicron mutant continues to cause chaos and disruption here in Dubai, leaving me longing for stability as school dangles by a thread and I wonder if I’ll ever actually see my work colleagues in person again.

As the pandemic drags on, we’re all working from home again, motivation levels perhaps gauged by our cameras all being off on zoom calls. I’ve even heard about people beginning and leaving new jobs without ever seeing their colleagues face-to-face. I mean, if you never actually met your co-workers in real life, did you even work there? 

This week, Son1’s first GCSE thankfully took place without him catching Covid or being a close contact. But after the first paper, he then got quarantined in moral education class the next day. Of all the classes to get quarantined in!

As the lesson neared its end, the announcement came that there was a Covid case in year 11. The kids had to stay confined in the classroom (“Don’t leave the room! Don’t move”) while close contacts were traced. 

The moral education teacher, on the other hand, legged it to her next class. How moral was that, I wondered?! 

Sitting on backless stools in their temporary enclosure (I’m not exactly sure what kind of classroom it was, but Son1 insists there were no chairs), they continued their learning online, like they did from home for the first week of term when the school was closed at the last minute, leading to the all-too-familiar pandemic scramble to adjust child-care arrangements and work schedules. 

Two hours later they were released, the close contacts having been sent home. I did wonder what symptoms the infected student was having – a scratchy throat maybe, itchy nose? God forbid, a bit of a fever. I hate to ask, but was s/he even actually, you know, ill?

Son1, meanwhile, missed his crucial in-person maths lesson while sitting in quarantine, just days before taking the second paper. 

Still, he was actually really lucky. The two brightest kids in the class didn’t even get to sit the exam, due to becoming infected or having to isolate. I can only imagine the disappointment after all the studying they will have done. 

I thought it might be worth compiling a list of some of the craziest, most-lunatic Covid measures I’ve come across. Lest we forget.  

I’m sure you will have some of your own and please do add them in the comments. 

  • When students have been revising in groups at school during study leave, the teachers have had to break the study groups up due to social distancing rules

  • Being sardined into a queue at Heathrow immigration with people arriving from all over the world, then having to legally isolate for 10 days and be visited by Track and Trace

  • Putting padlocks on the gates of outdoor playgrounds and our compound’s basketball court (for 18 months)

  • My parents allowed to go for a walk on a golf course, but if my dad had taken clubs and a ball, it was a criminal offence (could you get a more socially-distanced sport, especially when balls fly off into bunkers?)

  • No butterfly stroke allowed while swimming

  • Being told off in a store for not standing on a yellow circle – when you’re the only customer

  • The one-way system at school with roped fences along corridors, meaning if the kids needed to get next-door, they had to make a circular journey through the whole building, ensuring they passed every person on the way

  • The poor lady who came out the toilet on my husband’s airplane, scrabbled around to put her mask on, fell down the steps and broke her ankle

  • The rule of three in Dubai taxis, so my household-sharing family of four couldn’t ride together and needed two vehicles for the airport run

  • PE lessons and sporting activities currently forced to be suspended at school, just as some immune-boosting, healthful, outdoor exercise in the cooler Dubai weather would be a jolly good thing for the kids

  • The water fountains being taken away at school. And now the canteen closed (food and team sports are about the only things Son2 really enjoys about school)

  • Library books getting sanitized and quarantined for two weeks before being exposed to the next child

  • Having to wear plastic disposable gloves in the supermarket

  • The cubicle-style Perspex screens put up around each desk at work that I continually banged my head on

  • The sign in the elevator telling us to face the wall

  • Having to stand five-feet away from the perimeter of the rugby pitch Son1 plays on, lest from behind masks we breathe on the players all the way across the field

  • Not being allowed to watch our kids play sports at all, leading to some parents standing on step ladders to peer over the wall (not a good look)

  • Rugby tackles only allowed if the player is in your bubble

  • Drones disinfecting Dubai’s streets so we wouldn’t catch Covid from the pavement – and the plastic slippers given to my DH by the Egyptians to wear when inspecting the plane in Cairo, in case he infected the tarmac

  • Neighbours who thought someone jogging by their open window without a mask on risked infecting them

  • British influencers and sunseekers hopping on a plane in the winter of 2020/21 to Dubai, bringing the Kent variant, resulting in the UK government slamming the borders shut to UK expats, a flight ban and six months of Hotel Boris (horse already bolted sprung to mind)

  • Getting back to Britain via an 11-day stopover in an amber or green country, massively increasing the chances of picking up Covid on the way

  • Permits to leave home during the mass house arrest of the UAE’s lockdown

  • Public toilets being closed in the UK, causing people to use bushes, beaches and beauty spots instead

  • A lovely friend not seeing her two sons in New Zealand for two years. How many million light-years of misery have these painful, enforced separations caused? How many?

Dubai works on Friday for first time as weekend shifts

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UAE is the first nation to formalise a workweek shorter than five days – for the public sector at least, and my lucky kids

It was a historic day today – the UAE’s first-ever working Friday as the nation switches to a Saturday-Sunday weekend, rather than Friday-Saturday.

The surprise announcement – that government bodies and schools would operate four-and-a-half days a week, closing at noon on Fridays – came out of the blue in December, and left lots of people scratching their heads. 

Private businesses aren’t mandated to make the change, so if my company hadn’t followed suit, I’d have had different weekends to my kids! (who, needless to say, are thrilled with their super-early finish on Fridays at the end of their gruelling (haha) 4.5-day week.)

It took my company a few weeks to decide, but knowing that my bosses all have children, I was fairly confident we’d make the transition to align with Western calendars, even though we work with other Gulf states that are keeping their Friday-Saturday weekend. The half day on Friday, unfortunately, doesn’t apply to us being in the private sector (booo!).

So how does the new arrangement feel?

Right now, strange! I’d go so far as to say a little bewildering. Definitely confusing. Humans, it seems, are programmed to feel a sense of dislocation when a sudden change to routine is imposed on them. But I feel sure it’s going to be great – a whole extra day to catch up with family and friends at home, and proper Sunday roasts, yay! 

Like many people, my week has consisted of changing days on calendars, shifting appointments and commitments forward by a day and wondering what’s going to happen to Friday brunch.

On several occasions, I had to think really hard about what day it actually was. Take Wednesday (the new hump day) for example. Really it was Tuesday. But with school online and my boss sending us home to work due to the UAE’s high Covid case numbers, it felt like Monday part 3. 

In the grander scheme, the passing of time is neither here nor there in a world where 2022 appears to be shaping up as the third act of 2020.

It’s not the first time that the UAE has swapped the weekend around. The previous switch took place in 2006, via a story in the Gulf News, announcing that the weekend would move from Thursday/Friday to Friday/Saturday. 

I am wondering, however, whether we should relocate to our neighbouring emirate of Sharjah. They’ve gone a step further and adopted a three-day weekend.

On 3 September 1967, traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left to the right. This also happened in Dubai in the 60s. Can you imagine if it occurred today?!

The return of the dreaded e-learning

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Distance learning is back in Dubai for some schools as Omicron surge upends the start of term

As the Christmas holidays neared their end, the ‘will they?-won’t they?’ game began in households with school-aged sprogs. I’m referring, of course, to the uncertainty over whether schools would reopen amid the spread of Omicron. 

Let’s just say I was super keen for my boys to return to the classroom. They’d only had about a week of schooling in December due to the long National Day holiday, then a three-week school holiday that felt like five weeks. 

There was also the small matter of my 16-yr-old’s GCSEs, the first of which (maths) is next Monday, and his mock – or as he calls them ‘fake’ – exams. (No matter how many times I tell him that if exams are cancelled, they’ll look at his mocks to grade him, he still insists they’re not real!)

At first, the KHDA announced that Dubai schools would reconvene face-to-face. Oh, how I rejoiced. It felt like Christmas again. 

But then came the eleventh-hour URGENT email from school, the day before the start of term. Due to the high number of cases, there weren’t enough staff to open the school. Too many students were also testing positive, having travelled over Christmas or stayed in Dubai, where Omicron is marching forth relentlessly. Home learning would commence the next day for the first week. A circuit breaker, so to speak – and we all know how those go. 

I commiserated with my fellow mum friends and grew nostalgic for simpler, before-Covid times. You know, when you took it for granted that the start of term meant just that, and people used to say “There’s something going around.”

“And you didn’t have to lock yourself indoors for a week if you got something,” my DH, who is currently contained in hotels on all his layovers, sighed. 

I fondly remembered people saying they had “a bit of a cold” and communications that didn’t use the word ‘safe’ every second sentence.

My sons, on the other hand, were thrilled at the school closure. The next morning, they rolled out of bed approximately a minute before online registration. I think my eldest actually logged on from bed.

Thirty minutes later, my youngest – who will barely even let me in his room during remote school, other than for waitress services to deliver teas and snacks – sounded like he was just messing around online with his mates, judging by the raucous laughter I could hear through the wall. My 16-year-old appeared searching for tape.

“Sellotape,” I asked, confused. Surely we were well past the days of craft projects and modelling by year eleven. Weren’t they studying, for – you know – exams?

“Yep,” he replied, banging a drawer shut and opening the one below. He found what he was looking for and grinned. 

“What on earth do you need tape for?”

“To tape up my camera,” he unashamedly admitted, “in case the teacher asks me to put it on.”

“Whaaat?” I almost shrieked, aghast. 

I pity the poor teachers talking to themselves and attempting to engage with a classroom of black squares on their screens all day, I really do.

Son1 on yet another break from online school, in his virtual reality world. Real life is so old fashioned apparently

When the school calendar is governed by the moon

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UAE school calendar governed by moon
What a start to the school year it was today! A day earlier than expected thanks to the vagaries of the UAE school calendar – and much to the kids’ dismay (hehe). I’ll explain.  On Thursday last week, everyone in Dubai knew there was a holiday coming up – Hijri New Year (Islamic New Year). The exact day of the holiday was subject to the sighting of the moon, however. And for several weeks it was thought that the first day of the working week (Sunday in the Middle East) would be called as the holiday.  On Thursday evening, office workers left in high spirits, fairly sure there was a three-day weekend ahead. The mood was tainted slightly by the office-wide email stating that we were all to keep an eye on our email over the weekend. The bosses still had to confirm whether Sunday was a holiday and, if not, it would be business as usual with normal office hours. But to be honest we all thought the holiday was in the bag (somewhat difficult to plan though, just in case). Anyway, you’ve guessed what’s coming… the Moon Sighting Committee spotted a crescent moon on Friday night. Saturday was called as the holiday. And Sunday was to be back to work as usual. The hoped-for day off work wasn’t going to happen. Sigh! But the real surprise was yet to come. Schools were due back on Monday 2nd, until the KHDA, the authority in charge of all Dubai schools, tweeted:
And so at 9am on Saturday, our school (and also other Dubai schools but not all) announced that the first day of term would be – surprise, surprise – the next day, and not the date originally on the calendar. You can imagine the furore that ensued!   Responses from baffled parents ranged from “But we’re not ready”, “We had plans”, “We’re not even back in Dubai yet” to “Well, they’ve been off long enough”, “D is excited – he’s had enough of me”, “G is just desperate to see his mates” to “Gotta love the UAE school calendar”. As for my own children, they didn’t even believe me. Son1 stared at me as though I’d just told him we were having boiled brain for dinner. Then he blinked, once, twice, like a badger caught in the sunlight and said, “You’re joking right?” “Nope,” I replied, deadpan. “Look …” I showed him the email, my nose twitching in an attempt not to laugh. A slow realisation dawned on Son1’s face, and I might have let out a sound that was half-snort, half-chortle. I felt a little bit sorry for them – but, honestly, not that much! Two months off was plenty for my noisy – and, by the end of the holiday, totally bored – duelling duo. Happy back to school kiddos! #SeeYa
Download for Kindle (or an iPad with the Kindle app) here – switch to your region’s Amazon marketplace if needed. It’s only £1.99 (less than 10aed) 🙂

On losing it over homework (and why they won’t cooperate)

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Saturday morning (the last day of the weekend here in the UAE) saw me feeling determined: my kids were going to get their homework done early, rather than leaving it until last thing on Saturday night when we’re all tired and would rather stick pins under our nails.

So I sat down at the table, drumming my fingers while the boys shouted out various excuses, from needing to land an airplane on whatever computer game they were playing to being hungry/needing to run an urgent errand/feeling ill etc.

I heard my youngest son chasing the dog. “Bella … Bella. EAT it.”

I finally got them to the table, where it quickly became obvious we might still be sitting there hours later with my boys yawning and feigning snoring over small heaps of crumpled paper.

“I’m not going to do it for you,” I told my eldest. “I’ll sit here doing some work of my own, BUT YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.” I emphasised the words with a raise of the eyebrows.

Son2: "Mum, can I have a hacking device for Christmas?"

Son2: “Mum, can I have a hacking device for Christmas?”

Son1 shot me a look, and even the plants on the windowsill looked as though they were seeking an escape from within.

Fifteen minutes later, Son1 was still struggling, complaining that he couldn’t find a good website to answer the question he’d been set. I heard the flicking sound of the rubber he was fiddling with – then he dropped his pen on the floor, which always sets my teeth on edge after the third time. At one point, he nearly slid off his chair.

A stare passed between us. I might have felt my face flash hot with annoyance.

It’s at this point that I try to remember what Clive Power, managing director of Dubai-based Power Tutoring, told me:

“It’s usually difficult for parents to help with their own children’s homework. Children like to keep their work/life balance just as much as adults. We don’t like bringing work home and it interfering with our family life, the same is true for children. It would be just as strange for children to have their parents in the classroom as it would be for the teacher to have a meal with the family in the home. So when the parent takes on the role of the educator as well, there’s confusion. Children can even question whether the emotional support and unconditional love will still be there if they get the answers wrong or don’t understand things fully.

“We’ve had qualified teachers who’ve come in and said that they can work with all the children in the school, but not their own children,” Clive continues. “It’s the blind spot on the car, the part of your back that you can’t quite reach to scratch.”

screen-shot-2016-10-15-at-23-23-45So today, as my son continued to whine that not one of the websites he was looking at told him the answer, I tried to bear Clive’s words in mind – then felt the small hairs on the back of my neck rise and lost it with my son anyway.

“You know, your father and I – we had to do this WITHOUT GOOGLE! We couldn’t just type a question into the internet and get the answer, a thousand times over on the screen in front of us. We had to look in BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS to do our homework! There was no Wikipedia, no search engines. No internet!

“Can you even imagine that?” I finished, beetroot red in the face. “Do you even know how lucky you are?”

Son1 gave a small nod, his alarmed eyes as wide as saucers.

The school holiday whammy

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That’s it: in my next life, I’m coming back as an expat child.

They get soooo many holidays. I mean, it is actually a bit ridiculous. My boys went back to school after two long months of summer holiday at the very end of August. They were in school for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. Then the government called Eid, and turned it into a week-long holiday.

For those who don’t live here, the UAE has a tendency to call holidays just when long-suffering mums really don’t want them. Case in point: the Expo win. Fireworks would have sufficed, but no. School (but not work) was cancelled as part of the celebrations. Helpful? Not.

Then there was the time it looked like it might rain, and the schools were closed. The day became known as Spit-mageddon:

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

This last week of holiday has felt like an extension of summer. Did those two weeks of school even happen? Or were they just a murky dream? A hallucinatory period of time and space in which to get things done. I might be being rather ungrateful for this holiday, but really we could have done without it – it’s still too hot to do anything outdoors; our new, half-built compound doesn’t have a pool; my oldest is spending too long on his computer; and I’m at that stage with my chatterbox youngest where I can see his mouth moving but can’t really hear what he’s saying and can do nothing but nod at whatever his moving lips are trying to assault me with.

I’m so ready for them to get back to school properly.

But … guess what? My youngest is back in school for two weeks, then there’s another week off for half-term.

Facepalm.

Throwback Tuesday: Underhand school run tips

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Mothers across Dubai are either breathing a huge sigh of relief or sobbing into their hankies this week as they drop their children at school for the start of the new term.

But rather than simply depositing your offspring into the classroom roughly on time, it seems there are plenty of tactics you can use (some of them underhand) if you want to achieve a flawless drop off. Much is doubtless universal, but there are certainly some skills that are specific to Dubai schools.
cartoon-shopaholic
Tips and tricks:

– Pay special attention to your chosen outfit. Currently trending is gym wear, preferably black. Whether or not you actually go straight to the gym from the drop off is entirely irrelevant.

– Make sure you and your children are perfectly laundered. Even the slightest trace of toothpaste, breakfast cereal, chocolate, snot, vom or poo will make itself glaringly apparent at the worst moment.

Creating the illusion of a six-hour workout is a useful skill

Creating the illusion of a six-hour workout is a useful skill

– Although a huge pair of sunglasses will hide a plethora of cosmetic tardiness, make sure your nails are perfect and your hair is pristine.

– Prepare to race other parents from the red light, bully your way round the roundabout and take every opportunity to jump the queue.

– Even if you only drop off one child, make sure you drive your seven-seater SUV right up to the school gates.

– Ignore the car parking attendants and remember to cut up your best friend to get that prime parking spot.

– When alighting from your car, greet your friend with a cheery smile and a wave.

– Do not rush or run. Do not push or drag your child. Irrespective of what is actually happening, glide serenely through the school with a relaxed and happy expression.

– Greet each member of staff and wish them good morning. Train your children to do the same.

– 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.

– Of course, all of the above also applies during pick up – although you must ensure that whatever you wear is entirely different from the outfit you were sporting only a few hours earlier.

– The only possible exception to this rule is you may return in the same gym wear, creating the aura of a potential six-hour work out. Sweat patches, however, are not acceptable.

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]Are you a school mum in Dubai? You might enjoy my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

My first e-book: A quick summer read for just 99p (or less!)

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Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]Please share!

If you’re looking for a light summer read, please think about downloading my first e-book. It’s a short (ish) story, and a super-quick, easy read. I’m raising a celebratory glass, as, believe me, I nearly went cross-eyed trying to figure out how to get this on Amazon. I got there in the end ☺ … here comes the blurb:

Workaholic mum Julie Wainscote becomes an overnight Twitter sensation when her live TV gaffe goes viral. Fired from her job, she takes up the challenge of becoming a stay-at-home mum to her son, Jacob. But when she realises the school run is a catwalk, the coffee mornings involve competitive catering and the class bear has been to Lapland, she has to admit the adjustment required may be beyond her.

Does she have what it takes to join Dubai’s ranks of immaculately groomed school mothers?

Cupcakes & Heels is a delightfully funny short story about the dilemmas facing mothers the world over.

BUY IT NOW: If you’re in the UK, please click here

Or for America, the UAE and worldwide, please go to this US Amazon link. If this doesn’t work in your country, could I suggest searching for Cupcakes & Heels in your country’s Amazon store.

Thank you so much!