My Homework for the School Holidays

MY HOMEWORK FOR THE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

(Or: What I have learned from two terms)

BY ROBERT TUCK

The twins R and J are officially halfway through their first school year now. Here they are in their classroom:

Some of the earlier school highlights are HERE.

As a parent, there has been an adjustment from childcare or preschool. Some differences are obvious - it costs less, there are fewer hours, they wear a uniform, and so on. 

But the important differences are more subtle.

One of the main changes in transition to primary school is information supply.


In childcare, we would get daily updates on what the class was doing. These were linked to learning outcomes, and accompanied by photos. Eating, sleeping and even toileting was all monitored as well.

This always seemed slightly excessive.

In school, we get a letter at the start of each term telling us what they are broadly focussing on for the entire term. And that’s it.

But now I want to hear if they’re progressing!

They do have 'daily readers' - books they bring home for reading practice.

From these books I’ve learnt I really don’t know how to teach a child to read. And yet, inexplicably, every few weeks something will click and they come home with a slightly harder book. 

Now there is some information from school, but it’s not about your child’s progress. It’s about having to do more stuff, or worse, pay for more stuff.

These aren’t bad things, but cumulatively it can get a bit overwhelming.

Don’t forget Thursday is a mufti day and to bring a gold coin to donate to this weeks charity. And next week bring money for the guess-how-many-lollies-in-the-jar fundraiser. Also we need volunteers for the school disco. Also, pay to go the school disco. And they also have the permission slips to be signed for that excursion. Try and donate some bottle tops and cardboard for STEAM lessons, we’re making something your child will eventually bring home and you won’t know where to put it. Remember that every weekend there is a different kids birthday party, and yes, every child does have to have a birthday each year. Bring your teddy bear, labelled with your child’s name, this week for the teddy bears picnic. And next week spend a few hours making some Easter hats for the parade.

But the two most painful requests have been:

1. Mandatory public speaking competition, where all children need to use palm cards.

Against my advice, J insisted on writing his speech out in words. I had to spell out his entire 30 second spiel on the differences between alligators and crocodiles.

The morning he was to present it occurred to him he couldn’t yet read. Despite this minor setback, the speech apparently went well, even if he confessed that he didn't use the closer I fed him...

The last difference between alligators and crocodiles is you that say "see you later" to one and "in a while" to the other. 

I think that would've played well in the kindergarden class.

2. Waste free Wednesday, but also on a Monday.

Just when you’ve mastered making lunch without packaging once per week, your kids tell you it’s also happening on a Monday.

Our initial reaction was, do I believe them? Kids do make things up, or misunderstand things, all the time.

But it was true, and the second week of term it was my turn for lunch prep.

So I made ham and cheese wraps, but without the plastic wrap that keeps it all together. That meant using extra butter to the edge to hopefully make it stick together, even when the lunchbox and bag gets tossed around by the careless child.

Next, for J, I cut up some cubes of cheese and added some biscuits. But R apparently doesn’t like cubes of cheese anymore, so in desperation, I took unsalted popcorn out of the packet and poured it into one of the sections in his lunch box. The waste does not count if it is disposed at home.

Then I realised I put everything in the wrong lunch boxes, so had to take the cheese and crackers out, pour the popcorn in, and replaced the popcorn with the cheese. Finally, I added a banana each.

The next day the kids came home and say they didn’t get a tick for waste free Wednesday (on Monday) because the year six kid inspecting said the banana peel was waste. The banana peels are squishy and brown and still in their lunch boxes. So effectively even if biodegradable plant matter was waste, the school is still free of it.

I decide to put the banana peel it in the compost bin in our backyard, then find that eleven-year-old, and demand my tick.