Tuesday 26 August 2008

April 2008


April sees the first appointment I’ve had with the childrens’ German teacher at their international school. Both boys started in the Beginners stream and rapidly transferred into Intermediate. Their teacher informs me that they are both doing very well, J in particular. I’m thrilled with this if a little surprised, as they are both reluctant to speak it at home. In fact it gets me thinking – if we don’t immerse them in the Swiss system now it could be a huge opportunity to develop their language skills - lost.


It also saw the start of C needing some help with his maths – for reasons which mystify me even now, he had managed to slip through the net in both his schools to date and, at the age of 7 and the point at which he would have been sitting his Key Stage 1 SATS tests in England, he couldn’t add up to 10. So we commence an intensive course of help for him, just about covering the whole of KS1 in the time between April and August. I don’t want him to struggle next year, whichever decision we take. And I beat myself up continuously as I had no idea he was struggling so much.
:((

Still very keen on the IB, we visit another international school in the city where OH works. The school is excellent, they have places available, they are seeking authorisation for the Middle Years programme of the IB and have a definite plan and structure to extend this authorisation to the Diploma level. But when I get home I look at the mileometre in the car and realise that I have just driven 70 km. This would mean 140km and 3 hours in the car every day just to get them to school. Factor in the after school activities and the party invitations as far as the German and Austrian borders and what do you get ? Me in the loony bin. And we would still have to find money for fees – and the boys still wouldn’t know anyone in the village. I love the IB and I love this school, but we also love where we live and don’t want to move, and to choose this school at this stage would make no sense.

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