A new school, a new school year
japra | Aug 11, 2009 | Comments 13
I have had four cups of coffee today. It was so hard to wake up early.
Roxi and I went to new student orientation at her school today. I was amazed to see how many families had just arrived within the last 48 hours–a few of them arrived yesterday. They must be exhausted! I cannot imagine how they are digesting all of this information about courses, AP vs. IB, etc. when they have settling in worries too. The poor dears.
Anyway, I was impressed by how friendly everyone was. Roxi’s school in England was very nice, but at this new school, we were hardly ever left alone. As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by one student, taken to a registration table manned by two other students (one of whom was from Roxi’s buddy family), and when we were done there, a parent came to show us what to do next. In the first five minutes, we must have met at least six people.
Probably one-third of the parents I met were Dutch (who have been away for many years), one-third were from Texas (ahem), and the other third were from elsewhere. I thought the school did a fantastic job addressing the students’ concerns ( being new kids and moving to a new country/school) during the first hour of the day instead of diving into curriculum discussions right away.
Roxi enjoyed meeting some of her classmates. I think she found one or two kindred spirits.
Tomorrow is for placement tests. Roxi will take an English exam (I wonder why when there is only one class for all 9th graders?), a Math placement exam, and a French exam. I think that’s about three hours worth of testing. Luckily she doesn’t have to start until noon. We had to be at school by 8:00 AM today–a bit hard after staying up so late in recent months.
Thursday is team-building day for the kids. We wrap up orientation next Tuesday when we have our final meeting with the HS counsellor to talk about Roxi’s four-year plan. Right now, I think we’re headed down the IB Diploma path.
But things could change.
Filed Under: Blog • Expat Life • Featured • Parenting
About the Author: JaPRA is an expat Texan living in England with her husband (Mr. DJ), their 17-year old daughter (Roxi), and their dog Trudy.
4 cups! hope some of those were decaf. busy week for Roxi…and so much orientation. good luck with the IB choice, it’s recognized all over the world and I believe the universities give preference to these students.
Well, Christine, they were the smaller, European sized cups of coffee ;-)
I suspect the extra orientation has to do with the school being an international school catering to expats. They want to make sure the kids feel welcome. They’re doing a good job so far!
How exciting! Starting new things is always so fun and scary at the same time. Hope she has a great year!
It’s so true, Alyson. Exciting and scary! But it looks like she’s found a couple of friends already, which should make starting classes on the 19th a lot easier.
Congratulations on the Texas people! You should hold Mexican food Support Group parties.
I found out this week that high school starts at 7:20 (imagine I have underlined this, made it “bold” and I’m yelling it too). I have no idea what time my son is supposed to be at the bus stop. That’ll be fun.
Julia, that is a hideous! What time does your son get out of school?
I actually laughed out loud about the Mexican food support group. What a splendid idea!
2:40 I was so excited that 2 out of 3 kids weren’t going to get home until 4. It’s a massive plot to make me lose my mind that’s what it is. I now have three different school times this year.
I was serious about the support group – I don’t joke around about Mexican food. In Mexico I had the nickname of Gordita – little fat chick.
This is great! Going to a new school can be pretty rough on a kid but it sounds like Roxi will have no trouble at all. Northern European institutions seem to have this sort of thing figured out pretty well. I doubt the same thing would happen here in Spain, unless it was a private school run by foreigners…or maybe an elementary school. No offense to Spain.
Xoanwahn, I think these international schools really do have it all figured out! The tricky part comes if you’re coming from a different educational background (English, German, etc). The graduation credits get confusing then, I think.
Wow! Back to school prep already. My son starts preseason training for soccer next week. I’d rather we went to the beach. My friend’s American daughter in France is also going the IB route.
A third from Texas?!
What’s going on!
Like Chris, I’m intrigued by the number of Texans! (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but our friend has just been transferred from Den Haag to Houston!! They just got back from a house-hunting trip.)
The reason I was up at 5 am this morning, also needing extra caffeine, was an early morning trip to Heathrow. My girls flew to Texas to visit their grandparents. Even though Roxi is starting school again, we are only halfway through our vacation. Weird. Anyway, I hope the new school is a good fit for Roxi. Best of luck.
Back to school already? My kids just got out.
An international school must be very interesting. Even in the US they had an outstanding reputation and I wish we could have had the opportunity to enroll our kids in there. But we had moved out of Indianapolis, where they had one, long before the kids started school.