December is a weird time – it was always madly busy back in the UK with christmas concerts and wotnot. generally people didn’t go away at christmas in the UK, but everyone does here, so that’s another stressy thing to add in to the festive mix.
but imagine if you were also having all your summer term activities at the same time, like school sports days, and end of year activities like music concerts for orchestras etc. luckily we’ve not had the latter this year as the girls don’t start up violin again until next year.
However, it’s also the end of the school academic year which runs February to December here. Which means school reports and the legendary prizegiving evenings. we can report that the girls reports were excellent. which we were very pleased with. hoorah
it was esther’s turn for prize giving tonight and i came home early so i wouldn’t miss anything. it started at 6.30 in a hot stuffy sports hall where the doors were kept firmly shut so the aircon would work properly. although i don’t think anyone had told the aircon that – it was concentrating more on the ‘con’ part of its name and providing no ‘air’.
what followed was 90 minutes of the sort of entertainment which only a parent could endure. apparently it wasn’t as random as kezia’s one, but it still felt like a very long time.
the problem with these communal school activities is each parent has an obligation to attend the whole thing, but they only have an interest in the 15 seconds when their son/daughter is doing something.
esther’s star moment was being formally ‘introduced’ as one of the 2010 Student Leaders which is a great honour apparently. she’s got a badge and everything.
having been rather scathing about the evening, it was a really nice send off for the year 6 students, thanking them for their contribution to the school and wishing them well in the future. it’ll be funny seeing esther ‘despatched’ this time next year …
tomorrow the girls break up for the summer holiday at lunchtime then come in to my office for some santa related shenanigans. which will probably involve one of my colleagues dressing up as santa. something he’ll do at the drop of a hat. especially a red one with a white bobble at the top.
