63. Proper school (1/2)

After a strenuous period of home-schooling I decided it was time to enrol these kids in a proper school. I was faced with finding the right school and this prompted my pragmatic husband to make a useful point.

'Well, anyway, a school's a school.' He declared. 

I looked at him and could not figure out how to disagree with such a truthful word and announced that since a school's a school they would go to the nearest French school.

'Mind you, if it's a French school ...' he added, looking at me as if I was the one responsible for all the faults and failures of our national education system. But there was simply no time to fool around and launch into a France vs England contest. It was rather urgent to a) get these girls back in a 'normal' classroom with a 'normal' teacher and to b) get their brother in a classroom with a teacher (never mind normal). 

I was done with home-schooling. Ready to tick the box. You end up being seen as a combination of pushy tiger-mum type combined with a psycho-rigid helicopter-mum perceived as trying to come across as the alternative-modern-progressive mum with a bit of hippy thrown in. So to sum up: just a dangerous weirdo. I had to move on.

As for the teachers, they see your kids are wild gone totally feral with no discipline whatsoever who just know some (useless?) stuff like baking bread. You insist that no, we were not out of a hippy commune raising goats in the Ardèche, that we followed the curriculum. We even did art lessons which were, in all modesty, highly successful.

Can he write, read, count? Can you fill in a questionnaire please? They will have to come for a test. The cost will be added to your bill if that's all right. We need three copies of each birth certificate and three transactions and also ... By that point I wanted to strangle the secretary and throttle the headmaster but I didn't because after all, I have principles. I have guide books on my shelves which tell me not to do these things but to speak politely yet firmly while looking at them straight into the eyes - no blinking - and to smile at the same time. 

Anyway ay with a little help we got through it and the kids went to a proper school. They took to it like fish to water, enjoying the drive, the new friends, the packed lunches ... Whether they enjoyed the lessons remained to be seen but I didn't care that much. We then settled into what could pass for a routine in our family. I was slowly beginning to admit that schools were good and that my precious offspring would perhaps benefit from all this. Shed a tear or two here.

Three of four weeks later, my daughter who, since starting proper school had refused to let me have even the quickest glance at her work, slammed her English book down on the kitchen table and said:

'Look!'

I looked. Nothing seemed the matter to me. I could see a neatly written list of the days of the week and a tiny Winnie the Pooh sticker which said 'Great job'. I could not see why she was getting at so I went into praise mode.

'Excellent! Well done! Good work!' The standards of work seemed rather low but I thought it was just the change from tiger-mum programme ... 

'I don't mean the work! Look! The sticker! It's for babies! I'm not a baby. I don't want stickers like that.'

I did what I still do today when the going gets tough. 

'Go get ice-cream.' (Amazing how quickly you let your principles go.)

I had a peek at the exercise book. The sticker seemed appropriate to me. Yet teacher-tiger-mum-me couldn't help thinking that after over three weeks in that school, at three periods of English a week, the output was a tad disappointing. On top of that the poor kid had an Englishman for a father and an English teacher for a mother.

I - gently - brought up the matter with the class teacher the following morning and she said she would mention it to the English teacher. The English teacher in turn said she would mention it to the headteacher. I went to the headteacher and he said he would have to discuss it with the class teacher first. I asked firmly and politely with a smile if I could have an appointment. I was told to put that in the child's diary. So I picked up the child, took the child home, got home, asked for the child to give me her book (told her it was something to do with no more Winnie the Pooh stickers in her book) and wrote a note to require an appointment. They were in a proper school now, that's what wanted so I could no complain. I had only myself to blame.

Then I drove to the shops - on my own - and bought the most ridiculous ice-cream I could get, triple dark chocolate with chunks of whatever covered with runny caramel and sprinkled with gold. Bliss.