Children's first day - started on a Monday a week apart. William went to back to school first, as his new school does not need to follow the government's directive to start later.
So,
Monday, 5th January 2015
William's school hours are 8:45am to 2:45pm. I was initially excited that he need not wake up early to rush out of the house but instead he can have more time to enjoy a hearty breakfast. (This boy doesn't eat fast like his sister, no not yet.) But my joy was shortlived when I realized we had to brave across the LDP which was jammed up with vehicles at this peak hour. I thought I had said goodbye to traffic jams when I left my job in 2008 but looks like it's hello again. Looking on the bright side, thankfully it's a short exposure on the highway, yet enough to make me sit up and pay extra attention on the road. More braking and less cruising.
We arrived at 8:30am, just 15 minutes from our house and he settled in nicely in his Year 1 queue at the assembly hall. It's actually not much of a hall, but the whole area of a shoplot where children from Year 1 to Year 6 would queue and wait for the Principal to give announcements, pray and then dismiss them.
Every Tuesday is Assembly Day whereby they will stand in attention to sing the National Anthem, Negaraku and the school song. This is also the day that every child will be checked on their fingernails and hair and tidiness.
William's class is located on the first floor, and comprise of only 15 children, as with all the other classes. They have a daily Devotion time and his subjects include Language Arts, Speech & Drama, History&Geography (in short, he calls it H&G now), Bible on top of the usual Physical Education (PE), Maths and Science. He also has a computer class, Bahasa Malaysia and Arts&Craft. Once a week, the children are exposed to Children Church too.
He has a morning 15 minute tea break and a 30 minute lunch break. For this semester, we did not sign the lunch package for him, thus William brings his snack box and lunch box to school. All packed into his new green backpack! His bag was quite heavy in the beginning as he carried his dictionary and Bible everyday, but now he has started to leave them in his classroom locker. Yes, each child has a locker for himself (which is actually an open shelf located at the back of the classroom). William is leaving even some of his books there, if there is no homework to bring back.
Boy is happy in school, and he knows most of his classmates' names by now. However one incident happened on the second or third day of school... his shaky tooth came out during lesson and he dutifully informed his teacher. She told her to go to the washroom to rinse his mouth, and when he got back, he realized that his teacher threw away his fallen tooth. So he asked her for it, TWICE, and even explained that his mummy keeps all his milk teeth. But alas, the teacher insisted to not to return the teeth to him, and he told me, "Mummy, I give up la..."
Undeniably he is upset over this and even exclaimed that his kindy teachers are better. Mummy is not happy about a forever incomplete set too, but guess we will have to use something else to represent that thrown-away tooth. Somehow the teacher got wind of this and came up to me a few days later to apologize.
Other than that, homework is everyday except for one day. He has an easy spelling test every Friday and the children are given a self-test on topics in their books to ensure comprehension.
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When he gets home, he gets another tea break, a quick bath or sometimes not, homework and then off to his Chinese class at 4-5:30pm from Mondays to Wednesdays. I. Was. So. So. Tired.
So glad that the kids did not start school on the same week, else I would not know how to survive with all the chauffeuring and juggling of time and activities.
