New Chapter

This is about four weeks late..but you know what they say about "better late than never".  :)

It seems like only yesterday sometimes, that I was sitting waiting to meet a small human, who decided that an EDD is just that!  I was officially 2 days overdue at this stage, a new concept for me, and not only was I bored silly I was over being pregnant.  Then he was here, that was a bit unexpected, him being a he, but we were over the moon.  Fast forward 5 years and he's starting school!

Some of you will know that we ummed and ahed over WHEN to start him at school, and all of the ideas we had seemed to have their merits.  In the end, the one that 'won' was the fact that the new entrant class was going to be so small and he seemed really eager to start school.

So on the morning of Wednesday, the 31st of October 2012, off we went to start a new 'adventure'.  It was lost on me, that it just so happened to be All Hallows Eve, as well. He practically ran the whole way there, and we followed; me with a mixture of hope, and sadness, and apprehension about how he'd get on.  I needn't have worried, he slotted right in.

Four weeks later and he's surprised even me with how far he has come.  He was never in to drawing, or writing, or painting, or cutting anything so was 'behind' in those areas.  Even just last week he was refusing to write anything if it wasn't over the top of what someone else had already written, then, seemingly out of the blue, he decided that maybe he could form letters on a separate line and now he wants to practice as often as he can.  He still struggles with some letters, but he comprehends now that words make up a story, and that's a neat thing.  He seems to never stop talking....and I thought he never shut up before!

So it turns out that starting him 'early', as in earlier than planned, has actually been the right thing to do.  I'm still trying to adjust to having both boys at school, particularly as they are on a split site.  I'm trying to develop relationships with parents of kids in Alex's class...but I've got some budding relationships with parents of kids in James's class too, which makes it tricky being on a split site, but oh well.

Next year of course, it will all change as Alex enters a Year 1 class and loses his teacher, and James is losing his teacher as well to a younger year group.  Would have liked for James to have some stability, but I suppose a potential plus is Alex's teacher is going back to teach the older kids so James might end up with her next year, which is nice as he had expressed an interest in having this teacher earlier in the year before we found out that she was taking a bit of a 'time out' to travel.

Here's a couple of photos from the first day:

School

Now I remember why I hate school.

So we've been dealing with what most would class as major issues with James at school. It started out that we were being called in to discuss his issues with a couple of kids on the playground. At the time I was a bit dubious because I felt that he was being singled out for stuff that I have seen plenty of other kids do. But because we were interested in dealing with issues instead of burying our heads in the sand about them we went along and discussed things with his teacher.

James has never been a talkative soul, in fact trying to get an answer to a simple question can be a struggle so when he made a couple of comments over the last school holiday's about 2 particular children we took him seriously because they were spontaneous and anyone who knows him knows he rarely says anything about serious things spontaneously. :) So when school went back we had a chat to his teacher about it, asked her if she'd noticed anything out of the ordinary and told her to keep her eyes out. Then just last week we had independent confirmation by both another teacher and a student in his class that what he had been telling us was happening was indeed going on. Turns out our boy wasn't the 'perpetrator' but was actually on the receiving end of these particular students. So of course we saw red!!!! Here we've been trying to deal with his unacceptable behaviour at school for MONTHS when it turns out that for months he's actually been harassed by these kids and anything he's been 'caught' doing is in defense of himself; no wonder the poor kid has had issues with anger and aggression lately as I suspect he feels like a) it's HIS fault, b) that no one is hearing his side and that c) no one cares because they can't see that he is the victim not the instigator. So to say the least, he's since been told that he is allowed to defend himself if necessary, within reason, because he usually tells a teacher or us about it where he would just lash out before and we'll deal with it then.

I know we can't protect them from everything,b ut it seems really unfair for him to be labelled as something he is not because these kids, when he tries to avoid them just follow him around telling other kids not to play with him or try and incite him to do something so he'll get in trouble. We are still deciding if we want to take the issue further, because at least one of the mothers doesn't seem that keen, or truly bothered, by her sons' behaviour unless he is the one who is on the 'receiving' end when James stands up for himself. THEN she wants to step in and stop whatever it is she sees that she doesn't like..........so it's okay for her son to run around not allowing James to 'get on with it' but if James in any way tries to get away or stand up for himself then it all has to stop??????

Academically, he seems to be doing really well. He's a great reader and his maths skills are coming along nicely.....though I think he's like me and would much rather be reading than doing maths. :) He's alot more talkative and seems to have mellowed out a bit in recent weeks since we've found all this playground stuff out so hopefully things will continue to improve.