Starting British schools

In October, we moved into a small village 30 mins away from the base that Koen was attending first grade (Alconbury Elementary). He loved the school and made a really good buddy there as well. His teacher, Mrs. Kennedy was great as well.

Driving an hour each day, or having Koen ride the bus for two hours each day, is a long time to commute for elementary school. We felt changing to a local school had several benefits and would be a better options for our family at this time.

In England, you apply for a school through the council. You can list your top three school choices, but the council will inform you of which school your child will ultimately attend. Shortly after our move, we scheduled an appointment to meet the head teacher (the principal) and tour the primary school located in our village. It is quite a tiny school, consisting of children in Reception up to Year 6. In America, Year 6 would be 5 grade. Reception aged children would be pre-school, but it is equivalent to kindergarten. Children start school a year earlier in the UK than in America, so Koen is now in Year 2. The head teacher informed us that they did have room to admit Koen, so he could inform the council that they were admitting him, which allowed us to get him started much earlier than had we waited to hear back from the council.

Koen started school at Trinity Church of England Primary School at the start of November, and the start of the school's second term.

Koen can be extremely shy and naturally, has felt very nervous about some of the new changes he's recently been through. He was quite emotional when starting school at Alconbury on the base and felt very scared his first couple of days. He felt the same when attending a new primary in our church wards as well. I expected the same reaction from him on his first day at Trinity, but he had a very different persona. The head teacher, as well as his teacher noted that he was not nearly as shy as the day he had toured the school with me just over a week earlier.

We were both grateful, and I was impressed, by a few year-5 girls that introduced themselves to us our first morning on the playground, and offered to take Koen around to meet other children in his class. Because of the small size of the school, all the children, no matter the year, seem to know each other by name and have opportunities to interact in their schooling. Koen said good-bye to me and left with the girls. He later got in his classes line to go inside, seemingly talking up quite a storm with the teacher and pointing us out out to her.

Koen has quickly fallen in love with his new school and the children in it. We were excited that he came home the first day, sharing a name of a friend he had made as. He hasn't been able to share names with us so quickly before. He loves that he is learning cursive, as he's actually been asking me to teach him for quite some time.

The school does start and end each day with a prayer as an entire school in an assembly. I've learned its a recited prayer, asking for help to do their best and learn. They also sing and discuss a theme of the week.

Every Friday, parents are welcomed to join the morning celebration assembly if they want too. I decided to see what it was like last week. Each class (there's only one class per year) teacher shares what they've done and learned that week and will learn in the next week. They also give awards and sing a birthday song to anyone who had a birthday that week. Koen was given an award that his class voted he should receive. Their theme of the week was celebrating differences among others, and they felt Koen should receive it... I think mostly because he's different by being an American... and I guess he has dealt with the differences and changes well.

A handsome uniformed fellow isn't he?

The playground at his school.

 The kids enjoy the horses in the neighboring pasture.

Hadley loves to grab the leaves during our walk to and from school. She of course finds its fun to throw them at us too.

Hadley started preschool on Monday this week. It's conveniently next door to the primary school. She's going for a few hours, twice a week. 15 hours/week of preschool is free here. Hadley has been begging me to let her go and she's quite sad that she doesn't get to go for nearly as long as Koen does. She doesn't need her backpack, but she takes it anyhow because that's what you do when you go to school. ;)

Hadley requested a second photo since the first didn't showcase her backpack enough.