Julie Jay: School has changed, but I still worry about Ted starting
"I worry that school is not a place where everyone will shine or be happy. As such, I can’t help but bite my lip a little as I watch him take off with his new Spiderman bag"
Back-to-school time always brings up memories for me. Most of them are negative, and most consist of me hiding under a duvet and begging my mother to let me stay home from school for just another week.
“I’m sorry Julie, you have to go,” she would say, and I would wail like a wounded animal.
“But why?” would come my muffled protest.
“Because you’re a teacher now, and this is your job,” she would reply.
And with that, I would cast off the sheets, pouting and petulant, and do my best to trudge into school, putting my best foot forward because that’s what heroes do.
Of course, supermarkets have been reminding us for months now that it’s never too early to get ready for the new academic year because climate change has sadly affected suncream sales, and we need to get parents worrying about something.
Parents moseying around aisles face a stream of advertising: “What about the kids’ lunchboxes? You’re hardly going to let them recycle last year’s one? This is just handing ammunition to potential lunchbox bullies on a plate.’
This year, Ted will be starting in naíonra, which has brought up a lot of mixed emotions in me. On a practical level, it is great to take advantage of three free hours of childminding, Monday to Friday.
Not having to pay for childcare during this time will be a welcome treat for our bank balance, as it is for many parents.
Also, a bit more of a routine would do us no harm whatsoever. Despite my attempts to curb the craic at night, Ted is a consummate night owl, like his dad, who is a divil for winding up his son with late-night activities.
Fred has been known to be found with Ted on his knee at 10pm, the two of them playing the keyboard together as Fred bellows: “OK, Ted, this one goes out to Tony Bennett, RIP. Hit it!”
No wonder I am dragging the child out of bed in the morning. I know this sounds like a ridiculous complaint when so many people are up with their smallies well before dawn, but I would prefer earlier bedtimes and mornings than the alternative. Early mornings are an inevitability that comes with school, so the Bavarian mother just waiting to bust out in me at any minute is relishing this new September timetable. I can only hope it gets all of us on a better track.
Our introductory lá oscailte at the naíonara went swimmingly.
The playschool in Ventry is about as idyllic as it gets, and the staff are lovely.
Still though, no matter how informal the setting, there is something about edging towards the formality of the education system, the rungs of the ladder clearly mapped out in front of us, that leaves me feeling a little melancholic for our freedom.
Don’t get me wrong, most of our mornings are a disaster. We could have three attempts at getting dressed or eating breakfast before we get it over the line.
But when the world is our oyster, we get to do lovely things: Art, hoovering, crafts, playing football in the garden, going for babyccinos, and hanging washing out the back (Ted is always in charge of the socks). This September though, that will change.
Of course, I can already taste the relief I am going to feel, getting him in for 9am, sitting back into the car at 9.01 with the new baby in the backseat, exhaling the exhale of a woman who has one less person to worry about for three whole hours at least.
It will be massively liberating, without a doubt.
But I will miss him too. He is currently my favourite person, and I love hanging out with the little monster — even when he is going on strike on his bike and refusing to pedal despite mammy’s protestations and a gaggle of American tourists trying to get past.
I didn’t like school as a child, even though I wasn’t too bad at rote learning. Fred equally wasn’t a fan, but we know it’s important not to let our experiences colour Ted’s view of this new world opening up for him.
School is not what it used to be, that I know. Still, I worry that school is not a place where everyone will shine or be happy. As such, I can’t help but bite my lip a little as I watch him take off with his new Spiderman bag (yes, I did succumb to the ubiquitous supermarket not-so-subliminal messaging).
A well-known comedian once told me that every time one of his kids headed off to sit a State exam — be it Junior Cert or Leaving Cert — he would say to them: “Come home safe.”
It’s a sentiment I hope to take with me as Ted embarks on this next chapter.
Yes, CAO points may be the measure of rote learning, but learning how to hang socks on the line correctly is the real measure of the man. And that is one skill that Ted has already mastered.
