{"id":1466,"date":"2013-09-17T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T22:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2019-12-20T13:56:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T13:56:19","slug":"being-the-new-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/being-the-new-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Being the new girl – Starting School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sofia started school on Friday the 13th<\/sup>\u00a0, we decided to send her to a Small Boarding School<\/a> this year…<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5810\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting school<\/h2>\n

My husband Matt took the day off work, and as it was a 9.45am start we had a leisurely breakfast before I went upstairs and helped get Sofia into her uniform: a real rite of passage.\u00a0 We came back down and had a little photo shoot (obviously I did the obligatory posting onto Facebook).<\/p>\n

The five of us went up to the school and were personally greeted by the Deputy Head a couple of minutes early (we were a little eager!). I hadn\u2019t realised that each child had a designated slot, so it was a nice surprise to have this time dedicated to us. We were escorted to the cloakroom, given a run through of what she needed to do and were then taken to Sofia\u2019s class and delivered to her teacher. Sofia\u2019s teacher immediately introduced her to the morning routine, had a few comforting words to say to us, and then that was it, we said goodbye. It was a slick operation but carried out in a very compassionate manner. \u00a0I had absolutely no worries about leaving her.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5813\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First morning<\/h2>\n

The four of us then headed straight off to go and check out a venue for Sofia\u2019s next birthday party. Her birthday isn\u2019t until December, but last year taught me that forward planning is key\u00a0Planning a child’s birthday party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We had to run a few errands so didn\u2019t bother going back home as it was a 12pm pick up.\u00a0 In no time at all we were on our way back to collect her.<\/p>\n

Semi-disaster struck; we were five minutes from the school at a very busy crossroads and the traffic lights were out. It was chaos. I ended up queued outside of the classroom door at 12.02pm. The children were still coming out one by one as I got there so Sofia wasn\u2019t sat on her own. However, she was the last one to be collected\u00a0#FAIL<\/a>. I felt really terrible. Matt thought I was insane.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5826\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Second day<\/h2>\n

We needed to be at the school for 8.50am. Once again it was a 12pm pick up, so a nice gentle start. My dad’s been brilliant. He comes over in the mornings to sit with the twins whilst I walk Sofia to school. It takes a lot of the stress out of it.<\/p>\n

However, I still seemed to panic on Monday morning. There was no designated slot, going in via the office in our little bubble for a lovely meet and greet. Instead it was the bun fight of the school run. I didn\u2019t know what gate to queue up at and what the protocol was. I was stressing so much that we left very early. We were second out of the entire school at the gate. I asked the lady in front what the procedure was. She was with her grandson and had no idea. A kindly mum behind overheard and said that the other gate was best for Sofia’s class. Phew. I knew what we were doing and no longer felt like the \u2018new girl\u2019.<\/p>\n

At 8.50am someone came out and unlocked the gate. There was a semblance of politeness. However, we were all chomping at the bit to get in and to the cloakroom. It was pandemonium. I looked at the narrow, single door opening and breathed a massive sigh of relief that I didn\u2019t have the double buggy with me.<\/p>\n

Three days in<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m actually feeling slightly overawed and it\u2019s not about Sofia settling in; she\u2019s taken to it like the proverbial duck.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t get the memo about bringing in photos from their summer holidays, so I did emergency printouts and then spent an evening labelling and sticky back plastic-ing.<\/p>\n

On Sofia\u2019s first day, I received a letter about the first PTA meeting, which is this Thursday, and another letter about Jeans for Genes<\/a> day this Friday (must remember no uniform). Then there\u2019s a reading meeting next week.<\/p>\n

Today I received the September newsletter, which includes all of the important dates for the Autumn term and is two pages long: meetings, assemblies, quiz nights, costumes to be made, harvest festival; and don\u2019t even get started on the Christmas activities. I’ve just spent over half an hour putting everything on the calendar. Then there was the NHS questionnaire.<\/p>\n

My head is spinning!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


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Sofia started school on Friday the 13th\u00a0, we decided to send her to a Small Boarding School this year… Starting school My husband Matt took the day off work, and as it was a 9.45am start we had a leisurely breakfast before I went upstairs and helped get Sofia into her uniform: a real rite<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[564,635],"tags":[212,214,213,216,215],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/unnamed.jpg?fit=346%2C259&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3ej6a-nE","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6121,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions\/6121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}