School

Monday saw William heading off for his first day at his new school - Grantleigh.  We visited the rather impressive campus on our first day here - it's about a 30 minute drive from Richards Bay, surrounded by farmland and eucalyptus plantations.

The school offers classes from Grade RRR (pre-kindy) right through to Year 12. Facilities are quite amazing and include their own swimming pool, several sports fields and a very swanky auditorium for performances.

GETTING STARTED

Looking very smart in his new uniform!

After spending equivalent to the GDP of a small African country on all the necessary uniforms, bags, books and stationary, we were ready for action.  William was keen to start school immediately, but we held his excitement (and jet lag) at bay until the following week.

The school is very proud of its logo, and not shy about embossing or stamping everything in sight with the Grantleigh crest and native Loerie bird.

School hours are quite different over here, and after years of trying to train William to sleep in, we are now thinking that waking at 5.30 makes him the perfect child... 


But the early start comes with a drawback - an early finish!  Classes finish at 1pm (unless you are doing after school sport) which sees pick up at a more civilised 2.30pm.

SPORT

Here he is with his new Gryphon practicing on the front lawn!

Sport offerings for Term 2 are Rugby and Hockey, and William has wisely chosen hockey.  Most kids seem to do all their "after school competitive" sport in-house.  The school provides the grounds and uniform code while the professional coaches are sourced externally.

Will reckons the boys at his new school would be pretty handy at Auskick, and after seeing them in the playground, I see what he means!

In an effort to prevent injuries from footy boots, all primary school boys must play barefoot rugby.  While this might prevent a few random stud marks, their little feet cop a flogging, and are soon well toughened to do some amazingly powerful kicks, sans shoes. 

As an aside, I have no idea if his classmates Riku Boshoff and Rocco Klomfass are any good at rugby, but their names are so deliciously perfect for a sports commentator, you'd have to think they'll be in the front row for the Springboks some day.

GRADES

You can see William at the back here - just letting the others know he has arrived!

The school grades are a little different here too.  William has gone into Grade 2 (as he was in Perth), however all the other students are a year older than him.  The school work seems much the same, so at least that is a constant.

No doubt the biggest challenge is going to be a linguistic one as we attempt to learn all the names of William's classmates.  Luckily, there are a few familiar ones like Joshua and Liam, but try getting your tongue around Mas'ud, Nishen, Siwe, Sduduzo, Lwa and Simphiwe!

ART & MUSIC
The classes are separated into boys and girls for all non-core subjects like art, sport and music.

The art teacher is a real blast!  Her class motto is printed on the wall here, and she especially likes the LOUD art classes she has with the boys.  I haven't seen any of the kids artwork, but no doubt, she gets the creative juices flowing...



For music, all kids learn the xylophone (????) so I'll be interested to hear William's opinion on that one.  With any luck, he'll be able to play his favourite tune "Eye of the Tiger" by year's end.

Another cool thing about the school is that the kids are allowed to go barefoot throughout the day.  So long as they arrive with shoes and socks on and leave with them on, all is good.

AND SO...
... the report when I picked William up on the first day at school was:

"Brilliant.  Best ever."

No doubt we will have a few challenges ahead, such as our first attempt at catching the bus home yesterday.  In WIlliam's words again:

"Mum, that was a complete fail", as I waited patiently at the wrong bus stop for him...

There were tears from both of us at the end of that long exhausting day, but we got over it fairly quickly.  Who knows, we may even come back as resilient as some of the South African kids seem.