If you have not yet experienced the emotion-fest that is Year 6 to Year 7 transition, allow me to break it down for you:
September is yuck because that's when your mini-you takes their 11 Plus or secondary entry exam. After that is the wait...
...For
the results. Weeks spent in self-inflicted horror, studying the grim
suburban myths about dodgy goings on outside the exam hall. "My
daughter's friend's mother's friend's daughter saw the girl who had been
sitting behind her in the school entry exam get into a car and drive
away!"
After agonizing for a few weeks,
finally the results come. You don't feel like telling any other parents
for one of two reasons: your child did less well than hoped and you
don't want to compare results. Or your child did really well and you
don't want to compare results - and cause reluctant reciprocal
divulgment. So you shelve your disappointment or joy and save the energy
for the anguished decision of school choice. Because even if your child
did well, you can take NOTHING for granted. You sit back and wait...
...for
the email telling you which traffic jam your child (and possibly you)
is going to become intimately familiar with from September. You wait all
day and all evening. You find an email from a long lost workmate upon
checking the spam folder. Then, hours after everyone else has had their
email, yours pops into your inbox.
The end of a journey? Nope.
You
visit the school and come to the realisation that your mini-me is now a
midi-me. You hear speeches about how independent your children are soon
to become and detailing the amount of homework they are soon to be
expected to manage and how many clubs they are expected to join and how
perfectly presentable their uniform needs to be and how much money you
are expected to contribute monthly to the school. And you start
hyperventilating (in a secret, mental way that your midi-me can't
notice- until she's read what you've written in a magazine).
You
find you are lucky enough that your best friend's midi-me has been
allocated the same school as your own. Together, you go on a
reconnaissance mission to the school uniform shop and while looking at
the official list of uniform, pe kit, and prices, and factoring all the
wonderful, horizon-broadening school trips available, come to the
realisation (and yes, there are a lot of those in this process) that you
should have opened up an ISA when your mini-me was born, in order to
pay for everything.
In light of this latest
realisation in the uniform shop, your midi-me must try on a blazer which
is plainly too big. However, it is not "too big" enough. You have no
idea how much your Midi will grow during these intense growth spurt
years and, you figure if you go for the super big blazer that reaches
her knees, it should only look really funny for about a year. After that
it will just look funny. Your best friend is wetting herself in the
corner of the shop laughing at your "logic". You leave the shop without
having bought anything because you are going to wait until the last week
in August to do so. (To allow for extra growing time)
At
the induction day, you meet other parents and you feel a bit better.
Some are just like you (maybe a bit less on the edge). Your midi-me goes
off and meets her new teacher and classmates. There is a second hand
uniform sale. You go with the intention of finding a blindingy
bargainous blazer. You leave with a lab coat that is too big, even for
yourself and a home-ec apron.
It ain't over yet; you still have all of the end of Year 6 shenanigans to cope with: concerts, plays, leaving discos, yearbooks. You hope you can deal with it. I will help you. Meet me on my blog at mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com.
Angelina runs Sing and
Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and
Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.
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