On London

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These pics were from her first day – she won’t admit it but I think she enjoyed it!

The school seems like a nice place. It’s bigger than Shacklewell but there’s a friendly atmosphere there. Lily was nervous on her first day and she got upset because she saw signs saying there’s no food with peanuts allowed, and in her lunch bag there was a cereal bar with peanut butter.

As I was trying to calm her down her teacher Ms Purves came out of the classrooom to welcome us. I think she may have thought Lily was upset about losing her cereal bar, but actually Lily was desperate to get rid of it before anything bad happened.

We had already met Ms Purves last week when we enrolled with the school. She remembered Lily’s name and spoke to her very kindly. Lily wanted me to stay for a while, and Harry was sitting quietly in his pushchair, so we joined the other kids on the carpet and read a book for the first few minutes.

There are loudspeakers in each classroom and around the school, and each morning everyone stands for announcements and sometimes the national anthem. This morning two older children announced all the kids with birthdays that day, talked about some upcoming school and sports events, then wished everyone a great day.

Eventually I pretended to remember that I’d forgotten her sandwich at home – ok I had left the house halfway through making it, but it was really an excuse to slip away. When I came back I peeped through the door and saw Lily sitting at the front looking absorbed. She spotted me and waved with a big grin which was a good sign. And when she came out she went right past me to get her backpack, said hello then headed off to lunch.

Later in the week Lily started getting more and more upset in the mornings, with lots of wailing and insisting “I AM NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!!”. Other tactics included refusing to move, standing on her head, claiming to be ill / tired / injured / asleep / unable to walk. I think her main source of anxiety has been lunchtime – worrying about who she’s going to sit next to, and getting upset that there are no other vegetarians in her class.

Harry also started on Wednesday, at the school’s daycare. He’s just doing 3 mornings a week for now but was very lucky to get a place – they normally only kids from 2 and a half. On his first morning I stayed with him, and when they played outside in their own little playground he had a great time being wheeled around by one of the bigger kids.

The rest of the school came out for morning recess so I nipped into the big playground to see if I could spot Lily. I watched her from a distance playing a game with 4 other girls, something like What’s the Time Mister Wolf – she was having a great time so I left her to it. At the end of the day she ran off to talk to a couple of her new friends.

The school playground is totally open, which seems like a good idea because it makes it feel like a community resource. After school there are some school sports things going on, kids playing, parents chatting, and people just generally using the space. There’s a great big climbing frame which Lily & Harry have been playing on every afternoon.

On Saturday afternoon, after spending most of the day test-driving and then buying a car (more on that later), we walked through the school on the way to get pizza and a couple of kids from her class were there playing. We stopped for a bit and joined in, and Caroline got to meet a couple of the other parents. Sebastian from Lily’s class introduced her to his other friend saying “This is Lily, she’s my best friend”, so she’s really not doing too badly so far!