J is so tired that this last morning is a real struggle. He looks shattered, poor lamb. He remembers another test he’d forgotten to tell me about and I shriek at him along the lines of “not another one ! That’s why you’ve got your desk, with your calendar !” But it’s times tables, so we run through the ones he needed to revise, and off he goes.
It's now fairly cold and threatening rain. Obviously we are used to this, this is normal summer weather in Manchester. C goes in late - I've got the hang of this bit now - wearing shorts. It's 9 degrees and he won't be reasoned with. They come home for lunch, the temperature has reduced to 6 degrees - and it's now hailing hailstones the size of grapes. Shorts ! Should I suggest he paints himself with woad ?
A normal day with no incidents to note other than that both of the children have been sent home with a sum total of one piece of homework for the holidays. So that’s great – they can both have a real rest.
And so will I. See you in a fortnight, and haben-sie eine schon ferien (OK I know that’s wrong but you get my gist)
Ciao
K
Saturday 4 October 2008
Integrated schooling programme
Sorry for scanning these the opposite way round ! Whoops.
All of this information, produced by Kanton Zurich in English, is incredibly useful.
Holidays and Events Unique to the Zurich area
Thursday - another meeting at school
A couple of weeks ago I had a phone call from a lady in the village - I couldn't quite make out her role - asking me to come to school for a meeting with her and a colleague. Just us. Today’s the day, so off OH and I go at 6pm, wondering what it’s all about.
It turns out to be two representatives of the Schulpflege, who want to meet us to run through how the school system works in the Gemeinde. Luckily the lady who leads the meeting is Dutch, and speaks excellent English.
They have a sheet of information for us in English about the traditional Zurich holidays (Sechselauten, Knabenschiessen, Swiss National Day, Rabeliechtli, Samichlaus, and Drei Konigstag) together with information from Kanton Zurich in English about the school system. I’m going to scan these and post them up for general use as they are Kantonal. They also gave us a print out of information about the school in English, but I won’t post that as it’s school specific.
It turns out to be two representatives of the Schulpflege, who want to meet us to run through how the school system works in the Gemeinde. Luckily the lady who leads the meeting is Dutch, and speaks excellent English.
They have a sheet of information for us in English about the traditional Zurich holidays (Sechselauten, Knabenschiessen, Swiss National Day, Rabeliechtli, Samichlaus, and Drei Konigstag) together with information from Kanton Zurich in English about the school system. I’m going to scan these and post them up for general use as they are Kantonal. They also gave us a print out of information about the school in English, but I won’t post that as it’s school specific.
I will post all of these items separately, so you can skim / ignore / deal with individually.
Basically, they wanted to make sure that we understood how the system works, ensure that we are happy with how we’ve been dealt with so far (yes, thrilled), and ensure that we are happy with the children’s additional German allocation (a great big fat screaming yes). It seems that the Schulpflege board sits above the schooling board, so the points of contact for us, in this order, are:
1 Teacher – then if we are not happy
2 Head teacher – then if we are still not happy
3 Schulpflege.
It’s not a governing body as we would know it in the UK (I was a school governor for 3 years at our last school) nor is it a PTA, though there is a sort of one of those too I understand – and the name of which escapes me - sorry. I think OH might be more use on that, since his German is better than mine. If I were to join that I might be asked to do something sensible like go off and buy things for an event, so there’s every danger they’d and end up with 3 bottles of champagne and a pineapple when they’d actually asked for potatoes.
The meeting finishes earlier than we expected, so we slope off to the pub on the way home for a swift one. I can’t even begin to describe this place so I shall just say that it’s “local” and “individual”. But they do a good glass of wine, and we do all the necessary pleasantries with the locals before sitting down in a corner to quietly discuss our planned change of bedroom for the children. Is there conversation other than about children once you’ve had them ? Sometimes I wonder.
Alas our attempt at sinking into the background is blown out of the water when a boy and a girl who were also in the pub - presumably with a parent, since I didn’t see them with a stanger each - do the lovely traditional Swiss thing of going round the whole room shaking hands with the adults and saying good night. It’s just so charming and polite you want to melt. The little girl shakes my hand and says very loudly “Sind Sie Christoph’s Mutter ?” (long silence - I am speechless. Everyone else is also silent. It’s like that scene from American Werewolf in London when the two Americans walk in the “local” pub and all the regulars turn round and stare.) I say yes rather weakly, and wish her good night….. the locals resume their conversations. When we leave, the locals join in all the traditional “gute nacht” pleasantries perfectly normally.
I can’t stop laughing. Are we that easy to spot ? Oh well, it doesn’t matter, it was hardly intimidating.
Later in the evening J’s new guitar teacher rings to confirm his lessons, which will start after the Herbstferien - and in case you were fretting as much as I was, they will be early enough for us to still hit the slopes later in the day. Phew.
Week 7 Wednesday - Worterbuch
The Pons 2 in 1 Worterbuch that I ordered last week arrives. Brilliant ! I can order stuff from a German website – there’ll be no stopping me now (I must admit I was wondering if I had completed the transaction correctly).
Confusingly, since the website had a .de suffix I had presumed it would be delivered from Germany but in fact it came from Zug, with a bill in Swiss francs – 36.85 to be precise, but worth every rappen.
Confusingly, since the website had a .de suffix I had presumed it would be delivered from Germany but in fact it came from Zug, with a bill in Swiss francs – 36.85 to be precise, but worth every rappen.
Week 7 - Monday
Well we're into the home stretch, and the last week before the Herbstferien – in British English, October half term.
I reckon there’s enough on the blog now to point people to it who might find the information useful, so I forward the link to the Swiss Schooling yahoo group, and also post a thread in the families / schools / health section of a well known forum for English speakers in Switzerland, which I have both used and contributed to up until now. Within seconds no exaggeration the thread is deleted by the moderator, with a very abrupt automatically generated message that “advertising your blog on the forum is not allowed” and “don’t bother replying to this message, if you have an issue then you must contact the moderator directly” (sic).
I wasn’t aware of their rules about “external” blogs, and the forum rules of conduct are at the bottom of the page, well out of normal eye range. I can’t make head nor tail of the blog pages on the forum and in any case why should I turn this into their blog when it’s mine ? I’m not prepared to duplicate the work of uploading it twice just so it has their tag on it.
To be honest, I’m stunned by the moderator’s action. The blog is being written specifically to help give people who are seeking information about how the school system works in Zurich the chance to watch one family go through the process in the first year. Reality TV if you like, but minus the celebrities and delinquency. Am I completely off course in thinking that this might actually be helpful to families with school age children in the Zurich expat community ? After all, I’m not peddling crack cocaine or personal services - though you might get a racier blog if I were. I might consider google ads – after all if I’m taking the time to write it, then why not get paid for it - but I will obviously filter out those I consider inappropriate – and I’ve not definitely decided to do this.
I wait 24 hours before drafting a disproportionately polite response to the moderator, who, lest we forget, managed to delete my thread within seconds of it being posted. To date, Saturday 4th October and four days later, I've not been graced with a response, so am clearly not worth even a disproportionately polite discussion of how this might be taken forward.
So, if you know of anyone seeking the kind of information that might be found here, please give them the blogspot address.
Thank you.
And it’s the forum's loss, so nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
Whilst I’m sitting in a stunned fury over this episode, I begin to receive emails from a number of people who have started to read the blog and find it useful.
So – to all of you from the Yahoo group who have contacted me – thank you, your words have encouraged me a great deal.
I reckon there’s enough on the blog now to point people to it who might find the information useful, so I forward the link to the Swiss Schooling yahoo group, and also post a thread in the families / schools / health section of a well known forum for English speakers in Switzerland, which I have both used and contributed to up until now. Within seconds no exaggeration the thread is deleted by the moderator, with a very abrupt automatically generated message that “advertising your blog on the forum is not allowed” and “don’t bother replying to this message, if you have an issue then you must contact the moderator directly” (sic).
I wasn’t aware of their rules about “external” blogs, and the forum rules of conduct are at the bottom of the page, well out of normal eye range. I can’t make head nor tail of the blog pages on the forum and in any case why should I turn this into their blog when it’s mine ? I’m not prepared to duplicate the work of uploading it twice just so it has their tag on it.
To be honest, I’m stunned by the moderator’s action. The blog is being written specifically to help give people who are seeking information about how the school system works in Zurich the chance to watch one family go through the process in the first year. Reality TV if you like, but minus the celebrities and delinquency. Am I completely off course in thinking that this might actually be helpful to families with school age children in the Zurich expat community ? After all, I’m not peddling crack cocaine or personal services - though you might get a racier blog if I were. I might consider google ads – after all if I’m taking the time to write it, then why not get paid for it - but I will obviously filter out those I consider inappropriate – and I’ve not definitely decided to do this.
I wait 24 hours before drafting a disproportionately polite response to the moderator, who, lest we forget, managed to delete my thread within seconds of it being posted. To date, Saturday 4th October and four days later, I've not been graced with a response, so am clearly not worth even a disproportionately polite discussion of how this might be taken forward.
So, if you know of anyone seeking the kind of information that might be found here, please give them the blogspot address.
Thank you.
And it’s the forum's loss, so nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
Whilst I’m sitting in a stunned fury over this episode, I begin to receive emails from a number of people who have started to read the blog and find it useful.
So – to all of you from the Yahoo group who have contacted me – thank you, your words have encouraged me a great deal.
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