A I'm not working this morning, and it is so beautiful sitting here on the veranda in the sunshine with a coffee, thought I'd add a quick bit to the blog regarding my impression of schools in South Africa.
There had to be a downside to this idyll, and we found it yesterday: strikes. I got a text late in the afternoon to say school would be closed on Tuesday because the teachers are all going on strike. I had been vaguely aware from the news that public servants are in dispute with the governement over pay, but it never occured to me that this included teachers. And if it did, I suppose I would have expected a little more notice....

Fortunately Neil and I can manage between us and in a way I'm quite glad for the girls - what was going to be a bank holiday weekend anyway becomes a 4 day weekend. I think they could do with a rest as the pace of life during the week is pretty relentless. Up at 6.30am latest, out of the house within the hour, and then an inevitable rush at the end of the day to fit in tea and homework and a bit of down time before an earlier than normal bedtime.
The school day starts at 7.50am and officially ends at 1pm for Elizabeth, 2.30pm for Lottie. However on several days they stay on at school for an hour or two for 'extramurals' - after school activities and clubs. Most of these revolve around sport as there is only one timetabled session of PE per week in all grades. So the girls do tennis and gymnastics plus African dancing as extramurals each week. Elizabeth has also joined the choir which is lovely except on a Wednesday morning when we get up even earlier as she has a practise before school at 7.30.

Although children start school a year later here than in the UK, they certainly seem to catch up quickly. I think both girls are in broadly appropriate classes for their stage and ability. Elizabeth is undoubtedly super comfortable with the work, as we thought she might be, but it's not significantly below what she was doing at St Gabriel's, and she's learning so much about SA culture, plus tackling two new languages. Lottie is being comfortably stretched I think: the core subjects being broadly at her level, but with so much that's new to tackle. She is learning to write in a very flowery cursive style, is tackling new subjects (Natural Sciences which she loves) and is slowly starting to get the very basics of Afrikaans and Xhosa sorted. I find the language strategy odd: two very local languages, pretty unique to SA, with no perspective on the wider world at all, not even the rest of Africa. From our point of view it's not a problem at all as any language learning is supposed to be helpful. But I'd feel as if my children were missing out on the new world languages if we were based here permanently. Not sure what the private schools do - perhaps that's how you learn French and Spanish, by paying for it.

On a Friday the whole school finishes at lunchtime, which we are going to try to use to our advantage. This weekend, we'll get away early for our trip to Hermanus. Better go and pack before I collect the girls. As it's so glorious today I'm going to walk down to school (about 25 mins) and we'll saunter home, perhaps via the fabulous ice cream shop we've discovered. The boot of the car is already hiding one of Lottie's birthday presents, an authentic African drum.....