James learns Indian Asian

Thought it was time I gave you all an update on what's been happening to each of us, so I'll start with James. James started school at Manifold Heights (Mano) on July 14th and this is a picture of him on day one in his new uniform. It's very green - but very comfy as they wear trackie bums (shorts in summer) and sweatshirts so nothing to iron for me!!

He does seem to have struggled a bit to settle in. For a few weeks the larger-than-life loud and crazy boy was replaced by one much more subdued and generally hard to live with! Poor James, we just assumed that he would not find it so hard to re-adjust, but I suppose he has been at Dunbar in school or nursery for the last four years, so it's all a big change for him. He is in a composite Year 1/2 class (which would be P 2/3 for us) and although his teacher says he is Year 2 academically, socially he is more year one. She did cite some incident about a flying headless Lego man, and though I really wanted to go 'That's nothing, you should see what he does at home', I thought that probably wasn't the response she was after, so made some kind of disapproving noises and left swiftly....


Anyway, this week he really seems to have settled in better and is spending lunch and break times with his new best friends Ben and Lachlan (Scottish Dad). Apparently they have been building in the sandpit.... 'So' I said naively, 'what have you been building?' 'A toilet, mum' he says.. 'First we build the toilet, then we take brown sand and make poo and then we use a big stick and that's the flush' Really by now you would think I would know better than to ask!!

Anyway, here are some of James' major happenings of the last few weeks:

• He has done a presentation in class about something important to him - he chose his Scotland rugby shirt and spoke about Scotland, rugby in Dunbar, the Saltire, his family and where his names come from, and some of the differences between Scotland and Australia
  
• James has been learning Indian Asian at school. Actually, he has been learing Indonesian as that's the foreign language they do at Mano, but he thinks its Indian Asian!
  
• He has had his first school trip - a historical walking trip around Geelong where they visited a historic house, the cemetery and the museum. Guess he enjoyed it as he is desperate to take me and Nick to show us.
  
• Swimming lessons - Saturday morning at 8.30!!! James, Will and Ella all have lessons at the same time, and the quality of the lessons is excellent, so it's well worth it getting up and out. Plus we get to go and have coffee (or milk) and cake afterwards...
  
• Joey Scouts - which is the starting level of Scouts here (Beavers at home I think?) - he starts next week
  

Guess I spoke too soon about James settling in - apparently he has been at the principal's office already - nothing major, just the usual catalogue of Jamesisms - pushing, throwing sand, disruptive in class.... Have now passed the stage of accepting the 'he's only 6' and 'boys will be boys' argument, and when his teachers said yesterday that she felt some of the other children were beginning to avoid him, I came home and cried then bit the bullet and arranged for him to go for professional assessment. As most of you will know, James is not lacking in the brains department, so they are going to look at whether he is frustrated at school because he is bored, or whether he has behavioural problems which need to be addressed... or both.

I have always said that James is extreme in everything he does both good and bad, and to give you an example, in the space of five minutes last night he had (1) beaten his sister on the legs for accidentally nudging him with her foot and (2) voluntarily started pushing Phoebe in the pram for me when she was crying and said 'Mum, why don't you feed Phoebe now. Will and Ella and I don't mind waiting for dinner, do we?'

Much as I really don't like labelling children as 'this' or 'that', Nick and I have had to accept that (1) James is not as happy as he could be as he is rubbing other people (peers and adults) up the wrong way and (2) this is beginning to affect him socially. I don't mind if he excels academically, but I do mind if he is unhappy and has no friends, so watch this space... Assessment is August 22nd and I'll let you know whet they say.