The Georgous

Monday 21st of April

St Johns on the Hill, an independent school in Chepstow.

Impressions of St. Johns on the Hill, Glouscester, England. Nursery

A very impressive, new purpose built building housing the nursery in a huge open plan ‘hall’.  The different age group settings, Butterflies (12 weeks – 12 months), Caterpillars (1-2 years), Ladybirds (2-3 years) and Busy Bees (3-4 years) were separated by knee-high latched picket fences. The nursery areas included a sensory room and a soft play room.

What I liked about it:

‘A curriculum’ – an outline of learning topics.
Although at this nursery, this seemed more academic than ‘hands-on’ experiential.

Lots of books, drawing, writing and play material at accesible heights.

Dislikes – none too major, but….

Several staff seemed to be temporary – but this was not mentioned or pointed out.
We were introduced to the staff but were not told their names; although they seemed friendly enough.
Child-staff ratio did not seem to be consistently maintained.

The children seemed content (not necessarily happy) although the 30 minutes or so we were there – the time appeared to be very structured.

Oddities
Different responses by Jan Harvey wrt to availability.

At first, told oh in september you can have any day any time you want.
And later when asked about application procedure, it became you’ll have to submit the application form and you’ll go on the waiting list and I’ll just go down it and tick them off.

When asked how long she had been at the nursery,  she fobbed of the question with a ‘Oh a very long time, 120 years!’

Impressions of St. Johns on the Racecourse, Chepstow, Wales. Nursery

The racecourse nursery had a lovely manager who ws very helpful and forthcoming with information. Even telling us which days she had available in September. The nursery itself was rather disappointing in comparison. it was small and rather old. And seemed quite messy.

Interestingly, there were very different approaches to the education – Hill emphasising formal learning with a folder of ‘curriculum’ etc while Racecourse was mainly ‘ learn through play’ no actual teaching or writing etc. I think this difference stems mainly from the fact that they are in different countries with different learning priorities!

Apart from a couple of questions wrt to funding (cross border) and time slots, we are likely to put Georgia down for Hill although i’m not too keen on the manager, i’m going on the idea that it’s her key worker or the actual nursery workers who will be more involved in her care and they all seem friendly enough.
 

At 2 years and 2 months, Georgia is learning to research an awful lot.

Everytime she is asked, “What are you doing?”. Her reply is almost always “Researching.”
We have no idea, where she picked this up from or how she knows how to use the word in context…

• researches mummy’s purse
• wants to do research on daddy’s Dell laptop

inevitably to complete the researcher profile she also wants – lab glasses!

Not that I’m a paranoid parent or anything, but ocassionally i check Georgia’s developments againsts ‘Your child should be doing….’ lists through random google searches. Mainly to know what to expect, and of course the ‘kia su’ in me, jumps for joy when I find out that her development is way advanced for her meagre two-years.

So anyway, I remember reading recently that, at two, expect your child to attempt to use ‘me’ and ‘you’ but also to mix them up, and that is precisely what Georgia has been doing.

‘Mummy, or-or with you’ 

‘When mama talks to you….’

‘Daddy, po-po you’

Apparently Iggle Piggle from In the Night Garden is polite — even though all he says is — Eek. The conversation went like this… 

G: Close it! Close it!

Me: Hey – that’s not nice. Ask nicely. Say Please close it. You must be polite.

G: Pease… Georgie be polite, like Iggle Piggle.

Me: Oh…is Iggle Piggle polite? (This is a revelation – Iggle Piggle doesn’t actually speak!)

G: Oh yes…he says – Eek.

In case, our readers are concerned, Georgia did NOT have to sing for her supper, and she was eating her jelly dessert at the time of this recording.

It has always been very important to me to teach Georgia to say “Please” when she wants something and “Thank you” when she’s gotten hold of it.

I didn’t realise how strongly the message had been getting through until yesterday….after doing a half-decent job trimming her fringe (it was getting in to her eyes), she turned to me in all seriousness and said,

“Thank you for cutting my hair”

Georgia’s very own made-up daddy song

Dad-dy, dad-dy, dad-dy

I love you…

Dad-dy, dad-dy, dad-dy

Likes to drink co-fee

When we decided to name our then unborn child Georgia, the only reason for it was that it was the only name we could agree upon based on the long list of parameters, such as ‘not too popular’, ‘sounds nice’, ‘not too girly’… and yes, we do know of the Georgie-porgie nursery rhyme.

Still it is such a pleasant surprise to find so many lovely songs dedicated to Georgia
The current favourite is the Seekers – Hey there Georgie-girl. Lyrics not so nice but lovely rhythm and melody.

On this fab video, Georgia can now correctly identify the guitars and the double bass and bops along very nicely to the singing.

We went for Georgia’s two year assessment this morning and it all went really well….except for the bit (now burned in my mind)  that the Health Visitor commented that Georgia would probably benefit from some group interaction to ‘learn to fight her own corner’.

Why would my sweet two year old child need to learn to fight her own corner?!

She’s a perfectly confident little Miss, and is quite happy to assert herself when she needs to but beyond that, she doesn’t like pushing and shoving around and is happy to wait until everyone has had their turn.

So how can learning to fight her own corner then be associated with ‘learning to be confident’? This is what the HV decided to turn it in to when I protested that as ‘Asians’ (Orientals in British terms) we do NOT fight. Perhaps it didn’t come across right, I certainly don’t mean we are ‘walk-overs’ but I have found that typically we tend to ‘let  things lie’ to avoid confrontation unless really necessary.

Still this doesn’t mean that Georgia is lacking in confidence…granted she is placid and quiet but she doesn’t sit by and get bullied. She quite happily fights back for her own toys if they are snatched from her.

Still I can’t see how going to play group is going to, in the words of the HV, encourage her to put up her hand in class to say “I know the answer”.

After all, from what I gather, the typical attitude in UK schools is based on….it’s NOT cool to be clever!
Now THAT’S significantly more worrying!

Sometimes when we’re in the musical mood, Georgia and I play the piano together. We bang away making up tunes…and sometimes I play bits of her favourite songs.

Tomorrow from Annie (The Musical) is an all-time favourite, and as I played the melody from the show, Georgia tried to lift up the piano keys. Turning to me with a very serious look and a nod of her head she says, “Annie in there!”