Pilling is an adorable little primary school about half a mile from the prison in upper Jamestown. It's on the site of an old barracks, a two storey colonial building, with a first floor balcony. Lots of dark wooden panelling and creaky wooden stairs, high ceilings and reasonable size classrooms. Two year groups are together in each class, so Lottie is in year 1/2 class, and phoebe in year 5/6 class. The class numbers have traditionally been small but are currently quite large with close to 30 in each. I was surprised to see they have a suite of about 15 computers in an IT classroom, Lottie got to use them in her letters and sounds lesson on her first day. The playground is literally just a square of ground, a few picnic tables, and football goals. No play equipment at all, except for the pre-schoolers. Instead they seem to have lots of day trips and outings around the Island, and they get school swimming lessons once a week down at the outdoor pool at the port. Both girls are making friends. Lottie's new best friend is Fatima, and Phoebe seems to be getting on well with Mia, who was her pen pal before she arrived. Mia was here this afternoon for a play date. She's 10, and very tiny, not much taller than Lottie. She loves to wear boys clothes and plays lots of football, she's full of fun and affection and clearly likes to be an individual! Today she wore one of her dad's ties with a polo shirt and track suit trousers to school!
In many ways she is very different to Phoebe, but I hope they become good friends, they could be really good for each other.
From their second day the girls have been taking the bus in to school. The mini bus picks them up from the Three Tanks, a five minute walk down the hill from here. I walk them down in the mornings and am back home by 8.30am! After school it drops them 50 yards from the house at 3.15, which means I don't have to do an afternoon school run at all! The only down side of course is that there is no meeting of other parents at the school gates, so I will need to find other ways to link in with parents.
The girls are reacting in many and varied ways to their lives being turned upside down. Last Thursday morning, Lottie was crying inconsolably at the thought of going to school, but Phoebe couldn't wait to get there. Lottie was in such a state, I ended up staying with her at school for the first hour. It was really useful to give me a feel for the place and the other children in her class. There is a very different trend in names here, Lottie's classmates are Demi, Courtney, Britney, Paris, but the one she latched on to from day one was Fatima, who apparently also is an outsider. I have heard her dad is a doctor from Pakistan and they too are here for a short time. By day two Lottie was saying "I can't wait to get to school!" And has been fine ever since. She suddenly seems very grown up, she is taking the change so well, is very accepting of everything, and seems relaxed and happy.
By contrast phoebe is in emotional turmoil. She had high expectations, and I think is feeling disillusioned. The work is very unchallenging for her and she is bored already. she is working mainly with year 6's, but the learning gap is really showing. Mia is great fun and they seemed to be giggling and having a good time today, but at break times Mia plays football, which is so not Phoebe. She is struggling to connect with the others in her class, and we have had a few uncharacteristic bursts of rage and door slamming. She tells us that we have ruined her life. Tonight's tears were because she misses Humphrey so much. She has begged us mercilessly for the last week to get a dog. She is so convinced a dog is THE solution, I have come close to caving in. Thankfully several of the families in the ex pat community have dogs, so I am frantically offering to dog walk, dog sit, dog foster, anything to avoid actually having to own a dog!