First day at school

No, not mine. While I don’t like to admit it, the memories of my first day at school are hazy and even that is a tad optimistic. It is about 2 months to the day that little S entered a real school as a student.

Jun 13th, 2012 was the D-day and needless to say, both S and me were a bundle of nerves long before that. When you become parents and see the number of things you have to ensure get done to give your child the best possible experience in his or her school is when you realize what heroes and heroines your parents have been all through.

Having been through a year and a half of playgroup + pseudo nursery at TreeHouse, little S was pretty much nonchalant about what she called “bada waala school”. In fact, she was already excited about getting to go to a bigger school and meeting new teachers and friends. The school that we have secured for her is a very big institution with top of the class infrastructure and we had been given extremely good feedback about it from all the people we spoke to including known people whose children were already admitted there. One visit to the school campus ensured that we wanted no other school. This was obviously, after we had decided on not going with the traditional SSCE Board prevalent in Mumbai and Maharashtra right from the time we were studying but instead opted for the IGSCE Board as it is supposed to do away with “learning by rote” and instead focus on instilling basic principles in the child so that they are more in tune with the real world rather the “theory only” approach we grew up with.

As an aside, I do think that these days we are spoilt for options. When we were in school, the state Board was the de facto medium of education for all of us and while ICSE schools existed they were so far and few in between that the majority of parents didn’t even think of it. And today we can choose between state (SSCE), CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE boards and frankly, the distinguishing points amongst all these is not clear to the lay people (meaning parents like us) and the choice is made basis more of a combination of hearsay and some information at hand.

Coming back, the lead up to the first day was filled with achieving what I’ll call “milestones” for want of a better word. These are not arranged in any particular order though.

Milestone 1 – Ensure all the various “fees” have been settled and the corresponding receipts all available for easy access.

Milestone 2 – Keeping telling little S how much fun going to school would be and how she would meet new friends her age and a great teacher as well. Her only response to this “coaching” was to look at us and maybe thinking “Stop it, you guys! I already know all this!”.

Milestone 3 – Drumming into little S the concept of raising her hand in class and asking permission to go to the toilet so that the attendant in class can take her immediately without creating further hassles.

Milestone 4 – Buying all the school essentials including school bag, a pencil box with pencils, eraser, sharpener etc, a lunch box and water bottle, raincoat and seeing little S jump for joy to see most of her favourite cartoon characters emblazoned somewhere or the other.

Milestone 5 – Paying for, trying out and collecting the school uniform which comprises of an off white shirt, black trousers, maroon blazer, maroon socks and black shoes – yes, this is the school uniform even for Nursery grade!

Milestone 6 – Waking little S up earlier each day so that she gets used to the school time of 9 am to 1 pm; it really broke our hearts to wake her at 7 am each day especially since she was so used to waking up only by 9 but the timings left us with no choice.

Milestone 7 – Practising the basics with little S (her pencil grip, a few nursery rhymes etc) so she doesn’t find it tough to start off with

And then came the first day. S and me had both taken leave from our respective places of work and needless to say, we were up bright and early, even earlier than required actually. The little one was woken up; thankfully she was in a good mood, and taken through her paces of brushing her teeth, bathed, given her breakfast and finally the most interesting (for her), wearing her new uniform. I managed to capture all these moments on a camera to relish later on. We had to be at the school by 8.45 sharp and accordingly we left our home at 8.20.

My father (little S’s proud grandfather) was also accompanying us to school so we took a little diversion to pick him up along the way and also give my mother and S’s parents a chance to see little S in all her splendour. Once we were finally on our way, little S who had been chattering merrily till then got very drowsy, maybe an indication that she was still not used to an early start. We arrived at the school to see hordes of parents and guardians with their little ones waiting for the school gates to open. This happened at sharp 8.45 am and giving an indication of some sort of order, we were allowed to go in one at a time.

The school grounds are the first thing visible as soon as you entered the gates and you have to walk past it to get to the main building and little S’s eyes lit up when she saw that well trimmed green “grass” (it is actually well maintained Astroturf). She was clinging to S’s and my hand (or maybe we were clinging to hers) and my father was alongside. To cut a long story short, the scene at the entrance was something I will never forget. So many kids, all cute in their own individuality, brought together by wearing the same uniform as my daughter was. Some of them bawling, not wanting to leave their parents, some of them bawling at being held by their parents and wanting to break free, others with naughty twinkles in their eyes promising to wreak mischief at the first evident, some tall, some short, so many of them all together.

The to-be teachers of each of the 4 divisions of the Lower class (Nursery is called Lower Years here) had already put up large clipboards with their own names followed by the list of children allotted to their respective divisions. We were quickly able to locate that little S was to be in Lower – A and accordingly went to hand her over to her teacher. And that was when it happened – don’t know what exactly went through her little mind, but our daughter, who till then had been in the best of spirits, suddenly realized that she was going to leave her Dai and Mamma and go with this unknown though sweet looking lady and started crying her heart out. S could not manage to see her crying and it was up to me to remind little S of all the fun she was going to have in school and the teacher too came to my rescue very ably. And we finally saw her go hand in hand with the teacher, still crying a little, but head held high and marching straight into her waiting class room.

The first day was more of an orientation for the kids and was therefore, just for 2 hours instead of the regular 4 hours. Most of the parents camped out in the huge school lobby where the authorities had very kindly arranged for chairs to be put up so that we could sit comfortably while we waited. It was fun to see parents forming groups just like school or college kids do and gossip the time away. Some others were more concerned about how their children would travel from home to school and vice versa on a regular basis and for that reason were trying to form “car pools” with like-minded parents who were also from their vicinity.

The 2 hours which then seem interminably long (I was pacing up and down and wondering what my little one was doing – in fact there was a moment in between when the attendant “maavshi” led her out with 2 other children, on their way to the bathroom and we had to duck behind a pillar lest she spotted us) actually went by pretty quickly and before we knew it, we saw her walking towards us with her teacher yet again. She literally was deposited into our waiting arms and was smiling away happily. Little S has developed this weird close-mouthedness which she exercises when asked what she did in class – this has started from playschool itself and her patented answer to our numerous questions is “masti kiya”. So that was the answer we got from her that day as well. Thus ended her first ever day in school and as my father puts it, “The poor girl still has so many more years to go in school and college!”

Since then, 2 months have passed by and little S enjoys her school now; she absolutely loves her teacher and has actually started naming some children as her “best friends” now. We have also started getting a regular stream of the worksheets they make her do in school and it is very interesting to see the mode of teaching used these days. The school also follows a very effective system of communicating with parents using the child’s school diary which has to be checked every day by the parent as well as the teacher and notes are exchanged in this manner.

And thus we managed to fill in another piece in this wonderful jigsaw puzzle we call “parenting”. J So what next? Of course, the first Parent-Teacher Meeting!