Just 27 hours after we landed from 25 hours of flying we arrived at the International School of Siena for what we thought was a pop in to see the school, meet the principal and have a tour.
We were at school for 4 hours in total and while it was such a good morning for the girls and for us to understand more, we were all looking like zombies by the time we left.
The school itself is brand new and they only moved to the new campus 3 weeks ago as the school is growing, there are now almost 100 children from kindergarten to Grade 10. The school opened in 2008 with 7 children in kindergarten and they add on a new grade eery year, so are very proud that their first kindergarten graduates will be graduating Grade 12 in a few years.
While it’s amazing to have a brand new school building and our timing with this is impeccable, it was chaotic the day we visited…professional photographers there shooting kids and the building for the new website, handymen hanging pictures, bathrooms being completed, book fair in the lobby, concert practise and more.
So while nerves were high and tiredness was huge, we were trying to break the ice with the older girls and tell them they could go to class and make up anything about who they were and who they wanted to be and how fun it is to be in an environment when no one knows a thing about you and has no expectations. We were all practising accents, Aussie slang, and even pretending that Polly may have had Tourettes and shouted obscenities out of no where (again not PC but did I mention EXTEME exhaustion) so we were all in crazy fits of laughter with tears rolling down our faces when the Principal walked in again to collect the girls…not a good look!
The school years are slightly complicated as we will be attending over 2 European calendar years so we needed to make some decisions. I loved that Mrs Watson the lovely Principal from the UK who has been at the school since it was founded, asked the girls what they were comfortable with, which peer groups they felt aligned with and what would work best for them:
Hayley has always been young for her year (Feb birthday) so is perfect to be going into Year 8 from January. She has 11 kids in her year group and most of them are Native Italian speakers. She went to classes for 2 periods (Tech and Art) and bonded with lots of the girls, who hugged her when she left. She noticed there is no where to hide in such a small year group and often the class is split for music, languages, maths etc so it might only be 3-4 kids in the class. I see this as almost private tutoring and a positive but of course she is not so sure it’s a good thing. They also just put on an English speaking trumpet teacher so we signed her up on the spot for private classes and she’s over the moon!
Polly (Sept birthday) has always been on the older side of her age group so after being in class, meeting with her year group and discussing it with us and Mrs Watson, she will go from Year 5 in Australia into Year 7 from January and is excited about this decision. This is huge for Polly as it’s learning the high school system with various teachers, a home room, languages and so much more. Great way to prepare her for high school back in Australia as she can get used to it all here in a class of 14 kids and many from other countries - she met girls from Switzerland, New Caledonia and Norway. She attended music class (where she and 2 girls had to perform their percussion in front of the class) and Spanish (where the teacher did not speak English).
Audrey (Aug birthday) is also older for her year in Australia so will be going from Kindergarten into Year 2. She has the largest grade in the school with 15 kids so they had to squeeze her in! Mrs Watson took Audrey by the hand and they went to meet her class while we all stayed in the office. She was so brave! Aud attended gym class, art and went to lunch with her grade, before getting a little teary, overwhelmed (and tired) so her teacher asked if she’d like to come back to us a little early. Her whole class just kept asking her if she was an English or Italian speaker and they were all so excited to meet her.
School orientation highlights:
The older girls feel like it’s very much a scene from High School Musical - lunch room, lunch ladies with the nursing caps, green hallways with floor lighting, lockers for everyone.
Mrs Watson is amazing, we love her and she has a daughter who has been at the school for 9 years and it currently in Year 9, one grade above Hayley. She spent 2 hours with us talking about the curriculum, asking the girls lots of questions, taking us on a tour of every classroom and of course I gave her a few packets of tim tams!
When authority talks, kids listen. The Principal said to Hayley and Polly (after delivering Audrey to her classroom) ok girls, time to go meet your year group and although Polly looked petrified, they both went off to classes and actually had a great time. Really helped break the ice and help with anxiety about a new school, new people and new environment.
The view is STUNNING! I would sit and stare out a window all day if I went to the school, its overlooking the Tuscan hills and with Winter right now its gorgeous and frosty.
Hayley was not impressed (and is my most judgey) that one of her teachers said ‘oh you are from Australia, we have another child in your class who is from Vanuatu, that’s close to you’. Hayley now thinks she is completely incompetent! We explained to Europeans Asia Pacific/Oceania is all the same area so while it’s not the same, it’s close enough.
I am personally most excited about only sending them to school with a water bottle. They get ALL food at school - fruit in the morning, 2 course hot lunch (pasta and then fish/meat and veggies) and biscuits in the afternoon. The admin lady seemed shocked when I said we send fruit and sandwiches to school for lunch, she said that was more of a snack.
This afternoon is the annual Xmas movie night and bake sale so we will head back to school so the girls can see their new ‘friends’ again and we can meet some parents.
Off to order text books for the older girls now, uniforms and head to decathlon for sport gear. Can’t wait until they start 7 Jan!
