Ezra’s first day at school

On international ‘be late for something dayEzra began his journey through full-time education.  Yes, the youngest of our three children has now reached the age deemed by the UK that compulsory education should begin and thus all three of the Baguettes are at school.  They are growing up too fast!

Ezra, by virtue of being born in March started his journey in full-time education at an earlier point in his life that his sisters and therefore he was in the second wave of starters of his year.  To help bring 90 4-year-olds into the school life in a controlled manner the starters are staggered across that first week.  Somewhat counterintuitively, the starters that are born in the summer (the youngest of the year) start first, then those born in the Spring start the next day and then the eldest children start on the third day.  Ezra, falling in that second category started on the second day and therefore a full day after his sisters returned to school.

Ezra has a tendency to wake up early so it was an early bath and early to bed on his last day of freedom to afford him the maximum amount of sleep before his first day.  As clockwork, he woke early and with Lucinda’s childminding wards turning up at their usual early hour, the day didn’t start too differently from any other.  However, after breakfast, rather than looking for something to wear, Ezra donned his school uniform for the first time.

I think that every parent will say that when their child puts on their school uniform for the first time that they look so grown up, and we were no different.  Ezra, stood there with his over-sized jumper, and slightly too-long trousers with his shirt and tie and he was no longer our little boy but a schoolboy!  There was still the rebel in him, though, as he refused to fasten the top button (in actual fact, velcro in Ezra’s shirt) of his shirt.

As it is an important day in a person’s life, I, as I have done for the girls, took the day off work so that I could take him to school and be there to pick him up when he finished.  So, after taking the obligatory ‘first day at school photos‘ (that you can see below) we headed to school under leaden skies with the kind of drizzle that you have to walk through to get wet.  Thankfully, the school is but a short walk through the park, so we didn’t get too wet.  The family as a whole set off together, but with Éowyn and Amélie on a separate campus, we needed to split in the park with Lucinda taking the girls while Ezra and I took the other fork and headed to his class.

We queued up outside his classroom with all the other new starters, and, for once, every child seemed fine with leaving their parents.  Miss Snow, beckoned each child in individually (no parents were allowed in the classroom) and when it came to Ezra’s turn, he simply hoisted his schoolbag over his shoulder so that he could carry his P.E. kit bag and water bottle, then without so much as a backwards glance he disappeared into the classroom and was gone.  No wave goodbye.  No tears.  Simply an about-turn and gone.

This first week is all about introducing them to school-life so for the first few days they are finishing at 13:00.  So, after a spot of lunch we headed back to school to pick him up.  There was no rush to greet us, as Miss Snow opened the door to let him out.  This was due, in part, to the fact that it was one of his little classmates birthdays and she was handing out sweets.  After he collected his packet of Haribos he came over.  To say he was nonplussed about the day is an understatement.  He simply wanted to play with his friend (one of Lucinda’s wards).  All we got out of him was that he had a cheese sandwich for lunch, and did he really have to go back tomorrow?

We did manage to wheedle a few more nuggets about his first day at school, throughout the afternoon but he wasn’t too forthcoming.  A complete contrast to Amélie’s first day with Miss Snow.  She couldn’t stop enthusing about how great school was and that everything was brilliant.  Ezra, has just accepted that it is what is going to happen and is just getting on with it.  He was the same when he went to Nursery for the first time.  Amélie makes a best friend in five minutes, Éowyn and Ezra take their time about it.  They like to weigh everyone up before they chose a friend.  We have no doubt that within a few weeks he will be looking forward to going to school and will have a little group of friends to play superheroes.

Enough of the waffle, I hear you say.  The real reason that you have clicked on the link is to see photos of Ezra standing outside the front door in his school uniform, so without wishing to detain you any longer here are those customary photos of our big boy.

Peace and Love

Baggie