Ezra’s first day at nursery

Monday 22nd February 2016 saw an important step in Ezra’s life – his first day at nursery.  It is tradition (on this site) that such an important step is worthy of an update all to itself; this is it.

Ezra turns three in slightly less than three weeks and currently the UK Government pay for all pre-school children to receive 15 hours of childcare (e.g. nursery) per week.  They are entitled to this from the term after their 3rd birthday until they begun full-time education.  Therefore Ezra will be entitled to this for the Summer term when the schools return after the Easter break.   However Ezra has never been to school, or to a childminder for over a year, or indeed spent a significant amount of regular time away from Lucinda and thus we felt that it was a little unfair for him go from 0-60 (o.k. 0-15 hours) in one fell swoop therefore we decided to ease him in gently with two mornings a week.

The decision of where to send him was far easier, we only had one place in mind.  Indeed his name has been down for over a year because we so wanted him to go there.  When we moved to Staines and applied to change Éowyn’s school to the nearby primary we also had to look for a nursery (pre-school) for Amélie.  Éowyn’s school has a nursery but you have to commit to either all mornings, or all afternoons there is no provision for children to stay there all day.  This did not suit us for Amélie (and it doesn’t really suits us for Ezra) as we prefer 3 full days (and pay the extra half day) rather than 5 half days.  Therefore the decision for Amélie was the second closest school, a further thirty seconds down the road, Our Lady of the Rosary (or Grocery, as Amélie used to call it).

Our next door neighbour Kathy works at Our Lady of the Rosary (so Ezra, as Amélie before him) would have a familiar adult face and it has recently been awarded ‘Outstanding’ by an Ofsted inspection; this, coupled with our familiarity of the school, made it a very easy choice.  Hence why his name has been down for over a year.

We took Ezra for a couple of taster sessions and he got on really well so I think Lucinda was more nervous than Ezra as we prepared him for his first day at school.  We arrived in good time (we have to set out earlier now as Ezra’s school starts at 08:30) and he wasn’t at all overawed by the enormity of the set he was about to take.  He confidently strolled into the classroom and immediately begun playing.  Amélie said hello to all her old teachers and it felt like he had been going to school for months.  We kissed him goodbye and left him quite happily ironing pizza (as you do) and thus begun our new school routine.  I dropped Éowyn and then Amélie off and returned home before leaving for work.

Lucinda picked him up three hours later and the staff said that he had settled well.  He had played nicely and there were no tears.  Our little boy is all grown up.  It is slightly upsetting to think that he didn’t miss us, but that is surely what we are trying to achieve.  The only down side was that he refused to have a nap when he got home because he is a big boy, but crashed out in the pushchair (he is a lazy big boy) on the way to pick his sisters up from school and couldn’t be roused until tea-time.

So another step on the journey of life has begun for our youngest child.  When did he have permission to grow up?

Peace and love

Baggie