Back to school brings excitement to both parents and students but it also needs finances and adjustments.
My son's first day of school was last August 29, 2023. It was one of the most memorable day for him and to me as well. It is the first day that he went to the Big school as a kindergarten pupil or we call it here as kinder 2.
Going back to school means preparations and adjustments. For today's blog let me share how I do the preparation and what adjustments we had:
Choosing school
Before enrollment, my husband and I talked about where we will sent our son. It is either in public or private school.
In public school, many students were there. The tuition is free and we only have some minimal fees or things to provide.
In private school, less students, teachers can focused well on the students but with a high tuition fees.
Public school is just a walking distance from where we are living right now while private school is afar and we need to ride tricycle back and forth.
Thinking about our finances, we decided to enroll our son at public school.
Enrollment
After choosing the school, I then inquire about their enrollment and I learned that there are screening for advance class. Advance class are those student who excel among others. They are also limited in one classroom which they choose only top 25 students while in regular class some are up to 30 students in one classroom.
I enrolled my son as early as possible and applied for screening. Screening is free so why not try my son to take an exam.
Screening was scheduled, I let my son reviewed his learnings and prayed for him before we went to school.
Fortunately he passed and we are so happy.
Buying school supplies
Buying school supplies really need finances. During summer breaks we started to save for our son's school supplies but it is not enough to buy all the requirements. I still have to buy other things that it is not needed yet. I bought first those things that really needed.
We buy two weeks before classes start, not during weekends, not after pay day to avoid a lot of people in mall or stores. This is also to avoid spending a lot of time in queueing.
Preparing uniforms
My son's previous uniform (polo, short and shoes) still fit to him so I didn't worry much. This is the advantage when you buy clothes a little bigger to him because it will still fit to them in the following years.
As an excited mam, I ironed his uniform a day before their first day of school.
Preparing my son mentally
Before the classes starts, I really talked to him and told him that he will be going to big school and it means parents or mother is not allowed to stay at their classroom or school unlike in his previous school.
I told him to behave, to listen to their teacher, do their activities first before playing and above all be a good student and a good classmate.
Waking up adjustments
Being in kinder 1, their classes starts at 8am and now at Kinder 2, their classes starts at 7:30 in the morning and every Monday and at the beginning of the school year they need to go to school before 7 in the morning to attend the flag raising ceremony.
On the first day, my son is also excited, he wokes up so early and asked me to take him a bath so early. We went to school early too.
On the second day, it is still okay, the excitement is still there but in the following days, I already had the hard time waking him up.
He really need to sleep early so that he can wake up early too. If he could sleep late, I will really had a hard time waking him up in the morning.
As a mother, it is my responsibility to ensure that he could sleep early and wake him up early so he won't be late in school.
Those are our back to school experiences. I hope you learn something.
This is my participation for the Motherhood community writing challenge - back to school craziness.
Thank you so much for reading.