Jules and I have been unhappy with Tom's school for a number of years and have debated at length whether to move him. Tom is perfectly happy at Pittwater House, has a nice group of friends (although not particularly close ones), does very well academically and is well known and liked by all the teachers. However, the academic results of the school are dreadful and we worry that because Tom gets good grades he doesn't feel the need to work as hard as he ought to. The school also doesn't seem very good at making the boys push themselves and because it's such a small school there are limited extra curricular activities that Tom can get involved in - for example he's unable to play water polo for his school which seems a shame. We have had Tom's name on the waiting list of a local all boys Catholic school which gets excellent results and is very highly praised by everyone we know who has boys there. On Wednesday we had an interview with the deputy principle, got offered a spot, accepted it and bought the uniform the next day - what a whirlwind!! Tom knows a lot of boys at the school so we're hoping that the transition will be an easy one. Tom has been amazingly mature about the whole process and was very impressive in the interview where he cited statistics about the relative differences in the 2 schools' performances and explained how he wanted the best education he could get - go Tom!
On Saturday Jo, Harry, Tom and I participated in a 5K Foam Fest which is basically a 5k obstacle course involving lots of foam and mud. The boys found it hysterical doing all the obstacles with their middle-aged mums - we had a lot of laughs!
Lenka, Tom, Jo, Harry
We got back from the Foam Fest to find that Jules had managed to buy a small tinny for Tom. Now that Tom has his boat licence the idea is that Tom and his friends can cruise around the harbour finding good fishing spots. I'm very jealous because it's all so "Swallows and Amazons" which was one of my favourite book series when I was young. Tom is arguing about the size of the engine he needs (!) but for now he's using the outboard from Oka - love a multipurpose item. We've tied the boat up to a tree on a nearby beach and hopefully it will stay there happily during the summer holidays so that Tom and his friends can access it whenever they need without the help of an adult.
I had my "work" Christmas party with a couple of my tennis friends - such lovely ladies.
Cath, Sally, Suellen, Lenka
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