Documenting Delight: Day thirty nine

A thumbs up for the first day back at school.

Finn began his second year at Playschool (pre-preschool for 3-4 year olds) today. My wonderful friend Kate wrote about her daughter’s first day at the same preschool this week. She did a brilliant job of explaining what this special place is all about, she’s high on details (unlike me) so if you want to read more about it, head over here.

It was a calm morning around here. It is a new year however Finn is very comfortable in his Playschool environment and the fact that no big adjustments are needed this year makes for a settled start for everyone in our family.  What a difference this is to last year’s first day of Playschool for Finn and myself. Finn’s birthday is close to the ACT school cut off date and this means that we had to decide whether to start him in Pre-school this year or in 2013. At the beginning of last year Finn was one of the youngest in his class, and noticeably so. Combine this with never being in any sort of formal daycare before starting this structured program and you had one rattled little boy. The transition was slow, emotional and had me questioning whether I had made the right decision to enrol him at all. With the support of his amazing teachers by Term 2 he was happy and enjoying the new challenges in and outside of the classroom. The remainder of the year went smoothly and Finn’s confidence rose and I fell in love with the school.

When the Pre-school enrolment period approached I knew that Finn wasn’t ready to move onto the next level. On a skills/academic level he showed readiness but his social confidence was lacking. He was wary of change, rarely noticed his classmates and to me the gap between him and the majority of the children who were moving on was still substantial. Being a Kindergarten teacher, I knew from experience that in the beginning some of the younger students found school an uphill battle. Most of them by mid year were settled and caught up to their peers but did I really want Finn to enter school not feeling at ease, a little out of his depth until he finally coped? Not a chance. If our decision to hold him back would help him enter school with confidence and a little social awareness under his belt we were going to do it.

There are a lot of parenting decisions that I agonise over, but this one wasn’t one of them. It was one of the first “big parenting decisions” where I felt confident that we made the best decision based on the needs of our child, no outside influences, just us trusting our judgment. That felt good.

I can’t wait to see what this schooling year holds for our Finn. He really couldn’t be at a better place.