School

Why isn’t there a manual for School Applications?!

When you become a parent nothing prepares you for all the eventualities.. Especially things like potty training and behaviour. These were two items that I wished there was a manual for!!! I thought at the age of four we had got through the major milestones that were there to stress me out and ultimately scare me!! Little did I know going to school opened a whole new can of worms of pressure for me! I literally did not know what happened or when!!!
 
It all started last July when out of the blue I picked Erin up from Nursery and it was announced that Erin was behind as she couldn’t yet write her name!!!! At this stage she was 3yrs and 3 months old! I was shocked and thought maybe all children of her age could write their names, so I set to trying to assist Erin in being able to fix this- If only I had known what I know about Twinkl now back then! This would have helped me tenfold with letter formations and understanding words. She was able to pick this up fairly quickly and is now a whizz at writing her name. The rest of the process still petrified me- when do I get this magical letter I hear everyone speaking about on social media and do I need to apply for the letter?! This was answered when it fell on my doormat in October- we followed the instructions and applied. 
 
It appears we then made the deadly sin of in the 5 month long wait of hearing if your child has got into the school, I moved house- worse of all it fell into a different council. What I learnt from this is councils hate you for this and make you feel like the devil for even thinking to do this during school applications!!!
 
The day came in April when Erin’s application was available to view online, so eagerly I checked the website. Nothing, not a sausage of a result! This resulted in several phone calls to the councils that were applied to see what was happening! Apparently all my fault for being the bad parent and moving! Which eventually said she had got into her second choice school- albeit mildly disappointed I was happy. Again there was nothing to tell me what on earth happened next?! Do I just sit and wait, or contact the school or go and look around?! I just didn’t know! It took for me to ring the school and ask the process- which turned out that they sent me a lot of documents in a pack that told me quite a lot of information and there was a parents meeting before July. I had spoken to other parents who had told me other things had happened for their children in other schools! 
Why isn’t there a guide that tells every parent what happens and when and I think all schools should follow the same route and doesn’t depend on the area it’s in! All in all an extremely stressful time! Don’t tell me there will be more of these scary Unknown milestones to look forward to?!