Mulan at school?

A few days ago I mentioned in passing that we are strongly considering that Mulan go to school.  That's a big change, as Mulan has never been to school in her life.

As a family we raised the idea together late last year, and have been talking about it for the past few months.

The more we think about it, the more we feel that school could be the right choice for Mulan going into her senior secondary school years.

Mulan has been positive about the idea, and thinks it could be quite fun/exciting.  Miya was initially negative, to lose Mulan during the day, but with time to adjust to the idea she is now okay.

We've asked Miya if she would also like to go to school (intermediate next year), but she'd rather not.  That's understandable, as Miya struggles with noise/chaos, and classroom learning doesn't work so well for her.  For now it makes sense for Miya to continue homeschooling.

Going to school is a swings and roundabout situation, with homeschooling better in some ways and school better in other ways.

Schools can provide better resources (eg science, sports), which is increasingly important as Mulan gets older.

Also, Mulan's learning style will likely work better in schools as she gets older.  Increasingly, she seems to prefer doing deskwork in groups alongside peers, rather than on her own or one-to-one.  If Mulan lucks into a good classroom environment, with motivated classmates, then we think she will thrive ("if" is the important word!).

Thirdly (and least importantly), schools provide a no-stress qualification system.  Just enrol and do NCEA.  Much simpler for us all!

On the downside, schools can be inefficient and time-consuming.  Likely, Mulan will have to drop many of her activities.  And that's a tough one, because she loves them and she's doing very well at all of them.

One thing we want to find out is how much school life will restrict Mulan's ability to do all her activities.  That is (a) how much of an expectation will there be for homework, and (b) how much in-school opportunities will there be for Mulan to pursue her various activities.

Another downside of school is socialisation.  Unfortunately, bullying is common in schools.  And peer pressure can reinforce undesirable values and attitudes.  It can be luck which classmates and peer groups one falls in with.  So far Mulan doesn't live with her phone attached to her hand -- we'd hate for that to change!

When we see the schools in person, we want to feel confident that the social environment is on the whole positive, and that Mulan has a good chance to fall in with other kids who are excited and curious about ideas and activities, and will (mostly) happily dive into their tasks.

(In my own experience at school, sometimes I was in streamed classes and other times not, depending on the school politics of the day.  When my school chose to stream, I felt more at home and relaxed, having fun learning with friends; my non-streamed years tended to be my more stressful/unhappy school times.)

A third downside is that our family is bilingual/bicultural.  Our Chinese side is just as important as our English side, and at home the children learn in both languages.  Schools are monolingual, and Mulan likely won't get as much everyday Chinese input if she attends school.

The older Mulan gets, hopefully the less this will impact.  But this is definitely something to keep an eye on if Mulan is at school.

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The end result is that on Sunday night we emailed four local schools, making first contact about this idea.  All schools were very professional and replied to us Monday morning.

Carmel College was the only school which acknowledged our personal situation in their reply.  Their reply was the warmest and least copy-and-paste-standard-reply feeling.

Unfortunately, they said that at this stage there are no places available for families without a Catholic background.

That's a shame, as from what we'd heard Carmel appears to have an excellent value system and attitude (some of Mama's students attend Carmel).  Carmel was Mama's initial preferred choice.

Rangitoto College was the only school that mentioned Mulan by name in their email reply.  However, we are out of zone for Rangi, and so we'd have to wait for the ballot on 30 September (I went to Rangi, so Mulan would be "Priority 3" on the ballot, but it would still just be luck).

The main advantage of Rangi is that it has a great sporting environment, with the rubber athletics track and swimming centre.  But it's a long bus ride away, which would eat into Mulan's out-of-school time.  If Mulan decided this was important then we'll look into it more, but most likely we won't pursue enrolling at Rangi.

For now our realistic options are either Takapuna Grammar or Westlake Girls.  We're in zone for both, which means that we should be able to start at either school at any time.

Takapuna Grammar's email reply had the most impersonal copy-and-paste feel.  They clearly have a standard text reply to all enrolment enquiries and they sent us a lot of irrelevant info that didn't suit our specific situation.  We followed up, asking to meet in person, but they haven't yet replied.

We had initially been leaning towards Taka, as some of Mulan's friends go there.  But a big downside is that the public transport situation isn't great and Mulan would have to walk a long way to get to the bus stop.  And that means less time for after school activities.  Their email reply has somewhat reduced our confidence in them, too.  But we'll wait and see, depending on whether they are willing to meet in person.

Westlake Girls has consistently been the fastest school to reply, and is both clear and professional.  After an initial impersonal copy-and-paste standard enrolment reply from them, we followed up and they replied again more personally.  We have now arranged with them to meet in person on Friday.

The big plus for Westlake is that it's only 5 min bike away from home.  Mulan can be there and back quickly, and so have more time for after school activities.  We're now leaning towards Westlake, but will hopefully have a better sense of what they can offer after the Friday meeting.

If Westlake present themselves well on Friday, we'll likely decide that Mulan end her homeschooling and start at Westlake.  The start date would depend very much on (a) how much adjustment time Mulan would need in order to get used to school life before starting NCEA-level studies, and (b) how time-consuming school will be, impacting on Mulan's ability to fit in all her other activities.

In the end, a big part of it will be Mulan's own decision, once she gets a sense of what Westlake (or another school) offers/requires -- how much school will impact on her already-busy life, what extra they will add and how much she will have to give up in exchange.