School

Today is Miya's first day at school (ever).

It was a slightly unusual start, as this morning, at 7:30am, we dropped her off at Westlake Boys High School.  No, she's not going to a boys' school, it's just that she's in the senior Westlake Concert Band, and that's her practice time/place.  After practice, at 8:30am, she walks to the girls' school.

We've now officially stopped homeschooling, and the plan is for Miya to spend the next five years of her schooling at Westlake Girls High School.

She's already been there a few times, for orientation day and music auditions/practices, but this is the official first day.

From what I understand, however, today there'll be little to no learning happening -- it's mostly just administrative stuff with earnest speeches and team-building.  So, an easy and gentle first day (as long as she can stay awake!).

Based on the school financial statement sent to us, it seems that mostly Miya got the subjects she asked for.  The only exception is that she asked to learn Maori, and instead she's got French.  (Given the way New Zealand culture is these days, we thought Maori would be extremely useful to learn, so it's a pity that Miya will miss out.)

Miya's other subjects are English, maths, science, social studies, PE, health, music, Spanish, digital tech, fabric tech, food tech, and hard material tech.

As I wrote before, Miya is in the music extension class, as well as the senior concert band and junior symphonic band.  She'll have instrument lessons through the school in clarinet and French horn.  She'll go to two weekend music camps this term, and later in the year will play at concerts and festivals.

Unfortunately, the two music camps exactly clash with two school athletics competitions (the school athletics day and school North Island Champs), so Miya will miss those.  But there's still the school zone champs and Auckland champs this term, along with the nationals in December.

And I'm sure Miya will find lots of other activities to get involved with.

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Meanwhile, Mulan is returning to Westlake for her final year at school.  Her school year started yesterday.

Her academic results last year were very satisfying, and we are super proud of her.

At the school academic prizegiving last year Mulan was awarded Distinction in Biology, and in her NCEA results she got Excellence Endorsement in two subjects (music and chemistry), and Merit Endorsement in the other four (maths, biology, physics, English).

This year she's studying music, maths calculus, physics, biology and chemistry.

At the end of last year she applied to be a prefect, and her job this year is to help mentor the new Year 9 students.  The downside is that today she had to wear her school prefect's tie, blazer and stockings!  (She was feeling uncomfortably hot!)

She's continuing with a lot of school music -- symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, and cello lessons.  She's also newly joined the Cigno Voce choir and will have singing lessons.  She also has two school music camps.

And she'll again join the school athletics competitions.

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With no longer homeschooling I (theoretically) have one less job to do.  For the short/mid term, after homemaking and being admin assistant for our family business, I'll likely find a bit of time to paint/renovate our house.  Plans for the mid/long term will sort themselves out in time.