Speech news

It is speech time in the term again and it was Callum's last primary school speech. Their topic was to tell the story of their time at Cammeray. Callum chose to tell it by telling it from the perspective of his hat - "Callum Predavec's time at Cammeray, by A Hat". He said that his class (perhaps a little bored by listening to 30 renditions of "and then in year 3 I had Ms Carapina..." didn't react much) but his teacher laughed several times.

He was rewarded by a Merit award - "for delegating responsibility for delivering a speech to his hat!", which he was very pleased by.

Party planning

Declan's project for this term has been to plan a party. They had to plan the theme, work to a budget for 30 children, and plan the timetable and decorations.

He had a great time looking up various things, deciding he couldn't afford entertainment, just decorations and hall hire, and working out the exact are of the cake he had bought to feed his 30 guests.

He was quite disgusted that one of the other kids in the class decided to have PSY rapping Gangnam style (apparently they could get him for free) for entertainment, while Declan had even counted credit card charges (from Evan, lending his credit card for hypothetical purchases) in his budget. He probably would have enjoyed the Gangnam party, though.

Not sleeping over

The weekend before last (yes I am out of date), Declan and Callum were on a long delayed promise to sleep over at Finn's house. At the last minute, Callum decided that he wouldn't go, after we pointed out that he would have to play the computer games Finn wanted to play (not his own preferences).

So after a bit of a scramble, I bought Callum the very last ticket to the Wharf Revue that Evan and I were already planning to go to (a satirical current affairs revue that happens every year at the Sydney Theatre Company) and the three of us headed out.

Callum absolutely loved it, almost every minute (except for the Mozart sketch on gay marriage - he really doesn't like operatic singing) and was very proud of himself for getting most of the jokes. It was nice for all of us to chat about the show without Callum and Declan competing for attention.

Weekend at Finn's

Declan's friend Finn has his birthday in mid December, so always struggles to get anyone to come to a birthday party. So when his parents asked Finn what party he wanted this year, Finn decided to invite all of us to their holiday house in Maianbar (a tiny suburb in the Royal National Park south of Sydney). Their house is right next to the water, and the Gladstones took everyone out in a tinny so the boys (and Finn's sister Rose) could take turns being dragged behind the boat holding on to an inflatable mattress. Evan and I followed sedately in a double kayak, occasionally splashing the boat for good measure.

Even though they took their iPads down with them, it was heartening how much of the play was outdoors for the whole weekend.

Sadly we all came home sunburned, with Callum the worst affected, as he only seemed to put random patches of sunscreen on his face. He refused to let me take his picture, he was so embarrassed.

Goody....

Year 6 are doing a spoof of 12 Days of Christmas. On the third day they give three blue cards. Blue cards are warning cards handed out when a kid does something wrong. Callum has been nominated as the recipient of that one because he is the only child in Year 6 to have never received on for real.

Mosman High meeting

I met with the Principal of Callum's new school last week. I was, I admit, worried about the meeting because I was not sure what we'd do if it went badly.

As it turned out, it went fabulously. The Principal was lovely and welcoming and said all the right things about dealing with him as an individual, giving him opportunities and so on.

More materially she wrote a memo in front of me addressed to the Head Mathematics teacher and scheduling a pre-test for Cal in week 2 of next year with the intent to accelerate him as needed. She even scheduled in a phone call to me at the end of that week.

I was really impressed both with her attitude and her actions. That said, we've been down these roads enough times before to remain calm until we see what actually happens when the whole school mechanism grinds into motion.

Media moments

The boys and I appeared in a photo illustrating an article about overcrowding in schools. It's not a great photo.

I featured in an opinion piece in the BRW about not being defined by your job title.

All in the course of one day! Whatever next?

Maths

Callum had his last lesson with Cristian, his maths teacher, yesterday. He got 95% in an end of year 8 test and many compliments from Cristian.

The big questions now: what do we do for the remainder of term now Cristian has had to go to Romania, and what do we do next year.

House

Our offer to buy 69 Falcon St was accepted. Wow...

Camping at Cockatoo Island

Cammeray's annual family camping weekend was this weekend at Cockatoo Island. Around 80 families book the same weekend, and generally hang out together at the Island over Saturday night. Now that the boys are at the older end of the school, we don't know as many people, but the boys had a great time with posses of their friends. Many of Declan's friends (Declan decided against it as he didn't want to lose ammunition) brought nerf guns. If you've ever been to Cockatoo Island, you can imagine that the tunnels make a great location for a nerf battle or two.

And one of Callum's friends brought walkie talkies, so they made up a game of cops and robbers before Callum decided to retreat to our tent and read on his ipad.

We had a good time talking school choice with both sets of parents - the topic du jour for years 4 and 6 (even though all the year 6s have decided by now).

OC Update

Declan and Evan went off to the OC information morning on Friday (with many of Declan's friends). Partly because many of Declan's friends are going, and partly because Declan really liked the sound of OC (even though he has been warned to expect more homework), we sent off the acceptance this evening.

Declan's friend Nicolas Palmer has definitely decided to go. So Declan decided to go to be with Nic, and  Gabriel decided to go to be with Declan (plus there are 6 or 7 more who are generally good friends also). Sadly Finn will be left behind at Cammeray, but they are hatching plans to play together at weekends.

Murder under the Microscope

One of the fun things they do in Year 6 at Cammeray is Murder under the Microscope, a very cool science detective project put on by the University of Western Sydney. It is Australia wide, with different levels, and they have to figure out what it is that is causing problems for a particular native species in a particular local area of Australia.

Callum and his team didn't get the right answer; but they made a great video about the experience of getting the wrong answer; so great that they came second in the category of Creative Investigators Award.

They got to go out to Parramatta on Friday to receive their award, and answer a few questions for a video the organisers made. I'm hoping both their video, and the interview will be up on the website in the next few days.