High school update - scholarship offer!

We were very pleased to find out today that Declan has been offered a 50% scholarship to Redlands for next year. So far it is only a verbal offer, which we are not rushing to get in writing, to give ourselves more time to see if Declan will get in to Mosman High.

Mosman High remains at number 1 on the preference list, but we want to give Declan the chance to have a tour of Redlands to see what he thinks since he has only ever seen one high school before we decide.

Japan holiday update

I really should do a whole bunch of different posts about our Japan holiday, but here are some random updates:

• Callum has been learning Japanese at school this term. So far he has only learned the hiragana alphabet (one of three different sets of characters used in Japanese). It was surprisingly useful, and he made a big effort to puzzle things out every time he saw them. On our last night, he was able to find the restaurant we were going to. The name was only written on the sign in Japanese. Very handy.
• Declan and Callum are both addicted to a computer game called Total War Shogun, in which you try and take over Japan during the shogunate period. It was amazing how much Japanese history and geography they knew mainly because of that game. We saw three castles that the boys could knowledgeably discuss from a military perspective because they had conquered them in the game!
• What they didn't know from computer gaming, they filled in from the Young Samurai book series, which is written with a backdrop of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 1600s. Really it was amazing how much they knew about Japanese history.
  
• Because we told them it was compulsory, they ate a surprising amount of Japanese food. Not just the expected (noodles and tempura) but also various pickled vegetables and fruit, breakfast fish (Callum even ate a whole fish head) and of course lots and lots of rice.
• We gave them a bit more responsibility in helping us figure out where to go next, which they both enjoyed. Declan did a lot of reading of the guidebook on the Nakasendo trail, and Callum became quite expert at reading train timetables (helped by his hiragana).
• They were a pleasure to travel with, even when they occasionally got sick of seeing quite so many temples (to be fair their temple tolerance was only slightly lower than ours).

Interview for Declan

So yesterday we started the day with Declan being interview by Redlands for a scholarship. He performed well although he was visibly nervous. We think the principal was particularly impressed that although Declan's exam results were best in maths, he was so clearly interested in History and Science and English.

On the other hand was fact that when asked why he wanted to go to Redlands saw Declan saying "Er... I don't really know." and that in the conversation it came out that we'd turned them down for Callum. Both those probably counted well against us - we clearly weren't showing the required school spirit and enthusiasm. Even though we don't really want him to go there anyway, it'll be a shame if he doesn't get an offer just because of the family history.

In the afternoon I had the parent-teacher interview. That was a very pleasant experience filled with positive comments. Declan's top or in the top two-or-three in his class for maths and English, wonderful public speaker, fantastic writer - the positive adjectives just flowed. Always nice to hear good things.

Cal X-country

Cal came 11th in his cross country race during the week. That's the same position as last year but in a much larger field now he's no longer the youngest person in the school by a significant chnk. He missed out on 10th and getting to Zone by literally a nose.

Missing Cal

It all started with an SMS from the school at 11:00 saying that Callum had not been at roll-call and could I explain why. We get these a lot because he's often with his Year 10 Maths class or at study when the roll is taken for Year 8, so I quickly SMS'd back that he was in fact there and thought nothing more of it.

An hour later the phone rings. It's the School to say that 'no, Callum was not in fact at School, they could not find him anywhere and he hadn't been there all day'. I had one of those parent moments when your heart just sinks through the floor. Could I phone him. No, because he has his phone automatically revert to silent during school hours. Could I track him? No, because he no longer has the easily traceable iPhone after it was stolen.

We agreed the school would check again and I would try phoning. I phoned, SMS'd, emailed with increasing sense of frantic worry - all to no avail. The school phoned back and confirmed they couldn't find him. They would take another roll at 2pm (it was now 1:30) so I agreed to wait until that was done before phoning the police.

I spent the next few minutes vacillating between sheer terror and hope that the school had just stuffed up.

Ten minutes later the School phoned - they had found him. He'd been there the whole time and the roll had, as usual, just been mucked up in the morning.

The major lesson I'm taking from this is that we are now finding a way to track Cal's new phone and have calls from me cut through the silent setting during school hours. And I'm sure I have more grey hairs this morning than I did yesterday.