A Good First Impression

My wife and I had an informal meeting with the people running the private school that's in charge of our son's music classes on Saturdays. Our aim was to figure out if they can help us with the practicalities associated with our home schooling project. In particular, we want help with bureaucratic hurdles, and guidance so that we know we're on track with our son's education. Additionally, we would like our son to have a place to meet kids his own age, with some opportunity for free play.

The school is located relatively close to where we live. I can walk there in twenty minutes. It's housed in a Victorian building, once occupied by what must have been upper middleclass people. It's spacious, but not big. To the back, it has a modest garden, turned into a play park for the kids to run around.

The whole thing is a family run affair, with the head master and his wife being the parents of five kids, two of whom are pupils at the school, and the oldest being a college student in charge of physical activity. Everything is made to measure for each child, but not so much that it gets ridiculous. Academic studies, like maths, Portuguese and English are taught conventionally.

They didn't seem too concerned with the plague and all the rules associated with it, and free play is done with all the kids of all ages running around freely, but under the watchful eye of two adults.

The deal they could offer us was to have our son at their place three days a week, and let us take care of things the other two days. To guide us, there would be pamphlets and homework assignments. Additionally, they suggested we register our son with an organization that specializes in taking care of the bureaucratic side of things. We didn't ask what this would cost, but I suspect their package is no more expensive than alternative private solutions.

I got a good feeling about the school and the way it was run so this will probably be the way we arrange things for our son this coming year.

Fireside education

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