So, we're well and truly back in school mode.





But where is Stephen, you ask? He declined to take part in the First Day Picture thing yesterday, as he claimed that college hadn't started properly for him so it wouldn't count. Really he just couldn't be bothered to walk outside.

Ems is really happy. It's lovely to see her thriving socially as well as academically; she had such a miserable time during her year of middle school when we were in the states. This move has been very good for her from that point of view.

Soph is happy too. We did have a slight crisis yesterday morning when the horror of her school uniform reduced her to tears, but, once she'd decided that she actually looked quite nice in it we were okay.

And Steve started college today (not college in the US sense, by the way, this is sixth-form college to get your A-levels before going to university); no classes yet but he seems cheerful about it all so we'll see how it goes for him. He is so un-chatty compared to his sisters that it's hard to tell exactly how he feels about things. Whereas the girls get home and immediately give me a blow-by-blow account of every last second of their day (and Izzy has a new bag, it's black with white dots, almost like mine except for the colour, isn't the a cool coincidence, see, I knew this was the right bag to get, and that annoying kid in my maths class, you remember him, the one with the sticky out ears, not the one who makes the stupid jokes, he's got brown hair, well you'll never guess what he did today, and .... ad infinitum), he tends to divulge small pieces of information every now and then as he sees fit, and clams up entirely in the face of too much questioning.

After my terrible start on Monday, I have actually been enjoying work a lot. It is very rewarding when I manage to help a child negotiate his or her way through the hostile world of school. I think almost all schools are inherently quite inflexible and bureaucratic, and while some kids can figure out how to find a way through the system, it's very hard for those who are, for one reason or another, vulnerable. I have been making sure I go to as many maths lessons as possible with the World's Worst Maths Teacher; at least that way there is one sane adult who's willing to explain things in the classroom.

And the teachers are all being super-friendly to me, which makes things more pleasant; not sure why they all seem to have abandoned the rather dismissive attitude that many of them had last term, but I hope it lasts.

Speaking of the teachers, there's a new business studies teacher; very young, very sweet but oh my God she wears the most inappropriate clothes ever! Think super-duper push-up bra and vast expanses of boob on display. And I do mean vast expanses. Too much for most places off the beach; and considering that she's working with teenage boys, really too much for this work environment. I don't envy her head of department, who I assume will have the job of telling her to put the girls away.