“Hi, is this the gate for Year one?” I had to ask one of the parents whose son happened to be my Akyn’s classmate. “First time, ey?” he responded with a smile. Obviously yes it was our first time to come with everything all new to us but we’re more than excited to let Akyn start his new school.
It was only yesterday as well when I managed to buy all his new set of uniforms ready to be worn this morning. Look at my little gentleman smiling all for Mommie’s obsession of taking photos of my handsome baby.
Why did we decide to move him to another school?
First reason is the distance to our house. I think it’s every parents concern to choose a school situated near to where they live. Who would want to let their kids suffer in traveling quite a distance everyday in going to school especially that the UK has a winter season? Nobody, I suppose. We’ve just moved to our forever home here and this new school is very near to where we are now. It’s like a five minute walk. How convenient is that for us working parents and to our boy, too!
Second reason is practicality. In line with our first reason regarding distance, practicality comes into the picture. We neither need to book a taxi nor a bus if we are running late for school or during the harsh weather conditions. Why would we need one if the school is only one block away from us?
Third reason is the good OFSTED rating. OFSTED is like a governing body assessing each school’s performance here. The higher the rating the better it is. Before we made the decision to transfer, I did my homework first by researching more about the school and I wasn’t disappointed. Even the staff who assisted us with the move gave a positive remark on how well the school performance is.
How to request for a school transfer in the UK? It’s not like back home where we can just move our child from one school to another as long as we got the money to afford for the school tuition. Here, no! We need to call the local City Council to request to fill in a form of what they call as IN YEAR transfer. Once submitted, the council will coordinate with the desired school if any placement is available for us. In our case, we needed to make an appeal to send our intentions as to why we really needed to get accepted. I had to use my writing skills in submitting a letter to convince approval from them. At that time, the number of students they had was at the maximum capacity.
Believe it or not Mommas, my husband and I had to face a nerve-wracking Zoom meeting with the school head teacher and the panelist for our appeal hearing but to be fair, they were very pleasant during the entire session. It was indeed a God’s blessing because one of their students moved to a different city giving one slot available for Akyn. It was really meant for us. Thank you for this another answered prayer of ours.
Mon bought us a meat pie and vegetable pie from York after his work to celebrate our Akyn’s first day in School.
And of course, this Momma will always get her treat after a hardworking succesful day. My pretty bright yellow bag is waving at you. Thank you Teddy. You’re the best. Happy Momma here again.
I hope this blog will help you weigh on how to choose a school for your kids and to achieve a goal by making a plan on how to enroll them. As they said a GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH. Better start considering the pros and cons if you’re thinking of which school to choose.
Have a nice aftie.
Mich
