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| Sloane and her buddies. |
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| Imperial War Museum |
Sloane's class went to the War Museum to learn more about WWII. They have been learning about kids in England during WWII. Several weeks ago, they all were supposed to dress up like kids during the time of WWII. They had a day where they learned what it would have been like to be one of the children who was sent from the cities to the country during the Blitz. They had to make boxes to hang around their necks for their "gas masks", and they had identification tags made just like the kids then had. They also got to go into the bomb shelter at their school that was used during the war (thier school was actually used as a hospital during WWII).
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| Sloane dressed as a girl during the Blitz. |
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| Sloane's class in the schoolyard preparing to be "evacuated during the Blitz". |
Sutton's move to Cardinal Newman has been great. She is settling in nicely and making new friends pretty easily. Sutton likes her classes, and has even been excited to have more homework.
The timing of Sutton's school move could not have come at a better time for Sloane. We are in the process of applying for secondary schools for Sloane for next year. In the UK kids go to primary school until Year 6 (5th grade), and then they go on to secondary school for years 7-11 (6th-10th grades).
In Brighton secondary schools are allocated based on catchment areas where you live. Everyone is allowed to give their top 3 school preferences, and then the kids are allocated school spots by the council in the Spring. After assigning kids with special circumstances and kids with sibling links, the council assigns the rest of the places based on catchment area. If a school has more requests than places, the council uses a lottery for those spaces.
Cardinal Newman is a little different because it is a church-aided school. It is still a public school, but because it is a church school, its governors are allowed to do thier own admissions. That means they take Catholic children first, and then move down to siblings and kids from church primary schools. Luckily, Sloane has a sibling at Cardinal Newman now, so she should be able to get in next year.
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| Cardinal Newman Catholic School. |
Sloane wasn't very excited about going to Cardinal Newman at first because she didn't think any of her friends were going to be going there (and school is all about friends for Sloane). We went to an open evening at Cardinal Newman last week, and there were lots of other kids from her school there. She also realized that one of her good friends has a sister at Cardinal Newman also, so she will be going there too. After our visit to the school (Sloane had never been there before), Sloane is now excited about going to Cardinal Newman. She told us it wasn't as "churchy" as she thought it would be. I am not sure if she was expecting nuns walking around hitting people with rulers or what (there are no nuns by the way).
