Thulani in Adelaide - Day 4

Day 4 – 8 April 2010

School today…

Today Thulani popped into school / kindergarten with Daniel and Gavin.

Gavin (4) attends a kindergarten / child care centre that caters for children up to age 5.  Once they have turned 5 kids start school in the equivalent of Grade 0 (called Reception here).  This happens in the term after their birthday so Gavin will start school in October (Term 4) and will stay in Reception for five terms in total. 

This term the kindergarten children have been watching eggs hatch.  It has been fascinating and the poster accompanying the eggs shows each stage of the egg development.  Great from a scientific viewpoint but has seriously put me off eggs for a while!

The kindergarten is next door to Daniel’s school, Keithcot Farm Primary School. This is a public (government) school with about 600 students.  The school was built in a unique design of smaller buildings more like houses than school classrooms.  The reason for this is so that the facility is multi functional for the future.  For example, the school could easily be converted into an aged care facility if required.

Behind Keithcot Farm Primary School is a private school called Kings Baptist Grammar School that has classes for all 13 years of schooling.  Both Gavin and Daniel will be attending high school there. 

Adelaide schooling uses a unique system where government schools shares facilities with nearby private schools.  Often a government school will be built alongside a private one for this very purpose.  So Keithcot Primary shares a library, canteen, art centre and sports fields with Kings Baptist – a fabulous idea in my opinion.

So that’s the end of Thulani’s tour of schools.  Now home again with me for the more mundane (and undocumented) tasks of washing, coffee breaks, Oprah, etc.