First day of school.

[God-Raped-Me]

Ok so everyone remember Lydia? Of course you do! Anyways she goes to school for the first time NEXT week! Yes I'm probably going to cry. I can still remember passing out standing up while being in labour with her! God how time flies!

So for Lydia's birthday my mom got her a hello kitty backpack, and I have to admit it's cute! It's sparkly, and the kitty is fuzzy. What GTR wants to do is, if he gets his ocarina in time, he wants to play the hello kitty theme on it as we walk her to school.

I think this is lame. What do you all think?

Spoonfeed timez!

-Young kids going to school
-Cool kick a** things you got for going back to school, then and now because lets face it buying new stuff for school was always the best part of school!
-lame things you saw or thought was lame while going to school.
-Ocarinas  

[Elcia]

My brother just bought an ocarina. confused (randomness)
 

[God-Raped-Me]

Does he play it all the time? I know GTR will... Probably to the point of me taking the thing and hiding it!  

[Elcia]

No not much yet, but he took to the thing in no time flat.
Tempo is a little off but I would fail to make notes that easily!
It's a "Zelda potato" shaped one, but he picked it for it's design not the game reference.  

[Kalstolyn]

O.O Lydia is younger than Katie, and Katie is five days too young to start school this year. Is this the result of the whole "grade 13 is cancelled but we'll tack on an extra year on the other end" thing in Ontario?  

[God-The-RapistV2.0]

Too Young?

Here in Ontario there is no such thing as long as you can keep up with the system and meet the requirements for starting.

I started school when I was three.

Of course we have two years of Kindergarten in our public systems so it's basically like a built-in preschool.

Edit: Also there is no more "grade thirteen" but you can still go to high school for six years if you require it.  

[Chexley]

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.
There they are a'standing in a row!

High school... for six years?! gonk

I know, here in America, we have preschool (which is optional in some states), kindergarten, elementary school (5 years worth of schooling), middle/junior high school (3 years worth of schooling), and high school (4 years worth of schooling). Lastly, there's college and that's obviously optional.

"Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist!"
That's what the showman said!

 

[Taeryyn]

Schooling varies from province to province here, and sometimes from one municipality to another (at least in Nova Scotia).

Where I'm from, preschool starts when you're 3, and is optional. Then there's preschool for 4 year-olds, which isn't technically mandatory, but everyone goes anyway.

To start primary, you have to turn 5 before October 1st of that school year. Since I was born in December, I was always one of the oldest ones in my class. razz If I had started school in almost any other province, I would have graduated in 2004, not 2005.

Elementary school was primary to grade 6.
Junior high and high school were all in the same building with many of the same teachers. Junior high is grades 7, 8, and 9, and high school was 10, 11, and 12.

Here in New Brunswick, it depends on if you go to a French school or an English school.

Most of the French schools (which are public) are maternelle to grade 12, all in the same building.  

[Kalstolyn]

In BC, you have to turn 5 on or before December 31st to be permitted to enter Kindergarten. There are preschools, but they are optional and generally privately run (not regulated or operated by the Ministry of Education in any way except for the Early Intervention programs for kids with special developmental needs). In Alberta, the cutoff is March 15th. In both provinces, there are 13 years of public schooling (obviously, one might take longer to complete all the grades); one year of kindergarten followed by grades 1 through 12. People my age who grew up in Ontario had to take grade 13 and I heard that when they removed grade 13, they made up some jr. kindergarten thing so that kids still had to be in school for an extra year out there.

Preschool is totally optional out here (and very expensive unless your kid has a disability that lands him or her some early intervention funding) but they take kids who are three or four. Katie has been going to a french immersion preschool one or two days a week since January. That doesn't actually count as school though.  

[God-The-RapistV2.0]

The only Age restriction laws that I'm aware of here in Ontario are that between the ages of six and eighteen you must be in school.  

[Kalstolyn]

The age thing is not a law so much as a policy or a regulation. Some parents are able to push for their kids to start school a year early or a year late if their birthday falls near the cutoff date, based on maturity levels and stuff. That's the only time there is any kind of testing to get into public school: if a parent wants their 4-year-old to start kindergarten now instead of waiting until next year.  

[Taeryyn]

My options in high school were sooo limited. I mean, I was well aware of that when I was a teenager, but since I've been involved with Josh's school, it's really hit me a lot harder.

With the exception of math, we had no "advanced" courses that we could take.
Immersion was not an option, and one year we wouldn't have been able to even take French if the teacher hadn't given up his lunch to hold the class then.
There were absolutely no co-op opportunities.
Drama 10 was the only arts course available until I was in grade 12, when they introduced an online art class. I believe it was scrapped the year after I graduated.
Phys-Ed was not an option after grade 9.

We just had the basics. I'm sure the school and schoolboard did the best they could with the limited funding they received, but I really feel that I missed out on a lot.

;_; Could have been worse, though. In my school's division there was a one-room schoolhouse, and Advocate school had 60 students, from primary to 12. Not a lot of options for them, either.  

[God-Raped-Me]

Geez, I thought our school sucked balls. Did you at least have a good grad ceremony? Ours sucked. Would have had more fun camping out in the middle of a farm field!  

[Taeryyn]

I really hated our grad ceremony. I'm not sure I'd really find any sort of ceremony like that enjoyable, though.

The only cool part was when one of local Mi'kmaq elders performed a sort of blessing over our grad class. The rest was just a lot of blah-blah-blah and fake smiles and ugly robes. I ended up having a panic attack in the crush of people after it was over and couldn't wait to get out of there.  

[God-Raped-Me]

I wonder if anyone ever gets those really nice ceremonies that you see on tv or in movies. Even our prom sucked monkey fingers!