You might be surprised. I have just begun work as a supervisory assistant at my sons school and even though I know I will have a great time being among the kids – they are brilliant – you do get to see a side of other people’s children that they don’t get to see themselves. And your own too of course. You assume they behave a certain way all the time but when they get out among their peers it can be quite a different story. For example it was a surprise to see how sociable John has become since he started in P1; he used to be quite reticent with other kids at public playgrounds prior to starting school and yet is quite the dominant personality among his siblings at home. At school I saw he is right at the centre of things and this is quite a change from the quiet, hesitant little boy he was just a few months ago.

You notice other things too when you see the other kids other than being dropped off and collected each day; one or two very confident ones in the playground cannot actually manage a knife or fork at the school dinner table – and there are quite a few of the older one’s who wont eat their food unless it is all mashed up together into a uniform mush on the plate. Odd. One very sweet little girl is actually quite a force to be reckoned with when she gets out among the others at play and was taking on two of her male classmates today at the same time (she reminded me so much of myself at that age…). Of course you get the usual one’s telling on the others for extremely trivial things and there is always one or two kids who never seem to find anyone to play with and you feel sorry for them. So tomorrow I have two kids to find playmates for and am wondering if these kids are open to discovering the joys of hopscotch – yeah hopscotch…you must remember hopscotch!