Interview at Big School

Today my six year old is going for her interview for ‘big school’. She knows the school from picking up her brother, she knows the teacher who is the mother of two of his friends, so her experience will be completely different from his interview two years ago. For him our little Waldorf school seemed a huge place teeming with large kids, after his tiny kindergarten. The teacher seemed stern and alarming and when he found out that he was expected to be alone in the room without me for his interview he dissolved into sobs and clung to me, completely unable to recover his equilibrium.

We rescheduled with another teacher and I was allowed to sit in on his interview. He did fine, taking each task very seriously and concentrating, as if his life depended on it. He was asked to do a drawing and reproduced in huge detail a picture that he had seen on the wall in the Class 4 room the previous week at the aborted interview. Even through his emotional outpouring he had been taking in detail of what the big children did, remembered and reproduced what he thought was expected of big school children! I remember him being asked to climb on a table ( a test of coordination, I guess), the teacher casually said “ OK now you can hop down”. With a frown of concentration he balanced himself on one leg and hopped off the table, landing rather clumsily...this whole big school thing may be mystifying but he was going to do it! The teacher had only wanted him to jump down but you have to be exact with your words around my son.

My daughter is showing a few signs of anxiety: the other night she said she dreamt she did a drawing for the teacher but it wasn’t very good; this morning she looked sideways at me and wondered if she would feel shy with the teacher. I won’t be able to go in with her, as I’ll have youngest with me and Ryan our employee’s son is also having his interview, so I’ll be outside with them. I think she’ll be fine though. The second child gets the benefit of their older sibling forging a way through the wilderness of unexplored life and has a slightly easier time following in their tracks. They do have the constant urge to catch up though, always slightly behind, so it all balances out in the end..

This milestone brings home how quickly the children are growing. My daughter is now the big girl in kindergarten, helping the teacher, knowing all the routines. Youngest is still holding back though, hanging on as long as she can to being the baby still at home and not quite ready to take that huge step back into school.