End of Lent Term - another Post Mortem
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:13 pm
But properly spelt this time...
I had a message from the Mum of one of next year's new intake which has prompted me to do an update. Hopefully it'll be useful to her & others and pehaps of some interest to the rest of you.
My DS (Dear Son) started last September so has just finished his second term at CH. It's been a long & eventful term but also seems to have flown by. (How does time do that?) As some of you know, he had a blip in the first term but then settled well, going back happily after the half term & Christmas. It's been a big adjustment for us both but seemed to be going pretty OK.
DS was in the prep block last term. As most of you probably know, the prep block has been used as temporary accommodation for the residential houses as they have been refurbished, so each house has spent two terms there. It is far from ideal, because it was built as a classroom block, maybe in the 50s. Both halves of each house are mixed in together, which means they are in large groups a lot of the time. Obviously, neither I nor DS can compare life in the prep block with life back in house, but one of the deps from another house said "it was hell in the prep block." Certainly, the term has been characterised by all the staff saying "next term..."
Prep block is a long way from the rest of the school. DS, his room mates & others in the block have not settled particularly well at night & much to the exasperation of the staff have stayed awake late, chattering & squabbling & (sometimes) leaping around. Unsurprisingly, this coupled with a lot of work & sport has meant he & the others were very tired most of the time. (I think they are tired anyway but all this made it much worse.) So tempers frayed & intolerance levels rose. This is my interpretation but I think it's fairly accurate.
DS reached rock bottom a few weeks into the second term. It seems that if problems are going to arise, this is when it happens. The novelty has worn off & the reality hits, especially after a long Xmas break. He wasn't homesick but he was sick. Sick of the other boys, the hard work, the long walks, the wet & cold weather, the uniform, the routine and most of all, one of the lads he shared with. The last straw for him that night was another boy hitting him repeatedly (tho I think there had been some provocation from DS). He phoned me at 10.30 one evening & vehemently said "Get me out of here, NOW!" There was part of me that admired the clarity with which he outlined the reasons why he shouldn't stay. He was extremely upset but very coherent. He said "I've had enough. It's been building up & up and now I can't take it anymore."
Of course, I couldn't just go & get him (tho I really, really wanted to). I had to point out to him that he needed to try & find someone there who could help him & that he was going to have to trust them to want to do it & be able to do it.
I did persuade him to let me call the tutor on duty who talked things through with him. That seemed to help a bit. I spoke to DS the following morning - neither of us had had much sleep. The tutor passed everything on to hisHousemaster & also arranged to see Ds a bit later in the day to check up on him. Over the next couple of days there were a lot of calls backwards & forwards and I realised that there were a lot of people showing concern and trying to help. I was very touched by some of the things that were said to me and to DS. Though they were honest with me & didn't simply tell me he was absolutely fine.
The Hm suggested that DS came home that weekend, which he did,slept a lot, we talked a bit & he decided to go back albeit with a heavy heart. I did tell him that he needed to give it a really good try but that if he did that & still couldn't take it, he could leave. I said I thought that he should complete the year-but in reality I didn't think I could leave it that long if the rest of the term were to be unhappy. My biggest fear was that he would think I'd abandoned him, physically & emotionally,and however good an education & experience CH would be, I cannot allow that to happen. A good education can be had in any number of places - you only have one relationship with your mother & the former is not worth the destruction of the latter. I did elaborate on this theme to his housemaster...
Well, I'm here to tell you that both the education and the relationship are continuing in good heart. We limped through to half term & he went back a bit happier. His average marks rose (they're given them every few weeks) & he did Ok at sport & it stopped raining quite so much & various people looked out for him - one third former showed him a bit of kindness that made him feel very important & staff kept an eye on him & kept talking to him & checking up on him. The other second formers were told to take some responsibility for each other's welfare. All I can say is that,once again, it was all handled very well & both DS & I have confidence that if anything else were to arise, it will be sorted.
And to refer back to a previous post, we had a "Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder (Here we are at Camp Grenada..)" moment (- don't know whether anyone else remembers that..) When I went to pick him up at the end of term I said "So, are you coming back, next term, then?" and he said "Yup." They move into the newly refurbished house when they go back and he "can't wait" to get back & see what it's like.
I'm sorry, this seems to have gone on for a long time. It wasn't easy to put into bullet points... HTH someone! Oh - and the postscript is that last week DS met a lad here, told him about CH & he went straight home, looked it up on the Internet & told his mother he wants her to apply for him to go too. Can't really beat that.
I had a message from the Mum of one of next year's new intake which has prompted me to do an update. Hopefully it'll be useful to her & others and pehaps of some interest to the rest of you.
My DS (Dear Son) started last September so has just finished his second term at CH. It's been a long & eventful term but also seems to have flown by. (How does time do that?) As some of you know, he had a blip in the first term but then settled well, going back happily after the half term & Christmas. It's been a big adjustment for us both but seemed to be going pretty OK.
DS was in the prep block last term. As most of you probably know, the prep block has been used as temporary accommodation for the residential houses as they have been refurbished, so each house has spent two terms there. It is far from ideal, because it was built as a classroom block, maybe in the 50s. Both halves of each house are mixed in together, which means they are in large groups a lot of the time. Obviously, neither I nor DS can compare life in the prep block with life back in house, but one of the deps from another house said "it was hell in the prep block." Certainly, the term has been characterised by all the staff saying "next term..."
Prep block is a long way from the rest of the school. DS, his room mates & others in the block have not settled particularly well at night & much to the exasperation of the staff have stayed awake late, chattering & squabbling & (sometimes) leaping around. Unsurprisingly, this coupled with a lot of work & sport has meant he & the others were very tired most of the time. (I think they are tired anyway but all this made it much worse.) So tempers frayed & intolerance levels rose. This is my interpretation but I think it's fairly accurate.
DS reached rock bottom a few weeks into the second term. It seems that if problems are going to arise, this is when it happens. The novelty has worn off & the reality hits, especially after a long Xmas break. He wasn't homesick but he was sick. Sick of the other boys, the hard work, the long walks, the wet & cold weather, the uniform, the routine and most of all, one of the lads he shared with. The last straw for him that night was another boy hitting him repeatedly (tho I think there had been some provocation from DS). He phoned me at 10.30 one evening & vehemently said "Get me out of here, NOW!" There was part of me that admired the clarity with which he outlined the reasons why he shouldn't stay. He was extremely upset but very coherent. He said "I've had enough. It's been building up & up and now I can't take it anymore."
Of course, I couldn't just go & get him (tho I really, really wanted to). I had to point out to him that he needed to try & find someone there who could help him & that he was going to have to trust them to want to do it & be able to do it.
I did persuade him to let me call the tutor on duty who talked things through with him. That seemed to help a bit. I spoke to DS the following morning - neither of us had had much sleep. The tutor passed everything on to hisHousemaster & also arranged to see Ds a bit later in the day to check up on him. Over the next couple of days there were a lot of calls backwards & forwards and I realised that there were a lot of people showing concern and trying to help. I was very touched by some of the things that were said to me and to DS. Though they were honest with me & didn't simply tell me he was absolutely fine.
The Hm suggested that DS came home that weekend, which he did,slept a lot, we talked a bit & he decided to go back albeit with a heavy heart. I did tell him that he needed to give it a really good try but that if he did that & still couldn't take it, he could leave. I said I thought that he should complete the year-but in reality I didn't think I could leave it that long if the rest of the term were to be unhappy. My biggest fear was that he would think I'd abandoned him, physically & emotionally,and however good an education & experience CH would be, I cannot allow that to happen. A good education can be had in any number of places - you only have one relationship with your mother & the former is not worth the destruction of the latter. I did elaborate on this theme to his housemaster...
Well, I'm here to tell you that both the education and the relationship are continuing in good heart. We limped through to half term & he went back a bit happier. His average marks rose (they're given them every few weeks) & he did Ok at sport & it stopped raining quite so much & various people looked out for him - one third former showed him a bit of kindness that made him feel very important & staff kept an eye on him & kept talking to him & checking up on him. The other second formers were told to take some responsibility for each other's welfare. All I can say is that,once again, it was all handled very well & both DS & I have confidence that if anything else were to arise, it will be sorted.
And to refer back to a previous post, we had a "Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder (Here we are at Camp Grenada..)" moment (- don't know whether anyone else remembers that..) When I went to pick him up at the end of term I said "So, are you coming back, next term, then?" and he said "Yup." They move into the newly refurbished house when they go back and he "can't wait" to get back & see what it's like.
I'm sorry, this seems to have gone on for a long time. It wasn't easy to put into bullet points... HTH someone! Oh - and the postscript is that last week DS met a lad here, told him about CH & he went straight home, looked it up on the Internet & told his mother he wants her to apply for him to go too. Can't really beat that.