Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Great Plum wrote:After a period of real instability, the Bax has landlords that are allowed (want?) to stay and the food has improved... good pint too...

But do they let YOU sit in the garden out front now ?

hi, i'm not sure if this is what you wanted as a reply, but i am a current ch student and can reassure you greatly I hope. the school is a wonderful place and your child will have so many people looking after them. they have their nurse-maid, bfd (big friendly dep), house parents, matrons, other teachers and most of all their friends. is there anything you are specifically worried about? i am guessing your child is home this weekend for the first time since they started? i hope i helped a little.

Thanks cosicarr

Yes my son is home for the first weekend. I am much less anxious now than when I first posted this query. What you say is all true, my son has really enjoyed his first 21/2 weeks, he has made lots of friends and if he is happy then I am happy! I am sure this weekend will pass too quickly but he will be going back to CH on Sunday with me confident in the knowledge that he is really happy there.

ooh its like she never went away. just went to the pub and she sat and read a copy of Hello and totally ignored me for 20 minutes!!!

and just like that she's gone again.... grumble!

Yes the weekend went so fast. I had spent 21/2 weeks looking forward to it and then it was over in a "flash". D.S seemed very slightly reluctant to go back to school but only a bit. His comment was that he didn't mind going back to school but that it was also really nice to be at home. Mind you I expect the next 3 weeks will pass quickly and then it is a proper visit home for 2 weeks. I think that it will be easier taking him back to school after 2 weeks at home than after 2 days.

Leave Weekends are far too short for all of us.......

and yes, before it all kicks off again, I know they didn`t exist back in the days when a lot of forum members were inmates............

Mrs C. wrote:Leave Weekends are far too short for all of us.......

and yes, before it all kicks off again, I know they didn`t exist back in the days when a lot of forum members were inmates............

and CHDad I would have been a bit worried if he HADN'T said it was really nice to be home.

hi, i'm not sure if this is what you wanted as a reply, but i am a current ch student and can reassure you greatly I hope. the school is a wonderful place and your child will have so many people looking after them. they have their nurse-maid, bfd (big friendly dep), house parents, matrons, other teachers and most of all their friends. is there anything you are specifically worried about? i am guessing your child is home this weekend for the first time since they started? i hope i helped a little.

A thoughtful message cosicarr, and well expressed. However, call me a pedant but I'd personally be reassured to see more current CH students learning to use capital letters appropriately! E-mails from DS are similarly lacking in punctuation, and it drives me mad; is it really too much effort to hit the shift key?

Ailurophile, I find that reply thoroughly offensive to a young person who is trying to be helpful. Don't forget that youngsters today are used to communicating in 'textspeak'! Cosicarr has at least expressed him/herself in whole sentences. An e-mail is not intended to be an exercise in grammar or punctuation. I know that regular users of this forum do sometimes make fun of each others' pedantry or lack of it, but that is more in the nature of good-natured banter. Your comments were simply bad manners.

Fjgrogan wrote:Ailurophile, I find that reply thoroughly offensive to a young person who is trying to be helpful. Don't forget that youngsters today are used to communicating in 'textspeak'! Cosicarr has at least expressed him/herself in whole sentences. An e-mail is not intended to be an exercise in grammar or punctuation. I know that regular users of this forum do sometimes make fun of each others' pedantry or lack of it, but that is more in the nature of good-natured banter. Your comments were simply bad manners.

I say, old thing, steady on! Time for the cocoa & hottie?

I was very grateful to cosicarr for taking the time to reply to me.

Someone told me last week that youngsters nowadays are bilingual in standard English and text speak. They can read and write either "language" perfectly. However us older people have to translate from txt speak to English, we are not bilingual. Many youngsters view e.mails as a form of texting (my son certainly does) and therefore omit capitals etc as you would for speed on a mobile phone. Cosicarr may have even posted his message from a mobile phone. However I am sure when they are writing their English essays the grammar, punctuation and spelling is perfect!

Precisely my point. Cosicarr took the trouble to post a message of encouragement to an anxious parent - which deserves a vote of thanks. If my first postings on this forum had been instantly greeted by criticism of my typing ability (which is really what not using a shift key amounts to!) then I certainly would not have bothered to remain on the forum. One of the glories of the English language is that it takes different forms according to the context. It is one thing to demand perfection of oneself, but to insist that others live up to one's own standards is another matter. Thank you Cosicarr for contributing, and please do not be discouraged by the thoughtlessness of us old 'fuddie-duddies'!

Mrs C. wrote:Leave Weekends are far too short for all of us.......

and yes, before it all kicks off again, I know they didn`t exist back in the days when a lot of forum members were inmates............

but in them thar days I suspect that all but matrons had a far easier life because:
- parents didn't dare raise queries to teachers
- it was the boys who did all the organising, cleaning groundfloors in houses etc.
- boys were not mollycoddled (homesick? too bad, just get on with it!)

so apart from handing out clean clothes and sweeping the dormitories (and housemasters doing their thing in classrooms) staff had far less to do.

For your sake, Mrs C, I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs of it; the world has changed radically and I suspect every job there is has become harder, more complex, more demanding.......

Thank you so much Cosicarr, i didnt see your response before i posted mine earlier. It's so lovely to hear from students at the school. Dont worry about capital letters on here. My daughter explained to me in her first email that she would only be dashing them off between periods so i should excuse her grammar! Its very kind of you to take the time to post and reassure us. I shall be sure to come to you if i need a student perspective! Please keep posting!

Nicky xxx