Last year we had a surf lesson excursion. Parent and photographer Jo Reynolds http://www.littlefeetphotography.com.au/ took some beautiful photos. You can see a selection here on the website or at her flickr collection of photo’s.
This is my favourite:
Currambena life….
We’ve started a blog at www.currambena.nsw.edu.au – if there is anything you’d like to get off your chest about school, or just life, let me know on kirsten@kirstenlees.com. In the meantime, here is my tuppence worth for the week.
I was rushing back from work on Monday to pick my children up from after school care before they had polished off all the golden syrup (no need for bread, it is just a distraction) when I had one of those moments of public horror that freeze you in time and make you – momentarily at least – want to move interstate.
I stood up to get off the bus as it approached the school, and whether it was my over-stuffed workbag bag, unaccustomed high heels, or just the light-headedness any mother gets when she has had seven full hours of adult company without a nappy to change or the need to stop and explain to a four-year-old where babies come from and whether it is in fact a good idea or big mistake, but I was a bit unsteady on my feet.
The bus jerked to a halt and my bag went flying. Notebooks, pens, grimy stubs of lipstick, mobile phone and the forgotten debris of numerous confiscated party-bags went flying.
Lane Cove is a friendly place. The bus filled with a kind of well-meaning murmur of sympathy and understanding as a dozen pairs of hands reached under seats and into the aisle gathering together the scattered contents.
Then it happened. Silence. A pair of eyes met mine. I looked down to where a hand that had hovered helpfully over the last item froze mid air, then withdrew. Lying on the floor in full view of all was the head-lice comb.
Not one of these plastic, use-once-after-all-every-child-gets-the-occasional-parasite, head-lice combs. I am talking an industrial strength, heavy duty piece of equipment, designed to tackle the kind of head-lice that has evolved complete immunity over generations of chemical warfare. I am not sure, but there may have even been the dismembered body of a lifeless louse still caught between the comb’s teeth as it lay on the floor of the 253 from the QVB.
What kind of parent needs a tool like that? What kind of mother needs to have a lice comb with her at all times?- and above all, the silent crowd screamed, which school do her children go to?
I picked up the comb. I wasn’t going to be phased by tuts of disapproval – real or imagined. I’ve read the articles, listened to the talk-back radio shows, and downloaded reams of comforting information from the web. It is not just my children. It is not just our school. It is not because their hair is dirty, or their parents neglectful. It is not their friends, or their friend’s families, or the fact that recent water restrictions have been a perfect excuse to avoid the struggle on hairwashing nights.
I stepped off the bus, glanced sideways to Currambena, then strode with confidence in the opposite direction, through the conveniently-placed gates of a nearby school.
I could double back and get my girls when the bus had gone!
It was the last night of the Year Six leavers camp and we were getting ready for the ceremony that I had looked forward to the whole entire year.
I went inside my tent and laughed at the umbrella held up by bra straps to stop the rain dripping on us in the night. I was overjoyed – the torrential rain had stopped which meant we would be able to have the ceremony on the beach not under the sheltered area. Then disappointment came over me again – the usual pitter- patter of rain on the tent started again. I heard Wendy’s voice calling “Meeting.” So I put on my raincoat and went to the meeting area which was hard to fit in since there were 30 people trying to fit under one tarpaulin with 3 picnic tables too. (Wendy was our teacher,) At the meeting Wendy gave the adults instructions on how to look after and get the Year Fives ready for the ceremony. She then gathered all of the Year Sixes to go to the undercover area where we were having the ceremony.
When we got there we built a fire. It started getting dark which meant the ceremony would start soon. Then I remembered I had forgotten my symbol to symbolise my years at Currambena. My Symbol was a boomerang that I found on my first school camp in year four. I chose it because when you throw a boomerang it always comes back to you and my memories of Currambena will always come back to me until the day I die. When I got back the fire was roaring. Wendy asked who would go first. Nobody would go first so I decided I would. It was really dark now and the only thing that stopped it from being pitch black was our fire then suddenly there was a bang of drums which meant the ceremony had just started.
Then finally came the long line of candles which was the most wonderful experience of my life. All we could hear were the waves down on the beach and the slow rhythmic sound of the drums and all we could see was a long row of floating candles. I sat down on the camp chair where we were going to sit while we gave our speech. This was it. The moment I had been waiting for for years. Everyone sat down and I started to speak.
It was now my best friend Annabel’s turn to speak. She was the last person. I listened to her very carefully and thought about us being at school together for nine years and now being split apart and before i knew it there were tears rolling down my face. I looked at my friend Abby who was sitting next to me. She looked at me then Annabel and then started crying. I leaned into her. Annabel had finished and now we got to tell her how much we would miss her. She picked me first and as soon as she saw me she started to cry which made me cry even more. I told her that I felt like I was a fourth child in her family and that her house was like a home away from home for me and that it didn’t matter that we were going to be at different high schools because we’ll still be friends.
We went back to camp. When we got there Wendy gave us a big hug. We went and got ready for bed and got into bed and soon enough all I could hear was Annabel’s soft breathing and the pitter-patter of the rain on the tent and then my eyelids felt heavy and then it was dark and I was asleep.
By Georgia Hammett.
My favourite aspect of camp was the Giant Swing because it felt like you were flying and the free fall was really scary. It felt as if you were going to fall.
Camp could have been better if the food had been better quality because it sometimes wasn’t that cooked and it wasn’t always the food that we wanted.
I would recommend Mangrove Mountain Retreat for other groups because the Flying Fox is fun (you feel like a bat) and the Giant Swing was great. It also has good bushland there.
We are starting a Currambena blog “Life at Currambena” on currambena.nsw.edu.au. See “The Elephant in the Schoolyard” for the first post.
I love the fact that Currambena is democratic. I love the fact that this means the children the teachers and the parents get together to tussle over the nitty gritty of school life. From what to learn, where to learn it and whether to learn it while eating lunch on top of the monkey bars with balloons up their jumpers – all issues get a good airing.
But there is an elephant in the schoolyard. A big issue that remains untackled, barely mentioned, but that reveals itself in the tired and haunted eyes of parents and teachers at preschool and primary alike when it comes to home time.
Shoes.
Like many Currambena children, my girls wear shoes to school everyday. They wear one on each foot. Often matching. They sometimes wear socks, not necessarily a pair, but I make sure the holes aren’t showing and that they occasionally get to see the inside of a washing machine.
But when it comes to home time, their feet are bare, and their shoes are nowhere to be seen. Somehow as they travel the winding road that is their educational journey they toss aside their footwear. No problem, whatever it takes to get them where they need to be, I say. But that is without the afternoon ritual searching sandpits and school rooms for disguarded sandals.
Sometimes we leave without. Sometimes we improvise with bits of string and craft room cast offs, often we find shoes so long lost that the children who wore them have long since moved on. Occasionally we find the shoes we are looking for – or come across a pair we had given up ever seeing again.
So if you see my children leaving school in the afternoon, with grins on their faces but nothing on their feet – its not the late seventies free-love and no-footwear philosophy of democratic education, nor is it because we have sacrificed shoes to pay school fees, it is simply that they have taken so much on board during the day about life, about friends about all that they get in school, that they have had to put down their shoes to carry it all.
I desperately hope.
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