now boarding

'The potential to be a model chorister'

Well that's what the choirmaster and his singing teacher said.

This was the first real opportunity for us to speak one-to-one with theses two important people, who are in reality two individuals critical to his choral development. They're also really nice and very talented people.

There wasn't much we could say except describe the way Tom behaves at home and in our local parish church. how he loves all genres of music, how he sings to himself. He's clearly taken a lot on board, and we know he's really focussed on the technique.

That said, his teachers acknowledged his ability, his 'talent'. For sure that's what they were looking for when one year ago we first visited the school.

That makes us mighty proud.

First parent meeting

Lovely at last to formally meet his form teacher, just an eight minute slot but well worth it. She spoke of his tears and her concern for him at the beginning but that the last week or two of term he seemed to pick-up and the first two days of this term he's been absolutely fine! This was great to hear for us - his homesickness has been an issue; she did say that some boys that were fine at the beginning of the year were teary coming back after half-term.

His reading is excellent and comprehension top of the class. Spelling needs a little help (he's been taught very phonetically) but we'll get there, maybe with a little help. It's good for us to focus a little more on the academics, I think we've been more than focussed on boarding and the choir - which I guess is understandable.

She professed to know not a lot about the Chorister's duties - which we were a little surprised at. We were also a little surprised to hear that she knew little of his progress in Art, Geography etc. That's the domain of his tutor and results don't come through until December - so there's a little mis-match there. Not particlarly parent-centred. But I guess they're concentrating on the three 'R's.

His teacher is lovely - in fact throughout his school life to date he's had great teachers. She reiterated that we could email her anytime (us chorister parents don't get the opportunity to bump into teachers like the day pupil's parents do.