Thursday 14th June 2007 - Friday 15th June 2007
She's only five years old and has never had a sleepover anywhere. She's not a great sleeper in her own bed: in any other bed - hotels, Nana's etc - she's impossible. Am I worried about this? NO! A night with no child… perfect! Someone else's problem for a change…
Basically, the school have arranged for the Reception kids to have their own group sleepover in the school library. They explained (in a letter) that this would be a good experience for them as from Year 1 they will go on a field trip away. I presume they've had homesickness problems with Year 1 children before, so this is their way of preparing the little ones for sleeping away from home.
What a great idea! They will be with all their friends in a fairly familiar environment. What an adventure for them! Teachers and teaching assistants will be sleeping there too the doors will be locked. They'll watch a movie, have a "midnight feast" (the teachers will change the time on the clock, heh heh!) and then the children will snuggle into their sleeping bags. I don't expect any sleeping to happen, but who cares?
We're given a list of things to take in - one of which is a camera "with the express rule that NO photographs of teachers in their pyjamas will be developed and displayed!"
But you'd think from the reactions from most of the mums that the school planned on kidnapping them all to sell into slavery! The general consensus was "no way is my kid going on that sleepover!" At the beginning of the week, most children were not going.
Upon further questioning of the reluctant mums, the real reason for their reticence became clear… the Friday after the sleepover was a free day. The children wouldn't be going to school as we are to collect them at 9am. This would mean certain mothers wouldn't get their free day of "ladies who lunch", manicures, gym sessions or whatever self-indulgent things they do during their week.
Fortunately kiddy peer-pressure prevailed and all the children, bar a handful, attended the sleepover.
Tim and I treated ourselves to a night out at the local Indian restaurant and very nice it was too.
The next morning I collected an extremely tired but very happy little girl from school. All the teachers looked dead on their feet! I suppose it's one thing teaching kids all day (I couldn't do that) but it's entirely another thing to take care of around 50 or 60 all night too!
Rhiannon was full of stories about her adventure. She seems to have it in her head that someone moved them all around while they were asleep because she was next to X when she went to bed, but woke up next to Y. Goodness knows what that was all about! (I may add to this post another day when I can ask Rhiannon about her memories of it)
We spent a gentle day watching TV together as she was exhausted. And an early night for her!
The unlucky children who didn't join in the sleepover had to go to school as normal that day… was it really worth depriving a child of this adventure just to save the day for the mother's manicure?
