So, the recovery is going well, and so is business. I feel strangely disconnected from the way the media is reporting the economy, which appeared to be borne out by a solicitors trade event I attended in December. We're growing, having recruited another part-time support "bod", and have a healthy pipeline, and are on course to be profitable again this year.
The question about our youngest's secondary education has been looming for a while - even though she's only in year 5, and has another 9 months to make a choice. But she's a performer, loves singing and acting, and the school she attends pays lip service to those skills, preferring instead to concentrate on the "academic" subjects which they are monitored on. Meanwhile, we're paying for out-of-school "classes" which she enjoys, although all of us feel that they're really not doing anything new.
Before I went to Thailand, I was hunting around for alternatives to these out-of-school classes, and stumbled across a drama school a few miles away that ran a day school. Hmmm, I thought, and stored it away for future use. Then, in January, J and I had a discussion about Z's secondary education, wondering how she would cope with the conformity that would be expected there. Well, I said, there is another alternative...
The upshot of which is that, on Friday, we went to this school in Maidenhead, and came to the conclusion fairly quickly that Z would absolutely love it. The issues are (a) distance, (b) the loss of certain subjects from her education, that we would have to supplement somehow, (c) the worry that it becomes a hot-house for stage, (d) the worry about the apparent focus on dance, which Z isn't so good at, and (e) the reaction of J's parents. Actually, money is a worry too - although I'm trying not to think of that. Having worked to build up a small annual extra reserve, to think that it will simply be swallowed up each year...
I do think that you can do pretty much anything to kids up to the age of 16. While GCSE's may prove useful in some things, by the time you get past your mid-20s, they're pretty irrelevant. And I do think that Z is bright enough (perhaps too bright) to do well in them almost whatever she does. It means that we will have to work harder and get much more involved with her education in the future. Are we doing the right thing by her? You simply don't know - you'd have thought that I would have learnt that lesson by now, don't you!
But J and I agree that we'd be kicking ourselves if we didn't at least push the door a little.
