Things we now know about high school

Last Thursday, Miss 11 had her orientation day at her high school. Dia belum masuk high school lagi, next year baru masuk but they have to do the orientation this term. And then when she got home, she brought home all these forms to be filled in. Since this is our first kid kat high school kan, we all ni kiranya parents yang jakun lah sikit :-). Dah lah I high school dulu kat M’sia and The Other Half pulak high school kat Victoria so tersangat lah lain nya dengan system kat WA ni. Pastu pulaknya our high school zaman was like yonks ago so memang banyak lah perubahan kan, hahahaha.

Anyway, after reading all the materials given, barulah we all tau yang at that high school, the Year 8 students (which is the first year of high school) will study courses in English, Maths, Science, Society & Environment, Health & Phys Ed, Languages and Electives. And in the Elective courses tu pulak, the students have to choose 6 courses/year. So kiranya in total ada 12 main courses lah that they have to do in Year 8. In the Science course tu they’ll learn Biology, Chemsitry, Physics and Earth Science which is lebih kurang macam kat M’sia lah kan. The languages offered at her high school will be either Italian, French or Japanese. Since I did 1 year of Italian at Uni for elective dulu and The Other Half did French at high school, so we’ve asked her to choose Italian or French as her preferred language. Neither of us know any word of Japanese and we think that she’ll struggle to remember all the Hiragana characters as well, hehehe. Might as well stick to a language that uses the roman alphabets kan :-).

And the Elective courses pulak, the students can choose courses in Arts or Technology & Enterprise. And she has chosen (with our ‘guidance’) to do 3 courses in Arts which are Discovering Art, Introductory Drama and Introductory Media and 3 courses in Technology & Enterprise which are Computer Animation, Technical Graphics/CAD and Food Awareness (ni we all lah suruh dia ambik because nampak macam tak complicated sangat :-)). Masa I high school dulu, rasanya takde pun elective2 ni, semua study study study aje!

Miss 11 dah rasa nervous sebab tetiba banyak subjects yang dia kena ambik next year. We all lagi lah nervous sebab she’ll be starting her GATE program next year! We really pray and hope she can do it.

Even though she’ll be going to a public high school, banyak jugak compulsory fees yang we all kena keluarkan. Yang nak tergelaknya, with the elective courses, the fees can range from $10 to more than $235 per year for each elective. They said kalau we choose an expensive electives, the charges will be expensive lah but so far they haven’t told you yet elective mana yang expensive, hehehe. And on top of that, there’ll be other non- compulsory fees and also ‘voluntary’ fees (which are compulsory for us to pay!). Itu belum termasuk the school uniforms lagi which will be a lot as well, hehehe. Oh well, I guess it will always be cheaper than sending her to a good private high school which I think will be way more than 20k per year! And the high school she’s going to has been awarded the top TEE public school in WA in 2009 so it is a very good school. We’ve definitely made the right choice in choosing that school for her.

This year kiranya will be the last year that Miss 11 and Miss 7 are in the same school at the same time. Once, Miss 11 dah masuk high school, memang that’s it lah. Sebab, bila turn Miss 7 masuk high school pulak, Miss 11 dah habis high school and hopefully will be in her first year of Uni. Aaaagggghhhhhh, I feel so old suddenly writing and reading that sentence! Muahahaha.

Let’s talk about something else then ;-).

Ini our dinner tonite. I made beef schnitzel. Makan dengan sauteed asparagus and tomato and swirly potato (I bought yang frozen punya, tinggal bake in the oven aje ye). Takde kerja I nak membuat potato that style, hehehe.