Christchurch Earthquake - Back to school

Life took another step back to normality today with mr12 starting back at school.  Mr15 had started on Monday after a 3 week break.

Mr15 is back to his same old routine but things are a bit different for mr12.  His school is rather munted.  Just how munted is yet to be revealed by more intense examination but the whole school area is currently a no go area.  So today he started school at a new school site.  His school is still operating, just borrowing a part of another school to operate.

He and his school mates are what is now being referred to as transported students.  Around Christchurch there are some 6000 students from 8 schools being transported everyday to other school sites for their education.

Primary children, meaning up to year 8 - mr12’s year, are having normal hours but high school students are having morning/afternoon school.  For example, Avonside Girls High School is busing across town to Burnside High School.  Burnside High students have the school from 8 to 12 noon and then Avonside Girls High have the school from 1pm to 5pm.  Shirley Boys High School is sharing with Papanui High School.  Not really what can be called productive education but better than nothing.  

So now Mr12 bikes to his friends place, then they bike together to the bus pick up point – they have to be there by 8.15am - and they are then bussed the 20 minutes or so to the new school site.  The school they are using is big enough and has enough space for 2 schools of students.  After school they do the reverse to get home.

After day one, mr12 was upbeat about it and I would be too, after all the excitement of the last few weeks they are taking it easy and slowly getting back into the school routine!

Great to see another step towards normality here in Christchurch but we feel for the higher level students who are going to find it a uphill battle through the year as they battle with school sharing.