Jessica's New School

Jessica is now into her third week of school and so far seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself.

St Michaels International School (http://smis.org/head.html) is situated opposite NHK (a useful landmark in the first week) on Nakayamate-Dori (dori means street). We leave our apartment in the morning, turn left and walk for 6 minutes, turn right and there it is. So we’re pretty close.

The school is next-door to the Kitano Meister Garden, a rather quaint building with little craft shops selling hand-made goodies including bread, jewelry, chocolate and ice-cream. So there’s often a stop-off there after school.

Her first day passed off much like any other first day back at school. A few nerves and some hand-holding, but as soon as the bell rang (or rather the clock chimed), all the children lined up and in they went. Jessica has been lucky in that over the summer the school has undergone a lot of refurbishment and her year is in a brand, spanking new classroom.

The school has around 155 pupils and there are 24 in Jessica’s class. Lessons are in English and Jessica seems already very fond of her teacher, Ms Shy. They have Japanese lessons, and though I’ve yet to hear any local lingo from Jessica, I’m sure she’s picking up plenty.

There are couple of other newbie kids as well, which helps, not only Jessica, but also myself with the usual mother’s playground chats. There was a ‘Meet and Greet’ for parents and teachers in the second week and it was good to speak to a few other parents in the same boat as ourselves.


School starts at 8.50 (although most kids seem to be there from 8.30) and finishes at 3.15. Homework can be pretty taxing and between ice-cream and little brothers there are plenty of distractions, but it eventually gets done.

So far Jessica has not shown any particular aptitude for sports but with PE twice a week and weekly swimming lessons, you never know.