Chloe's Keepers

I somehow only realised this week that Chloe's school has a scheme of sorts in place.

The idea is that a child in P3 is paired with a child in P1. Chloe's teacher told me this morning that their idea behind it is that the kids in P3, being about 6 or 7 years old are at the perfect age to be given a P1 (4 or 5) to watch over. The P3 kids are old enough to have a bit more sense than the P1s but still young enough to feel proud of this new responsibility. The older kids don't have to actually be responsible for the little ones as such, but just say Hi if they see them or take a couple of minutes to just have a chat with them about general things, what did you have for dinner last night, I had to do my homework, that kind of thing. It means that while Chloe is in P1 & P2 she will be paired with the same older girl for the two years and then in P3 she herself is paired with a younger child, then in P6 & P7 they're left to concentrate on their 11+ (the scheme must have been in place a while!).

And what's Chloe's opinion on the whole deal? She absolutely loves it!

I've met the little girl paired off with Chloe 4 times now this week. On Tuesday when she saw Chloe and I walking across the playground to school she made a point of separating from what she was doing with her friends and taking Chloe by the hand and off the two of them skipped chatting away merrily. The little girl really does seem lovely and I think will be a great influence on Chloe.

Chloe's quite mature for her age conversationally in that she has no trouble keeping up with and engaging in a full conversation with everyone from kids her own age and older and with adults too. The point is that kids a bit older than her don't see her as being childish in any way so they don't tire of her quickly.

Chloe now seems to have four little friends. The little girl she was originally paired with and three of her friends seem to have attached themselves to Chloe. I'm sure the girl's three friends have kids of their own that they've been paired with, but I'm not going to complain. She stood at the school gates with them while they talked about all the usual girl things, they said they loved her hair and she said she sometimes wished it was straight like theirs and they said no that her hair was really beautiful and she wouldn't want it straight and they talked about homework and how Chloe was lucky that she would get to do all the fun homework soon and she'd have to find colours and shapes and go outside to get things for school and make things with her mum.

It was like standing back and watching a group of women having a chat over coffee, a couple of times I had to stop myself from laughing.

I think this is a brilliant scheme, Chloe can't wait now until after Halloween because the girls told her that they all have lunch together on Wednesdays and Fridays and then she'll have homework to do as well so she'll have more to talk about.

I wonder do any other schools have schemes like this, is it s standard thing. I hope it is!