Assembly

The experience of putting your child through Turkish primary school is an interesting one as a foreigner. The two biggest differences are first, a sweet shop in the school grounds selling only totally unhealthy products and the second is the amount of homework the children get from the start of the first year. The children get at least 1 hours homework a night and several hours for the weekend. The classrooms are plain and uninviting. No fantastic displays or bright stimulating colours. They are more like how you'd imagine a school in the "olden days" (!).
At the end of the week the children gather together in the playground to raise the flag and sing the national anthem collectively. This is a photo of today's singing.

School is particularly difficult for my eldest son as he has only been speaking Turkish for 3 years. When I say difficult I do not mean in terms of his intelligence. He can read and write in two languages and is particularly articulate in English. But, his personality doesn't suit the "sit still and listen" approach that is adopted here. He is a daydreamer anyhow and the desire to do so isn't helped by the fact that the subject matter is rather tedious and he is accessing it as a second language.

We came here for a better quality of life. We have that. I just hope we've made the right choice in terms of my boys' education.