clux

Molly, that is really really helpful. Thanks ever so much. The idea of being cooped up for a week is really not appealing to me!!

Hello, my 4 year old daughter has woken up with chicken pox this morning. When I phoned school they immediately said "are you from Bee class? We've had 7 parents phone in already this morning from that class!" She doesn't seem to have it too badly yet but i#m not looking forward to the itching stage! Would really really appreciate any advice anyone has on how to deal with it And my nearly 2 year old is completely miserable today so i expect she's about to get it too!!

Barry I've had to stop using my oyster card as every single time I go through London Bridge and onto the tube it charges me too much - I have a pram with me so go through the large gate and every time i tap in it thinks i'm tapping out and charges me! The staff have been really helpful on all the occasions its happened and have refunded the money but it's just too much hassle! I now buy a daily travel card (once a week i go from queens road peckham to london bridge and then the tube to victoria) Is there any way around this problem as its incredibly frustrating. Thank you.

Hello I don't have firsthand experience of Ivydale but when I meet people who had children there they all seem very happy with the school. There is a post on the Nunhead Forum about it at the moment and some of the people who have commented do have children at the school so they may be able to help you.

i second what mumra says - some of the info makes it look like you need to but when you go into the office and ask they tell you that you only need to fill in a supplementary form if you're applying for a church place.

I have to say, Southwark don't seem to be particularly on the ball. Just had a letter saying i need to apply for a school place for my daughter to start next year - she started on 7th January!! It's quite scary

i'd like to come but i don't know anyone and i'm a bit scared!!!

Hello Mrs Lotte Yes - we were offered JD!! Really glad your son is happy - I've heard lots of really good things about Goose Green. So glad it's worked out ok for us all in the end - it was a horrible horrible time for a few months. I felt completely helpless and like I'd let my daughter down Now I've got to start applying for nursery for No2!! Hopefully that will be easier!

Hello Seeing as its almost time for primary school applications I just thought I'd let you know that even if you don't get your first choice school initially don't give up hope. We applied last year and didn't get any of our 4 choices. We were offered a school which was near us but which I would never ever send my daughter to. Then a few months later we got offered our second choice school. We were at this stage number 6 on the waiting list for our favourite school. By christmas we'd moved to 3rd on the waiting list. My daughter started at No 2 school on 7th January, then this week we finally got into our first choice school. It's been a long and incredibly stressful journey but we got there in the end. My poor daughter has had to start 2 schools in 2 weeks but she has been absolutely amazing, and i know she's now in the best possible place. Good luck to everyone applying now. Hope its not as bad as last year

She's home safe and sound - had a really good day, but i spent the entire day worrying! glad i'm not the only blubbing mummy at the school gates though!! thanks for your replies

And did anyone else cry or am I just totally ridiculous????

Our current favourites are: This Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell Meerkat Mail and Wolves both by Emily Gravitt The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson Mog and The Vet by Judith Kerr The Dotty and Bluebell book by Jools Oliver The Jolly Postman (minds gone blank now and i can't think of the author!)

Thanks very much. Have been keen to read this.

i totally sympathise - i HATE car journeys with my two daughters. my eldest daughter was hideously car sick until she got to the age of 3 and we could give her travel sickness pills. and then just as she stopped doing it, my youngest one started doing it, and she's even more car sick. she only has to be in a car for 5 minutes and she throws up. its really really grim and stressful.

Steph Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > is that because you don't like going out? Have no > one to help you out babysitting, or the next day > with a hangover? Or, purely because you don't like > leaving kids? > Not sure if you were asking me that, but its a combination of all the above. Don't have any family in london, other than a sister who has two little ones of her own and lives on the other side of london. I can no longer drink without having a horrific hangover which kind of ruins the fun of it. I used to love going out and would happily go out every night but i guess things just change. the thought of going out to a club or something now fills me with dread! don't even really have the stamina to stay out in a pub till midnight very often either!

i went out, as in outside to the shops/library/cafe etc, when my two were both a couple of days old. did lunch in the pub at a week old, but even now when they're 4 and nearly 2 i don't go out at night much!

i find the tables really frustrating too as they only show the distances given when the initial places were given out. i know that the distances have then changed when places have been given out at a later date - a school i applied to and which i have subsequently been offered a place at several months later has their distance at less than 300m but i live 500m away

i've never bothered before either but i just couldn't help myself this time anyway, she seems to have gone now i've directly challenged her to prove i'm not working class!!

how would you like me to prove it?

I certainly do not aspire to be middle-class, what a stupid thing to say. I own a pram that does the job i need it to do (i won't bore you with the technical stuff, i'm not sure you'd understand) there are plenty of bugaboos in peckham, being pushed by very non-middle class mothers. i think you're a bit stuck in 2002 Louisa.

Its not just the people who have got places on appeal though, its the people who have put themselves on the waiting list for a school they didn't originally apply to, a long time after the places were first offered, and who go above my daughter. To me this is just not a fair system.

> > Call yourself working class with a bugaboo? tut > tut! > > The key point is, do you go into these overpriced > shops to buy produce, or are you more of an > Iceland girl? Walking down NCR with a pram does > not count unless you frequent a proportion of the > shops! > > >I certainly do call myself working class, because i am. A bugaboo is just a pram - get over it. I don't buy overpriced stuff in overpriced shops, but nor do i shop in iceland. there you go - stereotype me now if you can

i'm a working class mummy who often walks down north cross road with my bugaboo and my daughter on a scooter - i'm more than happy to discuss this with you louisa...... just so you know, my husband is self employed, therefore has no bonuses, we haven't been on a holiday abroad for over 5 years, and i don't drink wine every night. am i still fair game??

the thing that makes me really cross about the whole admissions process is that i initially didn't get a place at any of the 4 schools i applied to. i then got put on a waiting list for these schools but people who applied late, or hadn't applied to these schools at all but wanted to be added to the waiting list, went ahead of my daughter on the list if they lived nearer. surely a fairer system is for priority on the lists to be given to applications made on time and for those people who applied to the school as one of their 4 choices. my daughter was getting pushed further and further down the lists. there was no benefit whatsoever to me having got my application in correctly and on time, or in fact at all, as i could just have rung round 12 schools and put my daughter on the waiting lists once the first round of offers had been made.

my daughter was 2 years and 7 months when my second daughter was born and a buggy board on our bugaboo was perfect. she was a good walker and really good on her scooter so she wasn't permanently on the board, but when she needed it it was there. i was determined to not have a double buggy as a spend a lot of time on buses and trains and thought it would just be too difficult.