Application For Enrolment

It won't be until 2012 that Aaron will be old enough to start the Prep year here but I think I'd better hand in his application for enrolment now as waiting lists are long. He will automatically get a place in the nearby State School because we live in the area but I also wanted to keep my options open by enrolling him at the Catholic primary school as well.

I actually like the look and feel of the State School more but the religious education aspect of the Catholic school has been gnawing at me. I am not overly religious but my faith has helped me through many stresses in my life and I want Aaron to have a similar sort of grounding to me. In this world, it feels as if religion is compartmentalised into the place of worship only. My brother went to that Catholic school so I know it does not have an overbearing amount of religious education but instead, it sound as though its just integrated into everyday school life. Thats what I want - for religion to be part of who Aaron is.

Anyway, I got an enrolment form over a month ago but didn't get around to filling it out until tonight. I'll be honest - I'm feeling a bit judgemental towards the school now.

The first page of the application is all about the parents. Not unusual I suppose but they also asked for levels of school and higher education and has multiple choice answers that were extremely categorised. They specifically wanted to know if it was Grades 9, 10, 11 or 12 that a person left school. There was also 'Occupation Group' where parents were categorised into five groups. If I were to label those groups crudely, it would be 1) Big Bosses, 2) Middle management, 3) Worker Bees, 4) The Help and 5) '8'.

The '8' was for any person not in paid work for the last 12 months.

OK first and foremost, they didn't have a category for 'STAY AT HOME PARENT'. I thought that as a school, this would be extremely pertinent information. I wouldn't have thought so much of it had they just put in an 'Occupation' field to be filled out. BUT, they have specifically asked for how far up the career ladder the parent(s) has climbed by asking for those categories. So why not find out if the family had the luxury of a dedicated person for parenting?

I can definitely see how that sort of information will be 'useful' to a school's admissions officer but unfortunately, I'm seeing it as 'useful' in all the wrong ways. I also know that this is how the world works a lot of the time. Even for primary school enrolments because this school will then lead to certain Catholic secondary schools and so on and so on. Hey its the private school vicious cycle!

Lets keep things in perspective, he's still only 3!