13 - 19 June 2011

When Caspar's class boarded the bus for a three day stay in Salzburg, some of his 10 year old classmates (boys and girls) sobbed at the thought of being separated from their mothers, for many it would be the first night away from home. In some respects children stay children longer here; in others they are given a level of freedom rarely enjoyed by children in England such as walking to school on their own, and skiing or swimming without supervision; and sometimes they are perversely encouraged to ape adult behaviour - available at the post office are sweet cigarettes 'with magic smoke effect'. We are not aware of adult sexual imagery becoming 'the wallpaper of children's lives' as is the current concern in England, but perhaps we just can't see it through the fog of cigarette smoke, real or effect.

6 - 12 June 2011

A living pet would be preferable but needs must and Caspar found a dead thing to care for at home. Only when he had lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt it, having boiled and bleached the bones, did he realise it had no head. That is probably hanging on someone's trophy wall. A living thing would have smelt better and the dead thing has been banished back to the woods.

30 May - 5 June 2011

Elizabeth and her classmates have learnt to read and write. They have a postbox in their classroom and their teacher encourages them to write letters to each other with the following suggested format: Dear ..., I like you because ..., Love ... When Justine and Simon asked to whom she had written a letter, Elizabeth said that she had written to Katharina because her teacher had told her she wasn't allowed to write a letter to herself.