子供たちの学校選び（その2）

（English follows Japanese.)
娘の学校が始まって3週間．生活リズムも徐々に整ってきました．今回は，どうやって今の学校を見つけ，選び，編入したかについて書こうと思います(写真は通学路の池で白鳥を追い詰める娘）．

まず，「Public School（パブリックスクール」」とは，イギリスでは私立学校のことを意味します（年間の学費は安くても200万円から300万円）．パブリックスクールといえば，日本やアメリカでは公立学校のことですよね．しかしイギリスでは，公立学校は「State School (ステートスクール）」と言うそうです（スコットランドは違ったらすみません）．うっかり「うちの子，公立やねん」と英語で言うと，「あら，お金持ちー」って解釈されてしまいますので，ご注意を！

うちの娘はステートスクールです．私の受け入れ大学の先生に相談したところ，同席されていた子育て経験者の手話通訳女性の方に，エジンバラの旧市街と新市街に2,3校オススメしていただきました．

エジンバラ市が運営するステートスクールに入れるためには，兎にも角にも「学区内の住所」が必要です．色々と調べると，新学期は8月中旬（お盆後くらい）に始まることが分かりました．エジンバラ市は全ての書類が7月末までに完璧に揃った場合，市で取りまとめて学区内の学校に入るための手続きを請け負うということでした．それ以降は自分で学校に問い合わせてね，と．

てことは，7月末に家の住所が決まってればいいんだ！と逆算し，家探しを早々に開始したわけです（詳しくは過去の記事「エジンバラ家探し」をご覧ください）．5月くらいのお話です．

子育て経験者の手話通訳の方におすすめいただいた学校を調べていくと，そのうち一校が「ダンス専科」と「フットボール専科」を持っている学校でした．日々バレエに明け暮れ，日本を離れたがらない娘のために，「ここいいんじゃない？この学区に家を探そう！」となったわけです．親の都合による劇的な環境の変化なので，娘にとって少しでも楽しいことがあるといいと考えました．

学校が定まった5月から9月上旬に娘が中学編入するまでの4ヶ月弱．夏休みも挟まりエジンバラ市からの連絡も希望する学校からの連絡もなしのつぶてとなり，ビザ申請もてんやわんやで，渡英延期せざるを得ない状況も生じ，学校が決まらないなかの渡英．なかなか辛かったです．

でも，決まるときはあっさり決まる，それがイギリスです．次は，スコットランドでも4校しかない（とどこかで読んだけど，ソースを見失いました）という「ダンス専科」について，少し紹介します．

つづく．

It has been three weeks since my daughter started school. She is gradually getting into the rhythm of her life. This time, I would like to write about how we found, chose, and transferred to her current school (The photo shows daughter chasing down swans in a pond on her way to school).

First of all, "Public School" means a private school in the UK (annual tuition fee is 2 to 3 million yen at the lowest). In Japan and the United States, it means public schools. In the UK, however, public schools are called "state schools" (sorry if this is not the case in Scotland). If you accidentally say "My child is in a public school" in English, it will be interpreted as "Oh, you're rich!

My daughter is in a state school. After consulting with a teacher at my host university, a female sign language interpreter who had experience in child-rearing recommended a couple of schools in the old and new town of Edinburgh.

In order to enter a state school operated by the city of Edinburgh, you need to have an "address in the school district. After much research, I found out that the new school year starts in mid-August (about after the Bon Festival). The city of Edinburgh will take care of the procedures to enter a school in the school district, if all the documents are completely filled out by the end of July. After that, I had to contact the school myself.

That means I should have a home address by the end of July! So I started house-hunting as soon as possible (for more details, please refer to the past article "Edinburgh House Hunt").

I checked out the schools recommended by a sign language interpreter who had experience raising children, and found that one of them had a "dance program" and a "football program". I thought, "This is a good school for my daughter, who spends her days in ballet and does not want to leave Japan. Let's find a house in this school district! And so it came to be. Since it was a dramatic change of environment for the convenience of the parents, we thought it would be nice to have a little fun for our daughter.

It took less than four months from May, when the school was decided, to early September, when my daughter transferred to a junior high school. There was no contact from the city of Edinburgh or from the school of our choice, the visa application process was a bit of a mess, we had to postpone our trip to the U.K., and we were still unable to decide on a school. It was quite painful.

But when a decision is made, it is made easily, and that is England. Next, I would like to introduce some "dance schools," of which there are only four in Scotland (I read somewhere that it was, but I lost the source).

To be continued.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
(完全にAIさんに翻訳頼ってます．文法チェックや細かい直しは面倒なので入れてません）