Registering with the School

When we arrived in Spain it was December and felt there was little point trying to get our daughter into school until the start of the new term in January. We had already identified which school she should be going to but because of her age we were unsure if she would attend this primary school or indeed go straight into the High School. When we left the UK she had just started Comprehensive school, and although we were aware that the ages for attending high school in Spain were different from those in the UK, we had also been informed that this would vary from area to area.

Christmas well out of the way we set about registering her with the school, we arrived bright and early one Monday Morning and stood outside the school. It seemed very pleasant and looked clean and well cared for, and no graffiti which was nice to see. There was a large railed fence all around the school and the gate was locked. Again we thought this was good especially given those tragic events in Dunblane. So far so good for a Monday morning in Spain.

We realised that the gate would be working on some sort of a buzzer/speaker system so began to search. The only thing that we could see was a form of door bell which was hanging from the wall by its wires and not looking too safe. There seemed to be nothing else to ring so with fear in our hearts we pressed the button………nothing.

It did not seem to be functioning. So there we stood the three of us feeling just a tad silly. We stood there for what seemed like an age, then a large delivery van pulled up and the driver got out and rattled the gates like there was no tomorrow, after a second or two the gates opened so we made our way in.

We went through the front door and into the reception hallway were we found the help desk. Well it looked like a help desk, but on reflection I think this should be identified as the unhelpful desk. Behind this desk were two women and one man. I asked if they spoke English, to which they answered NO. Ok I thought I am going to have to do this in my best Spanish which at that time was dreadful. I told them that I would like to register my daughter for school who did I have to see. They looked at me and then at each other and shook their heads. Mmmm I thought this is not going well. I tried this question in every form I knew how to try and make them understand what it was I wished to do. I just kept getting this vacant look.

I was about to give up and come back with a translator as it seemed that this was not going to be an easy task. A small boy then came past, and to be frank I paid very little attention to him as I was absorbed with my mission, and was franticly trying to find another set of words that might just convey my wishes. Whilst I was in mid spanglish this small child stopped and looked at us then spoke to the three stooges behind the desk in perfect Spanish, they replied and he then turned to us and told us that they were not taking admissions today we would have to come back another day. Now you have to understand that this child was no more than six or seven, so astonished does not cover our feelings. I quickly asked him which day we should come back and he told us on Thursday between 10.30 and 1.30, and off he went with us both shouting our thanks.

We were handed a form and off we went. Ok we were thwarted at that attempt but we were not giving up, we had gained information albeit not by our own means but on the back of a small British child whose command of the Spanish language was stunning. We spent hours on this admission form working out what information they needed and managed to fill it all in and I have to say correctly. It seemed all they needed were our passports and photocopies of our passports.

Armed with all our paperwork we arrived back on Thursday morning to find a queue, and this was out of the door and into the playground and it was not even 10.30am. Ok I thought if this is what you have to do to get your kid into school here then this is what I have to do, so we quietly joined the queue. We stood there for ages, my back was killing me and we took it in turns to go for a smoke. We were about 10 people left at the front of the queue at 1.30 and I thought well we are nearly there maybe another ten minutes at the most and we will have registered her with the school and she should be able to start on Monday morning. My illusions were shattered about 10 seconds later, when a rather burly Spanish women appeared and shouted “Vamos” and then in English “finished go away”. Now she had to be joking I had been standing there for hours!!!! There were a few disgruntled people ahead of me but they did as they were told and started to move away. I asked them what was going on and they told me that registration is strictly on Thursdays between those hours irrespective of how long you had been standing there. The woman I spoke to was on her fourth attempt.

Jesus I thought as we headed to the nearest bar, in dire need of beer and an ice cream. Small blonde child was not impressed, and told us that the school looked like a prison. This was now starting to look bad and I knew that battle lines would have to be drawn, and a strategy formed.

The following Thursday morning we arrived at 9.00am I was damned if I was going to be in the same position as the week before. Despite our early arrival I guess other parents were in the same school of thinking as us, as the queue had already begun to form, fortunately not as long as the previous week, so we had a chance of being seen. The queue followed the same pattern as the week before with my partner and I adopting the shift system. Eventually we were first in the queue, and then the magical door that had eluded us the week before opened and we were motioned in.

At the desk sat a very sombre looking man with a young woman next to him. She spoke first asking in Spanish our nationality. We told her we were British and she asked if we had brought a translator. No I replied, so I have to have one? She just shook her head. I handed over the form we had filled in and she asked for our passports so I handed over both my daughters and my passports and she motioned for my partner to hand over his. I then had to explain that he was not her father, she then asked me for my husbands passport. I could not believe this…… I told her that my daughter’s husband did not live in Spain and I did not have his passport, she insisted that she had to see his passport. Thinking on my feet I told her that this would not be possible as we did not know where he was and we had not seen him since the divorce. Thankfully she bought that one and asked for my partner’s passport as he would be the head of the house. I could feel my feminist hackles rising and fought to keep my mouth shut.

Forms were filled in and boxes ticked and all seemed to be going well, then she asked for her immunisation records. Ok she had me I did not have those, and at that moment in time I had no idea how I was going to get those to Spain in a hurry. I was told she could not be admitted without them, and we were shown the door.

Back to the pub, beer and ice cream all round………..

I managed to contact the practice manager of our doctors in the UK and as luck would have it she was an old friend and within 24 hours she had faxed through the records. Armed with this we returned again the following week and presented ourselves to the mercy of the queue. This was now becoming a regular thing and we were starting to form close bonds with the people we had met week after week in the queue, sad but true. Again we were at the front of the queue but this time we had the information that was required……..or so we thought.

I presented the young woman with the immunisation records which were checked and she then asked for photographs, well she thought she had me there but during one of my conversations with other parents in the queue I noticed they had photos and asked what they were for. They were required for identification and also for their bus passes if they needed to be transported to school. I had the photos whoo hoo. She took these and stuck one onto the admissions form and stapled the others to another form. Well that was that, when does she start?? Yep you guessed there was something else I had failed to provide, she now required a copy of the padron. I shot out of the office dragging the rest of the brood with me, with looks of total bewilderment on their faces. I could see it in their eyes “ she has finally lost the plot”. On the contrary I knew the town hall was at the other end of the street and we could get the padron there, and with luck get back into the queue and get this admission thing finished today.

My plan worked and armed with our padron with the ink still wet we were back in the queue, and back into the office within minutes to spare of the cut off point. Was I feeling smug. This is when the expression “do not count your chickens before they hatch” really means something. The young lady stapled one of the copies of the padron to the other forms and then hit me over the head with the question “ have you got her medical certificate?” What medical certificate??????? It seems that your child also has to have a medical examination with a Spanish doctor before they may be admitted to a Spanish school. I think this was the point where my head hit the desk and my fist followed. Once I had regained my composure, and trust me it was touch and go, I asked this young woman if there were any other documents that I was required to provide so that I did not waste any more of both her time and mine. It seemed I should also fill in a form for school transport and bring that back with the medical certificate, and I also needed a copy of the passport of the person that owned the house that we were living in. Now if I had not asked I could see that we would have returned at least another twice only to be told that we were missing some form of documentation. I asked the young lady if she minded if I place a list of the documentation required on a piece of paper and posted this on the front door, so that no one else had to go through this again. I got that look that only Spanish officials can give, but I did it anyway.

We finally returned with all the documentation and were told that she could not start for another two weeks as they did not have the room, and this nice young lady added that we should have registered here 3 weeks before and she would have been able to start that Monday. AAARRRRGGGGHHhhh!!!!!

On the first morning of school we drove our daughter to the front gates, we told her to try and have a good day and said all those encouraging things that you say when you are more nervous than they are. My daughter has a riotous if not evil sense of humour and she pointed towards the roof of the school, and asked if that was the only gun turret or where there more. Naturally we looked up at the roof, and as we did so a child kicked his football out of the school grounds and scaled the fence to retrieve it. My daughter leapt out of the car shouting “ Run, Run they have not seen you yet, you can escape” she then went into school whistling ‘The Great Escape’.

We spent the next 4 months ferrying our daughter back and forth to school as there was not enough room on the school bus. This was four trips a day. The reason why there was no room on the bus was because people had taken the bus place as it allows the child to stay for dinner, however as it turned out the bus was running virtually empty, and the irony was it went passed our front door. When I queried this with the director he shrugged, but he did eventually look into it, and one day we found teachers escorting children onto the school bus much to their horror, and parents turning up to collect their kids only to find they had been placed on the school bus. After a couple of weeks we were sent a letter to tell us that our daughter could now travel on the school bus.