I felt it was time to share about my lovely Daughter and her milestone reached this week.

Kaela has struggled with her reading (and her confidence) for some time.  Along with moving to a new school and the class bully making Kaela her “b*tch” (this isn’t the word that was used, but this girl used to hold Kaela’s foot in the toilet and flush it, or lock her in the ‘chicken shed’ so I’m thinking she earnt that title) , a year with a ‘teacher’ who yelled all day every day didn’t help.

At the end of the year we received a form letter from the Teacher, with a ‘fill-in-the-gaps’ type thing that said

Your daughter Kaela has reached level 5 in the Home Reading Program.

Reading for Year 1 is expected to be at Level 14.

We hope you enjoyed the home reading programme.

And so the journey began/continued.

Except this year we hit pay dirt. A teacher that, in her own words, is ‘fair but firm’. A teacher that focuses strongly on positive actions, and rewards accordingly. Mind you she also is very firm. But I can’t fault her in any way.

Her classroom is beautifully organised. Every morning the desks are set up with new activities. The kids respond to her, and she takes an active interest in each one of them. In short, she looks like she wants to be there, and loves to teach.

She has taken Kaela’s situation on board. No favouritism (nor would I expect it), but empathy. And support. Kaela’s glasses, Kaela’s reading recovery twice a week. Kaela Kaela Kaela.

This week Kaela went up to Level 14 for her reading. She finally reached the level that she should have been on at the end of last year. We were so proud of her.

But the biggest milestone for me happened at assembly this week.

Not only did she receive her third class award, but she was selected from her class to speak about Education Week.

2 Kids from each class were selected, and invited up on stage to reading about their ‘love of learning’.

My painfully-embarrassed-to-read-anything-in-public daughter got up, beaming from ear to ear with pride, and proceeded to read, without any hesitation, 4 sentences on why she loved to learn.

Tears sprung to my eyes and my heart did a flip flop and surely burst a little bit. I wanted to get up and scream “Go KAELA! YAYYYYY!” – but of course I didn’t.

I went home, found a lovely scarf that I had knit stored in my gifting box, in colours just right for the Teacher.

And I wrote a note of thanks.

And Kaela gave it to her.

She wore it today.