Great! My DD has just informed me she has a note from school. Apparently the teachers are on strike again.

I am on the side of the workers – just pay them! – but it does make me wonder how many of the parents cope with this. Working from home, it’s easy enough for me but what happens when you are supposed to grab the guagua to work by 8.00 a.m. but your kid just tells you there is no school tomorrow.

This last scholastic year has been very disrupted by strikes. While I am all for sending the kids to state school that only counts if there is actually a teacher to take the class for the majority of the year.

I get asked a lot about sending the kids to the local school in Tenerife. My daughter at seven years old speaks fluent Spanish and my son at four is more than able to hold his own in Spanish, English or Double Dutch. That boy just never stops talking.

It bothers some expat parents that by sending their kids to a Spanish state school that the Spanish speaking will have a negative impact on the level of English or other mother tongue that the kids speak in their homes. All I can say is that both my kids can eloquently talk the hind legs off a burro in English or Spanish and entering the state school system didn’t slow them down one bit.