I approached the start of the school year with a mixture of dread and relief. Dread at having to get up at 6am every morning to get my kids to the school bus-stop for seven o’ clock and relief that the three-month summer break was finally over, that maybe, some sense of order, and calm, would return to our chaotic household.

The new Roma
This was to be my sons’ first term at Bulgarian school. Until now, they had been at detska gradina, where they had demonstrated behaviour completely alien to our home of life, tidiness, obedience and patience. We have been resident in Bulgaria for just more than two years and it has taken this length of time for my sons, Benjamin and Maxwell (aged 8 and 7), to become fluent in the language. Admittedly, for the first six months here, they did nothing but enjoy life in Zlatni Pyasutsi (Golden Sands). When finally my nerves could take it no more and I had long since ruled out the notion of home schooling, I organised private Bulgarian lessons for them and then enrolled them into the local detska gradina. Despite a year’s age difference, they joined the same class so that they could take advantage of a programme that helps children who do not speak Bulgarian in the home. The language programme helps the ethnic Roma children who speak variants of either Turkish or Romanian as their mother tongue. It has been a great leveller for my sons, Bulgaria’s “new Roma”.

Peace and tranquillity restored
Sadly, the fun and freedom of detska gradina faded into the background and gave way to endless craving for rides and sweets in Zlatni Pyasutsi.

Eventually, September 15th came this year and it was time to grow up and get ready for the real world – purvi klas. To be honest, the boys were excited; it was only me who looked back at the end of their pre-school days with sorrow. (In Bulgaria, children start school at age seven.) Yet, deep down I knew that I should be thankful; our move to Bulgaria had actually given them back two years of freedom to enjoy playing and just being kids far away from the pressure of the spelling tests, the homework and the endless reading books of the UK state school system.

My sons had opted to go into separate classes within the same year and I was pleased because I would no longer have to listen to the endless tales of “he got told off today”. However, this did mean that my husband and I had to deal with two completely different teachers; one who spoke so fast she should be reading the news on BTV and the other who was so highly organised she should be running the country.

Back to our schooldays
Bulgarian schools, I have found, have a good deal of interaction with parents. After the first few days at school, we were invited to each boy’s class meeting to learn how we as parents could support our children at school. As we sneaked into the back of Benjamin’s class, five minutes late, we received one of those “I hope you’re not going to make a habit of this” stares. We tried our hardest to look like we understood the rapid-fire babble coming from the front of the class. How was Benjamin supposed to understand what the teacher was explaining when she talks so fast? Doesn’t she realise there are ethnic minorities here? In the end we had to resort to whispering, “What’s she saying now?” to Benjamin’s friend’s dad, who we knew spoke English. We half expected to be moved for copying his notes. A few kids were named and shamed as the disruptive element of the class and their parents had to take the mild scolding on their behalf. I was pleased that a move to the Bulgarian education system had put an end to the political correctness metered out in the UK. Telling your child that their work is good, when it is so clearly not, is not setting them up for the knockbacks they will receive in industry in the future.

In Maxwell’s class meeting, I could virtually understand every word of the lesson. His teacher spoke so slowly and clearly as she read out the rules; kids must pack their school bag so that books for the first lesson are at the front and subsequent lessons follow on behind. The letters DR (domashna rabota) would signify homework and we should feel free to give more if we wanted to. Children should eat from the free canteen rather than hang about the shops at break. Chewing gum was banned and we must instil discipline into our children so that they learned to behave in class. I was positively quaking by the time she had finished: how was my little boy going to cope with all this, when he couldn’t even be bothered to get dressed in the morning?

Chaos returns
As it happened, school was a roaring success. On day one, they skipped into the house bursting with news of how great their school was. When I asked if they preferred Bulgarian school to English school, they answered, “Yeeesss, we finish at lunchtime for a start.” Homework took all of five minute. It was slapped together before you could say McDonald’s. Every day after this was greeted with the same positive enthusiasm and then it all ended.

My sons spent a total of four days in purvi klas before I received the fatal phone call from Max’s teacher. There was going to be a strike, she said, and school would be closed indefinitely. She had to be joking. I had myself into this 6am routine as if I was Superwoman. I was getting loads of work done and enjoying the peace and quiet and now after four measly days, she was going to pull the rug from under me and give me back my screaming, craving, fighting kids because she and her colleagues felt they needed more money!

OK, don’t get me wrong, I am right behind the teachers in their quest for more pay. I certainly could not live on 200 or 300 leva a month, but can my children gain a decent education fighting the Sith on their PlayStation? Is there a career opening for Jedi Knights? I have tried suggesting that I set a little homework – they looked at me as if I had to heads.

So with this in my mind I make my own personal plea to Education Minister, Daniel Vulchev. Please step into the real world. Try living on a teacher’s wage, Mr Vulchev, or take my kids off me every morning and see how it feels to arbitrate fights over a bowl of Coco Crispies. I give him one week before he crumbles (whatever scenario he tries) and he would be doling out pay rises guaranteed to put a smile back on the poor teachers’ faces. That way, everyone would be happy, I could settle back into my peaceful routine away from the cries of “He started it”, and the teachers could continue to educate the nation’s future prime ministers, property developers and technology addicts.