thanks so much, Tallulah! it's such a relief to feel less alone. thanks for the tips - and you're right, the resilience is really the key, isn't it?

i sat in the teacher interview and literally said, "i feel like she needs more failure in her life," and then i saw how foreign that seemed to them. i think that was where i realized we had to escalate, even though the school prides itself on not having an academic ceiling.

paying for this school is a herculean effort for us (my husband's take-home is 100% whisked away by it), so you're right - if we're paying, we'd better be paying for the right school. food for thought, definitely.

thanks again!

Every Sunday it brooded and lay on the floor. Inconveniently close to the drawing-room door.