Audrey wins a merit

Audrey's school has a really nice process of awarding 'merits' to people who have achieved something in the last week.

It's a pretty broad definition - sometimes this can be for 'Being kind' and other times it can be for winning races in swimming tournaments.

I went along to an assembly in which one of the older girls had won in seemingly every race in a recent swimming tournament and the principal read out 100 metres breaststroke, 1st place, 100 metres backstroke 1st place, 200 metres free-style, 1st place etc etc upon which a girl got up and collected her stash of ribbons. I thought afterwards that even the distance she must have swum was an achievement let alone the fact that she clearly swam every race faster than anyone else.

This week was Audrey's turn - she won a merit certificate for 'Being good at maths' which by my perspective was equivalent to a first class honours from Harvard or Cambridge. It was a simple ceremony, perhaps overshadowed by an over excited proud Dad who rushed to the front of the stage (trampling children in his way) to heap excessive praise on his daughter.