First weeks of school in Hiroshima 🎒

At the end of August the time had come: the girls started at their new school here in Hiroshima — the Hiroshima International School (HIS) .

When we were house hunting in May, we also had a school hunt planned. It turned out to be less exciting, though, as everyone immediately told us there was only one international school in the city. We eventually found another one, but it was more of an English-language Japanese school. So, we made our choice: HIS it is!

The Japanese school system

Since we've lived here, we've been learning more and more about how schools work in Japan. Everyone wears a uniform—complete with shoes, bags, and sometimes even sun hats that vary by school. There are also still segregated schools: boys go to all-boys schools, girls to all-girls schools. You can imagine the girl-on-girl animosity that causes…

The school year starts here on April 1st . If you turn six before March 31st, you'll start in Grade 1 that same year. If your birthday is in April, you'll move up a year. Before that time, there are all sorts of daycare and kindergarten options, each with its own rules depending on whether both parents work.

It's funny: the Japanese have a huge admiration for the Dutch school system. If you say you're from the Netherlands, they almost automatically expect you to have the best education and a top university degree.

And what about our girls?

So they're both in HIS. The school year starts here at the end of August, and there are no uniforms . You only have to wear a HIS shirt for PE. In practice, almost everyone wears them all day long—especially our girls, who never want to take their shirts off. We've even ordered school sweaters for the winter 😄

HIS also offers Early Childhood/Kindergarten from age three. This allowed Danée to start early, and she now plays happily with Yenthe outside during recess.

CRANES cycle

The symbol of Hiroshima is the crane, a symbol of peace. At HIS, they even incorporate this theme into their schedule. While we in the Netherlands have a Monday-to-Friday week, here they work on a six-day CRANES cycle .

For example, during those six days, the girls have PE three times, art once, music once, and Japanese five times. Besides keeping track of what day of the week it is, we also have to remember which CRANES day it is today… 🙃

To school

Most children take the school bus, but our girls (still) take Taxi Mama . It's about 13 kilometers to school, towards the mountains north of Hiroshima. On average, the journey takes about 35 minutes. So that's a lot of kidsmusic for Nolan.

How are you doing now?

They've been there for over a month now. Their English is improving, they're learning Japanese through play, and to our great amusement, they're already correcting us on our pronunciation.

In short: the first weeks of school are a fact—and we've already learned a lot of new things. And the girls? They're beaming in their HIS shirts. 💙