Our Mallorcan Life
Back to school, the Sequel
Lucy Hawkins details her experiences raising kids, learning Catalan, and finding joy in Mallorca’s 12-week summer break.
By Lucy Hawkins
10/9/25
We have been in Mallorca for 15 months now and are approaching the end of our second school summer holidays. In Mallorca the school holidays last 12 weeks, so know that it’s taken me most of that time to write this story by doing it in manic 8 second flurries in between interruptions and I’m close to hiding on the roof. If we make it to the finish line it’ll be a miracle. Let’s find out...(!)
Roof aside, I am amazed by how far we’ve come since my ‘Back to School’ article a year ago.
In May 2024 we moved from Australia to Mallorca and my daughters, then aged 4 and 7, started at their local school in the north of the island a few weeks before the end of the school term. With no Catalan and very little Spanish they were understandably nervous. Not only did they not know what anyone was saying, they didn’t know what kids here liked, watched, ate or wore. It was all new. I sat outside the school as I had promised them and just prayed. Well for the first day I sat outside and prayed, and then as of the 2nd day I sat in my 4 year old’s class because she wouldn’t let me leave.
But despite me being trapped in an infant’s classroom, those first few weeks went surprisingly well! The teachers were nothing short of loving. The children friendly, affectionate, and welcoming. The school year finished and parents and children made an effort to include us, invite us on playdates and to parties over the holidays and we began to stop and chat to more and more people around our pretty little town.
By the time the first day of school came in mid-September last year, we had to start again with cajoling my youngest through the door, but it didn’t take long before she barely gave us a second glance before running off to meet her friends. My eldest had made a lovely little gang of amigas over the holidays and was excited to see them.
Very quickly the girls fell in love with their school. We got lucky - no school is perfect for everyone, but this one is for them. After the nerve racking experience of the visa application, residencia card hiccups, setting up new bank accounts, mobile phones, drivers licenses, utility bills and trying to work, I honestly don’t think I would have had the energy to keep them here if they hated it.
The language the school speaks is Catalan, of which I do not know a word. I speak okay Spanish, and everyone is kind enough to speak to me in Spanish, but the correspondence; emails, timetables, the parents’ chat groups, school meetings, info nights, website for uniforms, the school books… everything is in Catalan. The written material is relatively easy to translate, it’s just that the volume of life admin is exhausting enough when you know what the email/letter/bill is saying. When you don’t, it’s that extra bit terrifying.
Their homework is in Catalan, and I can’t help them with it. I can use google translate but I can’t pronounce the words to save my life. I’m working on it, ask me in a year.
I’ve also realised that while they do study English at school it’s quite basic and unless I teach it to them at home they might not have English reading and writing skills. Which is a strange thing to not be able to share with your child when you’re English. Sure the girls’ spoken English is good because we speak it at home, but English is a tricky one to read and write. The progress my eldest had made learning to read at age 6 in Australia had nearly disappeared. If I didn’t teach it to them, they wouldn’t know how. My mum brought over stacks of comprehension exercise books from Australia this summer and I’ve had to learn how to be a patient teacher. I’ve found it hard, but increasingly rewarding.
Enrolling the girls in extracurricular activities outside of school has been another lesson. It’s been a labour of love finding where to go for gymnastics, swimming, ballet, Catalan lessons etc etc etc. I’ve sent immense amounts of WhatsApp messages and hoped that they typed replies rather than left voice messages at a million miles an hour.
Another thing that’s taken a bit of adjusting is the time of the day that things take place. Our local school starts at 8.30am and finishes for the day at 1.30pm. But don’t say 1.30pm because everyone seems to use a 24hour clock. You can pay for ‘comedor’ (dining room), or you can do what most families do and pick your kids up, take them home for a long lunch and siesta and then go back to work at 4pm. Sorry, 16h.
When the girls do stay for comedor they are given rice, fish and vegetable soup. I’m ecstatic about this, they really weren’t. But now they are. The last Friday of each month the class celebrates that month’s birthdays by the parents of the birthday children bringing in ingredients for the children to make ‘pa amb oli’ the national dish. It’s Mallorcan bread with halved tomatoes rubbed on it, then drizzled with olive oil and finally sprinkled with salt. To see my 5 year old rub a tomato onto a piece of bread and drizzle it with olive oil is pure joy. Farewell marmite. (Not for me though, love my marmite.)
While our after school ballet and swimming lessons took place at 4pm in Australia, here my 5 year old daughter goes to ballet at 6.30pm and finishes at 7.15pm. She goes to birthday parties finishing at 8pm. My 8 year old’s friends stay up to 10pm and later in the summer. This is perhaps why I shouldn’t have had kids in my 40’s, I’d like to pop into bed at 9.30pm please, this cup of tea isn’t going to drink itself!
And if you want your child to learn something, say, tennis, then you’re going to be asked to sign up for two or three hour long tennis sessions a week. There’s no 30 minutes of this here, 30 minutes of that there. You’ve got to commit. You want to learn tennis, you’re going to really learn how to play.
So that was last year, us all just learning. They went back to school in September and by Christmas they understood most of what everyone was saying and could express their needs in both Catalan and Spanish. Because while the kids are taught in Catalan, Spanish is still the language of the playground. No one’s quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because cartoons are predominantly in Spanish on TV and there are also some families from Spanish speaking areas of mainland Spain and from South America at the school.
People from Mallorca speak Spanish to tourists in shops and restaurants but at home everyone speaks Mallorquin, a dialect of Catalan. Shop owners talk to me and my husband in Spanish and then turn to talk to the kids in Mallorquin and I’m amazed every time to hear them chatting back.
Back to school, the Sequel
Lucy Hawkins details her experiences raising kids, learning Catalan, and finding joy in Mallorca’s 12-week summer break.
Enrolling the girls in extracurricular activities outside of school has been another lesson. It’s been a labour of love finding where to go for gymnastics, swimming, ballet, Catalan lessons etc etc etc. I’ve sent immense amounts of WhatsApp messages and hoped that they typed replies rather than left voice messages at a million miles an hour.
Another thing that’s taken a bit of adjusting is the time of the day that things take place. Our local school starts at 8.30am and finishes for the day at 1.30pm. But don’t say 1.30pm because everyone seems to use a 24hour clock. You can pay for ‘comedor’ (dining room), or you can do what most families do and pick your kids up, take them home for a long lunch and siesta and then go back to work at 4pm. Sorry, 16h.
When the girls do stay for comedor they are given rice, fish and vegetable soup. I’m ecstatic about this, they really weren’t. But now they are. The last Friday of each month the class celebrates that month’s birthdays by the parents of the birthday children bringing in ingredients for the children to make ‘pa amb oli’ the national dish. It’s Mallorcan bread with halved tomatoes rubbed on it, then drizzled with olive oil and finally sprinkled with salt. To see my 5 year old rub a tomato onto a piece of bread and drizzle it with olive oil is pure joy. Farewell marmite. (Not for me though, love my marmite.)
While our after school ballet and swimming lessons took place at 4pm in Australia, here my 5 year old daughter goes to ballet at 6.30pm and finishes at 7.15pm. She goes to birthday parties finishing at 8pm. My 8 year old’s friends stay up to 10pm and later in the summer. This is perhaps why I shouldn’t have had kids in my 40’s, I’d like to pop into bed at 9.30pm please, this cup of tea isn’t going to drink itself!
And if you want your child to learn something, say, tennis, then you’re going to be asked to sign up for two or three hour long tennis sessions a week. There’s no 30 minutes of this here, 30 minutes of that there. You’ve got to commit. You want to learn tennis, you’re going to really learn how to play.
So that was last year, us all just learning. They went back to school in September and by Christmas they understood most of what everyone was saying and could express their needs in both Catalan and Spanish. Because while the kids are taught in Catalan, Spanish is still the language of the playground. No one’s quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because cartoons are predominantly in Spanish on TV and there are also some families from Spanish speaking areas of mainland Spain and from South America at the school.
People from Mallorca speak Spanish to tourists in shops and restaurants but at home everyone speaks Mallorquin, a dialect of Catalan. Shop owners talk to me and my husband in Spanish and then turn to talk to the kids in Mallorquin and I’m amazed every time to hear them chatting back.
By the time school finished in June this year all their teachers were so proud of how far they had come, they no longer use any English at school outside of their English lesson.
This summer holiday I enrolled them into the local ‘Estades’ (Stays) summer camp at the sports centre where a lot of their school friends were going. I wanted them to continue developing their friendships and their Spanish and Catalan. And whilst the hours were only 8.30 – 1pm it did enable me to get some stuff done.
In the afternoons we went to the nearest ‘calas’, small coves along the coast where we lay in the sand, climbed rocks, jumped into the sea and snorkelled. They have become strong swimmers and it is incredibly special to be able to swim together, dive down and look at teems of fish.
We didn’t eat at restaurants much this summer, we took picnics to the beach, sat underneath the pine trees with the Spanish. We started to dare to feel like we might not be tourists.
We were with friends in the town square the other night and some boys ran up to my eldest and asked her to help them by translating the rules of the game they were playing to some English boys here on holiday. She told them to wait until she’d finished her ice cream, (very cool and aloof I thought, quite impressed) and then she walked off with them and mediated. Perhaps a career beckons in international relations, or refereeing. Or whatever they want to do in life, what a bonus to be trilingual.
They will finally go back to school this week and I’m so excited to see what milestones they’ll hit in the next 12 months. Oh and prepare to be flabbergasted by my Catalan! I guarantee you’ll never hear it spoken so abominably.
By the time school finished in June this year all their teachers were so proud of how far they had come, they no longer use any English at school outside of their English lesson.
This summer holiday I enrolled them into the local ‘Estades’ (Stays) summer camp at the sports centre where a lot of their school friends were going. I wanted them to continue developing their friendships and their Spanish and Catalan. And whilst the hours were only 8.30 – 1pm it did enable me to get some stuff done.
In the afternoons we went to the nearest ‘calas’, small coves along the coast where we lay in the sand, climbed rocks, jumped into the sea and snorkelled. They have become strong swimmers and it is incredibly special to be able to swim together, dive down and look at teems of fish.
We didn’t eat at restaurants much this summer, we took picnics to the beach, sat underneath the pine trees with the Spanish. We started to dare to feel like we might not be tourists.
We were with friends in the town square the other night and some boys ran up to my eldest and asked her to help them by translating the rules of the game they were playing to some English boys here on holiday. She told them to wait until she’d finished her ice cream, (very cool and aloof I thought, quite impressed) and then she walked off with them and mediated. Perhaps a career beckons in international relations, or refereeing. Or whatever they want to do in life, what a bonus to be trilingual.
They will finally go back to school this week and I’m so excited to see what milestones they’ll hit in the next 12 months. Oh and prepare to be flabbergasted by my Catalan! I guarantee you’ll never hear it spoken so abominably.