School Starters

Preparing for childcare, preschool and school

India is starting final year of Primary School

India, MMA, age 11

My name is India Bruce. I am 11 years old and together with my family, love to spend time in the ocean going sailing, swimming, surfing and snorkelling. I was born with a metabolic condition called Methylmalonic Acidemia (MMA), which means that I am only permitted to eat a small amount of protein each day.

This year I began my final year of primary school. It has been easy starting Year 6 with MMA because my teacher works closely with Mum, who is also a teacher at my school. She knows that I need to eat low protein food, which I make myself and she encourages me to manage my own medicine time around midday each day. This year I have taken on a role as a Year 6 leader in the Learning Portfolio. In this role I help and encourage younger children to read, complete their homework and I also put forward bills in our Year 6 Parliament to support learning initiatives. One of my favourite roles that I have taken on this year is the role of Arts Ambassador. In this role I get to help with the Arts and the organisation of the school musical groups. I am really looking forward to performing in our Wakakirri team because I enjoy being on stage and had a wonderful experience with this last year.

At my school we go on camp for the first time in Year 6. I have really been looking forward to this for many years, but I’ve also been worried about organising my food at camp. I didn’t have to worry so much because Dad was invited to come along on our camp to help and he organised all my food while we were there. Camp was exciting, fun and focused on teamwork and mateship. It challenged us to give everything a go and believe in ourselves. Most of my meals were very similar to those provided by the camp because Dad had found out about meals that would be served in advance and the camp chefs were great at working with Dad to help cook my food. It was the best experience ever and even Dad took on the challenge of walking through gooey, shoulder-high mud!

Through this experience I have learnt that I don’t need to worry so much about living with MMA in the future because the people around me, like my family and teachers are always looking out for me too. They talk to me about the events that are coming up, foods that I like to take on excursions and camps and the ways that I can manage MMA in my everyday life. I am looking forward to the new challenges that lay ahead for me this year.