Making it up

Eunice Spry is starting to make the rounds in all sorts of places. Following a mention of the times education supplement on the bbc, I searched and found this article with comments such as

Eunice Spry, the foster mother convicted last week of abusing her children by forcing them to drink bleach and beating them with a metal bar, had withdrawn her children from formal schooling.

and

Myra Robinson, an inspector with nine years’ experience, regularly sees children who have been withdrawn from school for an inadequate alternative. “All the rights are in favour of the parent,” she said. “But who is going to stand up for the rights of the child?”

The circumstances of a significant proportion of home-schooled children are “a real cause for concern”, she said. Recent cases include a boy with learning difficulties who was unable to speak coherently by the age of five, or write his name by 10, and received no visible support.

Other pupils were unable to produce work samples on demand or demonstrate an understanding of basic skills, despite parents’ claims about their level of education.

Now, let’s straighten out a few misconceptions here.
1) child abuse, and hiding your children from school so that you can abuse them is not home education. This case happened several years ago, before the Victoria Climbie case, and monitoring of children at risk is supposed to be different now already.
2) home education inspectors are supposed to be checking educational provision, that’s what they are employed to do. They are not actually employed to cover welfare concerns, we have social workers for that sort of thing. Given the change of procedures mentioned in point 1 above, we do not need to improve home education inspectors access to children to assess welfare concerns.
3) if a child has really been left with no visible support for five years and the home education inspector knows about it, it isn’t only the parents who are failing here. We have known quite a few families who have been offering a great deal of support, just not in the format the inspector chooses to recognise, who have been harassed a lot quicker than 5 years into the journey.
4) you don’t have to produce work to learn. It is easy to produce reams of written work without learning.
5) there’s an awful lot of schooled children who are unable to demonstrate grasp of basic skills.

Actually, the headline in the TES says it all. ‘35,000 lost to schooling.’

Perhaps. Maybe there are. But schooling isn’t synonymous with education, and it’s home education that we’re attempting to provide. Do we have to go on explaining the difference?

“……the property nestles neatly on this pleasant cul-de-sac. Externally lawned gardens and a double garage further enhance the property.”

Externally lawned? Now that is innovative. Can’t you just picture this (five bedroomed house) just nestling neatly away like crazy with its external lawns flapping in the breeze, or whatever it is that external lawns do which is different to normal lawns.

Brought to you by Wm H Brown Holmfirth

Nods to the Beans and Merry.

You might want to turn the irritating music off.

actually, there were tears this morning, tears at end of school and positive wails before bedtime. I wonder if Small is having a growth spurt or something? He’s been very emotional today.

This morning he didn’t want to wake up to go to school. Eventually I gave up and got up off his bed and said “I’ll have to leave you with Daddy then.” Looked back, and the relaxed faking asleep child was suddenly wide awake and rigid and crying More cuddles needed. Then the smile came out again, and he rushed to get ready.

Dropped them off at school and headed off to hectic day at work (as usual). Was made more pleasant by my boss returning the favour from yesterday - I’d had half of my pot of soup and she liked the smell, so I gave her the second half. Today she went out and shopped and I got half her pot of soup, along with buttered bread and an apple, all delivered to my desk

Managed to leave on time and get to school (just) before 6 to pick the kids up - Small took one look and burst into tears. “I don’t want to go home, I want to stay at school!”

He really doesn’t handle change well.

Finally managed to talk him into the car, and get him home, and for the first time in ages, he woke up when we got home and wailed his way in from the car. He wouldn’t let me get him ready for bed, so Tim had a go, and then eventually after a banana and a drink and a couple of stories we got him there.

Can’t remember where the wailing about camping fitted in, but it was somewhere along the way - he doesn’t want to go camping in a small tent, he wants to go camping NOW in our big tent.

Like I said, an emotional day.

Big, by comparison, was pretty laid back today. She did try to hide in one of the playhuts at school, and avoided coming home by trying to help catch the rabbits, but she didn’t cry at me at any point. Oh, and we passed a circus tent today - I said that a book about circuses had been one of my favourite books when I was little. Long pause. “Do you still have it?”

“I have another copy.”

So, tonight I showed her where the first of Enid Blyton Circus Stories: “Mr Galliano’s Circus”, “Circus Days Again”, “Hurrah for the Circus” and “Come to the Circus” (Red Fox Middle Fiction) lives on the shelf. It’s not in that set actually, there’s about 5 books in the copy, but I don’t think they are all circus book. Still, should make a change from rereading The Faraway Tree Collection which is what she was doing. Again. I think that probably makes about 7 times through - either Tim or me reading aloud the first 5 times, and she’s on her second read through for herself. Gotta love these independent readers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go pay attention to Criminal Minds

by this story on the bbc, to share with you a little anecdote of my day.

A week or two back, I started getting the nearly-at-your-car-insurance-renewal-date mail shots. Many of them I binned without reading. Fortunately, as I recycle stuff, I opened most of them to chuck away the envelopes separately, and thus discovered a letter from my insurance company about renewal - they’d changed their name and brand, so I hadn’t realised that it was actually important.

First off they warned me my renewal was due.

The second letter thanked me for my instructions to renew???

The third one threatened me with a £10 charge if I’d dared to change my debit card without informing them since last year!

Given that I hadn’t at any point given them instructions to renew, or permission to charge my debit card, I was slightly startled by this.

I spent most of the weekend in bed, so didn’t have the opportunity to tell them to sling their hook. They didn’t charge me yesterday as promised, so today I took Tim’s car and all the paperwork, and determined to ditch them and return to the AA. It took lots of telephone calls, holding and being transferred between departments before I managed to speak to someone at AQuote to tell them that speaking to my partner does not constitute instructions to renew my policy, I’d never given them permission, and I was going to be hugely unimpressed if they now tried to charge me to cancel.

Wisely, I feel, they didn’t. The AA, by contrast, quoted me lower via their website, and were on the phone to me within 10 minutes to arrange the policy. She then rang me back at hourly intervals until I’d managed to get shot of AQuote, and then took me through the whole policy again, made sure everything was right, and got me signed up back with them.

I’m sorry I ever left. Lesson learnt.

“…and were there eggs and chickens around when you were a boy, Daddy?”

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Merry blogged her response to a quote from some guy who said home educators have a narrow definition of education - we’ll gloss over him because he’s manifestly wrong, and other ppl have roundly disposed of his inaccurate opinion already.

But what is a definition of education? What is the purpose of education? We’re told “education is ’suitable’ if it primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as whole, as long as it does not foreclose the child’s options in later years to adopt some other form of life if he wishes to do so.” (found on Home Education UK, there’s more there). But that is still kind of woolly, and doesn’t explain why home educators are looked at askance for their lack of adherence to the national curriculum.

The national curriculum is kind of prescriptive. This idea that all children will reach the same targets at the same age, by being taught in groups of up to (and sometimes more than) 30, often by ppl who have never experienced life outside of educational establishments. And the NC isn’t particularly designed by educators. Although following the point above, that might be a good thing, except for the fact that it’s tweaked and twisted for political headlines by ppl who never went anywhere near the kinds of schools that use it, and also in many cases haven’t experienced much of the real world either. Someone who went to a private school, oxbridge and then into parliament hasn’t a clue what it’s like to try to make a living I don’t think.

Montessori education isn’t mainstream, and private schools don’t follow the NC. I didn’t know the stated purpose of a montessori education until the other day. I was reading a small book, Montessori insights for parents of young children by Aline Wolf and it surprised me to learn that the point of montessori education is to promote world peace by nurturing the spirit of children.

That seems to me to be an admirable point for an education system. I’d like to know what the point of our mass education system, soon to reach all the way to age 18 according to Mr Johnson (although I’d like to know what they are going to do with the children who have children of their own during that time) is supposed to be. Anyone any ideas?

Report from the front line.

We have had a successful week on the vermin front, there has been a steady procession of mice leaving the house for rehoming (my choice of homes for them does tend to reflect how pissed I am at the little sods at the time).

It does seem to me that we may face a growing mouse population, given the recent series of warm winters.

So, for what it is worth I think there are probably three strategies for dealing with the little ****ers:

Starve

We have put quite a lot of effort into cutting off their food supply. Who would have thought that mice would eat soap? Anyway, they don’t here, not any more.

Deter

The sonic repellers work, but they do take time. I think it is worth buying the more expensive ones to get the benefit of the higher output. Also, the high pitched sound they emit doesn’t pass through doors or walls, so each enclosed area needs it own. We tend to leave doors open and two of them seems to have helped to produce a steady decline in mouse activity.

Eliminate

The Rentokil Live Capture mouse traps are pretty good, and I have had increased success by baiting with peanut butter sprinkled with a smidgen of drinking chocolate. The drinking chocolate smells quite strong when it first comes out of the tub, and I trapped one mouse within two hours of setting the trap, while I was still in the room.

I have been referring to the trapped mice as POWs. One problem if you go for live capture is that they do need to be let out fairly quickly, otherwise they get stressed and dehydrated. It might be more humane to use a break back trap than to scare them to death.

I commented to Jax that one of them had looked a bit sad when I let it go and was a bit perturbed at her reaction - she shrugged and said it was a “Casualty of war”.

Loveable (YMMV ), tree-hugging, veggie Jax is metamorphosing into THE SLAYER.

Incidentally, just a little bright note to finish with, with warmer winters, global warming and all that, there are apparently no less than five endemic breeds of mosquito which can carry and transmit malaria.

I’ve got an ex-library copy of Sheila Kitzinger, Breastfeeding (new revised edition). It’s pretty battered in that the spine is coming away from the book, but otherwise in excellent condition. Bit of glue and loving attention and it would be a great addition to the library of any breastfeeding counsellor that doesn’t already have it. I’ve no idea what it will cost to post - sensible offers taken in the comments box

Also, anyone out there still cloth nappying who would like a pile of prequartered unused cotton flannels for wipes, please yell quickly, or they are going in the bin (don’t think even the textile recyling round here would take them. Hm, could I sneak them in the green bin? they must be compostable surely though maybe not in the standard time frame).

Also found a pack of 2 white cotton T shirts, ideal for that home ed standby of tie dying. These are age 5, 115cm height, so completely between my two offspring. taken

Who incidentally are getting their PE just now bouncing up and down on two long strips of plastic bubble wrap type packaging, trying to deflate it so it will fit in our once a fortnight bin

Something for your mobile?

Why not get drunk? Or maybe cat or dog from Mobilesign?

Rather a neat idea, and fun to learn a little BSL.

Better start getting used to it…

At least under Stalin you were allowed to hold any beliefs you wanted, they only shot you if you talked about them.

Still, at least it will be a change.

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

HT: Ron

Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for “truly personalised” services with people given the information and power needed to choose a school or hospital.

(Read it at the bbc)

Hm.

Giving you a choice between a whole load of very similar things doesn’t strike me as the way to provide a personalised service to anyone. Allowing ppl to do it their own way, like supporting non mainstream small schools, learning services, parent cooperatives and home educators, now that would be a personalised service.

But it wouldn’t provide drones for our consumerist society, would it? Wonder if that has anything to do with anything?

…is Jax’s sister Jilly’s log burning stove, which has been cooking us throughout the weekend.

Anyway, here are some pics, Easter, apparently occurs earlier at Jilly’s, probably a side effect of the heat output of the stove causing a shift in the start of spring. So we had an Easter egg hunt.

Following the day’s exertions, the smalls were inserted into a warm bath (which is difficult to achieve when the taps fire super heated steam). They were very entertained by the jacuzzi.

But were positively ecstatic after Jilly’s intervention with about half a bottle of bubble bath.

Me: Which would you rather have, a jacuzzi or a PlayStation.
Big: (pauses,thinks) A jacuzzi.

back now.

Hair raising journey over the snake pass Friday night, and the woodhead tonight, pleasant sojourn in Wales with excellent food and happily entertained children.

Tomorrow is work. Good night.

“Can I borrow one of your bags mummy, to put the rest of my stuff in?”

“Of course, but what’s wrong with your red bag?”

From the kitchen, “I don’t think she realises you can empty them out and start again.”

He didn’t hear her say “Oh, I’ll do that then”, but he heard me laughing…

Microsoft Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting

This is for Raymond, who is unappreciative of the wonderful things which Microsoft is doing to make the world a better place.

as you are supposed to, according to the montessori course I’m on, is that when they swing a right hook, they get you in the face.

Hm, I’m not quite sure that’s how it’s supposed to work. Small was sorry, when he’d finally stomped his way off to the toilet and come back, and looked somewhat abashed as we talked about how we look after our friends, we don’t hit them. And mummy and Big are supposed to count as friends. He’s been quite agressive on several occasions this week, but apparently today was much better.

I’m really enjoying the montessori course. It’s been fascinating seeing so many of the materials presented. They are incredibly well thought out and designed, and you can see how it all fits into the design. Of course, you might not want to turn out montessori educated children - on some levels it does feel to be quite a restrictive way to go, but I think it’s way more personalised than any other mass system of education that I’ve come across.

The children enjoy it. Small is thriving on it - he presented me with the most wonderful drawing the other night. In two weeks his drawings have become incredibly detailed - the person on the mother’s day card he gave me tonight has eyes with pupils in them. He’s started drawing flowers with petals, and they are smaller than the ppl. It’s amazing to see, like someone has just flicked a switch. Wonder if he’ll want to do some more Drawing with children this weekend?

Big seems happy enough as well - she’s getting to spend more time in the elementary room again, and today they went out to the vets with one of the rabbits. I’d like to know more about what she does, but there’s never time to go into it in detail - I’m rushing in to get to work, or I’m rushing back at closing time to grab them.

Oh well, one day.

Big read the sign the other day, 0-11, and asked what happens when children get to 11.
‘they leave’.
‘But what will I do when I get to 11?’
‘How many years away is that? How about we think about it nearer the time?’

Good question though, and right at the moment I haven’t a clue. Sounds as though she could turn right around and go back to school as a directress, apparently she already presents some of the materials to both the younger children and the student teachers!

And tonight we’ve watched Bones, and Tim’s fallen asleep on the floor. I’m about to go and fall asleep in bed. Just want to test my widget first