and can now be found at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/elective/
I was sent the link by a webmaster I’d informed of the broken link last week. I don’t know whether they’ve been there all along, or whether they’ve been reinserted – I do know when I searched the every child matters website last week it couldn’t find the guidelines, [...]
I was watching the local news tonight, and it turns out that the two policewomen banned from looking after each other’s children live in this area, so were interviewed on the show. They were doing each other a favour – job sharing and childcare sharing, in much the same way women in communities have done [...]
Sunday we had a party to go to, so the children made cards on the morning, while I pondered blog posts, blogging and all that kind of stuff. Even did some blogging, eventually.
And then we got ready and went out to the party, *without* a satnav! Shock, horror, but we made it there without a [...]
After a week in which we seemed to be out and about rather more than I’d expected, I should have gone for a quiet weekend. Instead we’d managed to have outings arranged for both days, oops.
Saturday was a relatively early morning swim, well OK, 11 isn’t all that early, but we needed to go out [...]
You know, us home educators who are ranting and raving about invasion of privacy following the Badman review of home education, are we just fringe nutters?
I admit we’ve made some unusual choices in our life. It isn’t standard to home educate your children after all. And if you don’t home educate them, finding a montessori [...]
We’re all familiar with links online (or we wouldn’t get very far online ).
They can look different though – so I could link to Lisa’s blog by just having http://www.renegadeparent.net/ in there, or I could make it more friendly by using something like Renegade Parent – for leaders not followers which tells you [...]
We went to the park this afternoon, as I mentioned. After a couple of hours we headed back to the car, to discover that someone had been there before us. Someone who had smashed the passenger side window and taken the satnav.
Nothing else. They didn’t take the few coins that are in the central cup [...]
So let’s talk about the nice bits
Big settled quickly to her work again this morning – it seems possible that I’ve now found the right level of things to be working with her on both spelling and handwriting so she enjoyed it today. We did some work on a_e and ay words [...]
After a couple of days off working due to our hectic social life I was quite pleased with the children’s attitudes yesterday. Small did a sheet on telling time, plus a maths practice, and some reading, while Big did some copywork – writing over a poem printed out in jardotted which only elicited [...]
After a jampacked Tues, obviously the next thing to do was have a fun filled Weds too.
Hm.
Not sure that I’ve quite got the hang of this scheduling yet.
Anyway, we started out by dashing over to the next town to drop off my TMA – looked like there was another envelope without stamp on her doormat [...]
Tuesday was Forest School, which surprised me as it has more often been on Thursdays before. Just as well I’d checked my calendar an evening or two before, otherwise we’d have missed it completely, and that would have been very annoying.
So I dragged children out of bed early (for them anyway) and chivvied them along [...]
Further resistance to the planned workload today. Sigh. Wouldn’t mind if I’d planned a lot, but I hadn’t. One practice of maths, some spelling for Big (working on recognising syllables in words), some reading for Small and then the Montessori Great Lesson on the Story of Life. I printed off a couple of versions of [...]
It may seem as if I have abandoned the whole philosophy of autonomy and unschooling, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m well aware that the majority of the children’s education is still delivered incidentally as it were, facts absorbed from yoghurt pots, conversations about words and meanings, TV programmes imparting animal information or [...]
I have been waiting since January for my children to deschool, stop watching endless CBBC or playing on mind numbing websites, for them to show and develop some interests and learn to get along instead of screeching and bickering all day.
I’ve run out of patience
Maybe I don’t respond in the right way [...]
By birth, and by preference, I’m a northerner. Born in Durham, grew up in Yorkshire, went back to university in Durham, and stayed there until I moved for a better job, as so many ppl have had to do over the years.
Since then, as a family we’ve just sort of drifted about Derbyshire/ Yorkshire as [...]
The Select Committee day of investigation into the conduct and findings of Graham Badman’s Home Education review is fast approaching. Someone has now found this little gem:
Please see the attached letter from Graham Badman.
Graham would like to make local authorities aware of the forthcoming Select Committee hearing in early October which is likely to examine [...]
Let’s savour it.
I recommend reading a short but wonderful post on the home education review and consultation by Tech on her freedom in education is under threat blog.
Sunday was our questseekers presentation. The libraries we’ve used before haven’t done presentations, they’ve just given out the certificate once the children have read the six books, so I was quite keen to go along and experience this. Even got up early so that we could be sure to be ready, so as usual, was [...]
I’ve driven past the signs to Sutton Hoo lots of times on our way to Framlingham Castle, but somehow I hadn’t registered that it’s really very close to us, linking it in my mind with Framlingham, which is about a half hour away.
Anyway, with this weekend being Heritage Open Days weekend, and therefore Sutton Hoo [...]
On Friday I decided I needed to get to the bottom of my blood test results and understand whether I needed medication or not, and whether my preferred option of homebirth was a realistic one. So I nerved myself up and rang the doctors, to find out that they now have a new phone system [...]
