just another morning here

Easter guests have gone home, and now we’re just pootling around getting a few jobs done. I’m trying to keep the children in relatively good habits of not getting up too late etc., so that it’s not such a culture shock when term starts again.

Today was the shoe shop stop; trainers x 2, school shoes x 2, and shoes to go to the prom in (and therefore totally unsuitable for much else). Very Expensive. Still, everyone was happy and if I’m lucky they will last into the autumn term too.

Anna has now reached the same shoe size as me; I’ve been waiting for this for ages! Now at least every pair of shoes I buy for her, I can borrow back if I ask nicely!

Visited DVLA to get tax (oh, and a quick geocache), then I delivered a car to my parents in the afternoon, so drove up to Gordano to meet them half way. I like a good drive, especially on my own, so didn’t mind. The kids sat around watching iPlayer and playing games while I was gone.

Once back I made a quick veggie lasagne for more friends who came for dinner. We tried to watch Heston’s Feasts on replay but it wasn’t working; had to resort to watching it on the laptop after they’d gone (amazing, wish I had been a dinner guest!).

Very relieved on behalf of home educators that the proposals for changes to home ed legislation have been dropped tonight – had a drink alongside many of my friends this evening (any excuse!). On the other hand I’m still praying for the best outcome for a good friend’s baby at the moment; seems odd and slightly wrong to be blogging about normal stuff when life hangs in the balance.

Since the publication of Mr Badman’s proposals for home education guidelines back in June, I have been watching with interest to see which of them, if any, would actually become legislation.

As a former home educator, I still identify strongly with the home education community and as such I feel compelled to add my letter to those already written. I am also a trained teacher, employed at the moment as a cover supervisor in a special school, with my own children choosing to attend school themselves. For this reason I believe I have a superbly balanced viewpoint from which to base my opinions, unlike the biased reports you have previously received.

Without exception, the home educating families that I know, are loving, supportive people, who have given up their own time and money to do what they think is best for their children. They bend over backwards to ensure that every opportunity they can access is given to their children, and are totally child-centric in their approaches to education, be they autonomous or structured. The children themselves are free from regulation, happy, creative, interested, and always learning – because they have the time and space to do so.

Without exception, state schools that I know are places bound by structure and red tape. Teachers are unhappy because of the amount of paperwork they have to complete, which takes away from the time they can actually spend with the children – someone told me this again only yesterday. Teachers themselves yearn for the freedom that home educators have.
The children themselves often aren’t happy, engaged, or in fact provided with a suitable, efficient education – despite the sterling efforts of most teachers – because this is simply impossible given the huge class sizes, statutory curriculum, and regulations that teachers are working within.

To be honest, if you were only asking for voluntary registration in order to safeguard children, perhaps you would have met with a different response. However, to ask for yearly plans and interviews with children alone was simply too much – and it cuts across the very essence of home education.

To suggest spending so much time and money on monitoring something that simply doesn’t need it, is ludicrous, ESPECIALLY given the sorry state of your schools. You can’t justify monitoring like this for home educators unless you bring it in for all families, regardless of educational provision – and there would be outrage if you suggested it, and rightly so, for these proposals are outrageous. You would also find, I’m sure, if you did apply these proposals to all families, that the educational provision which is failing the most is that provided by the state itself. As such, where do *you* think the money should be spent?

Please, do the honourable thing and reject these proposals as soon as possible. They are expensive, unworkable, and unnecessary.

I’m awake at stupid o’clock again. Someone left a light on last night and I’m blaming them for waking me up, even though I’m often awake at 4am without their help

Haven’t got much to say though. It’s been a really busy week as usual, I’ve spent loads of time fiddling around with the orchestra database and not got very far, while other stuff has just carried on. Josiah was ill on Tuesday, but nothing too serious as he was back at school after one day off. He’s still got a horrible cough but is now on a two week half term, of which the rest of us are exceedingly jealous. As a result, Steve and Joe are in charge of planning and organising next week’s holiday in Wales – I’m just going to drive there with a suitcase and hope for the best!

I’ve been watching the home education select committee process from afar this week; while it seems as though this doesn’t affect our family directly, it’s still something that’s very important to me/us and I filled my response to the consultation in a long time ago. Even if your children are in school, please take the time to read it and respond – it matters for ALL children, not just those educated at home. I’m tempted to write my own Dear Mr Balls, in fact.

And no returns!
So, September has come around all too quickly. I’m putting my fingers in my ears about all the ‘not-back-to-school’ picnics that many of my friends are organising/attending – a brilliant idea for promoting home education, I just wish I could go to them as well! We’ve had a summer of re-visiting a few of the activities we used to do lots of while home edding, and it has made me yearn for that lifestyle over again – but the children are happy in school and all want to stay there! We’ve had some serious discussions about their educational options over the summer and although they see some disadvantages of schooling (as do we), for them the things they enjoy about school outweigh the down sides. Plus, I am looking forward to starting my slightly different job, which will be a bit of a challenge, and I love the kids at my school too.

Not being able to go to any ‘not-back-to-school’ picnics, and having a new job which might entail writing things down occasionally were obviously the only excuses I needed to join in with the kids’ annual stationery acquisition today – I bought myself a diary, little pencil case, and a 3 pack of these pens in different colours and am happily writing all sorts of things. Sad but true, I think my favourite part of school was writing in different colours, and having all sorts of different colour inks for underlining/highlighting. Don’t think I paid much attention to the content, but the presentation was always pretty (a bit like this blog really!)!

The children packed their lunch up and took it off to the park to eat it today, leaving Steve and I to have lunch together so that was a nice interlude in the day After that I sat and played Animal Crossing – well it is the last day of my holidays! Joe went to TKD and they all revisited Luigi’s Mansion on GC, then did some music practice. We’re all back to school over the next few days – me tomorrow, Anna on Thursday, and the other two on Monday. Ho hum.

And of course, the beginning of term is damned expensive as all lessons need paying for, argh! Cello teacher also said to me “you know, someone at Anna’s level shouldn’t really be playing on a cheapy student cello”, yet Anna is still a midget. So we are planning to shop around for a 7/8 cello – not your average ‘off the peg’ size, so likely to be even more expensive than average. Oh well!

p.s. ha, just noticed that I have used this post title before!