Just watched – finally – the last episode of Dr Who. For some reason we missed it when it first went out and never managed to catch up on the repeats. So I borrowed it from work and we’ve just watched it. Ady has gone to bed, still laughing at me for crying at it. ๐
It’s been an interesting week really. I had a bit of a house of cards (or so it felt to me anyway, maybe I’m rather too used to being let down) arrangement set up for childcare for my one and a half days working but that all went splendidly. I had a couple of lovely evenings in Merry’s company, got to drink wine around the children yesterday with Ali (love proper socialising with someone I only really get to see in daylight hours normally ๐ ) and had an excellent day at work yesterday. A few new faces have been put infront of me at work the last two weeks and broadened my horizons slightly with regard to the whole thing so that is making me feel rather more positive. There is a particularly interesting woman who normally only works weekends but has been around a bit during mid week and I am finding really lovely to be getting to know and yesterday I felt much more like I was getting immersed in the whole job generally. So that’s all positive – will blog about that a bit more maybe soon as I have more to say but will save it for a post all of it’s own. ๐
We had Class Visits yesterday though with children from year one – Davies’ age and that was rather illuminating ๐ฏ rather too many shades of battery farming for my comfort levels. The most shocking bit was when they needed to make all the children be quiet at the end of a story and the teacher announced ‘one, two, three, RABBITS!’ and they all fell silent ๐ฏ Again something I anticipate coming back to and I know the ratio of adults to children requires some level of crowd control but still…
It’s been a good week generally for Home Education. I’ve done a lot of talking about it, some of it preaching to the converted, some of it telling the curious but doubtful and some of it defending in the style of an online rant. As ever when I have talked about it a fair bit I am feeling fired up, passionate, zealous and empowered by the whole thing so prepare for plenty of evangelical ‘ I have found the one true path’ style blog posts :lol:.
Lucy was here with D & S in the morning, handing over to Ali and Freya in the afternoon. The children seem to be actually be positively thriving on the childcare arrangements so far which is good. ๐ I’ve done some very productive ebaying getting a pair of replacement boots suitable for workwear, wedding outfits for me, Davies and Scarlett (none of which have arrived or been tried on yet so are subject to change ๐ ) and the Wacky Wigglers all with the proceeds of my ebay selling so that is good. ๐
Today we have caught up with being just the four of us and this particular four of us given the array of people passing through the house this week, caught up on sleep, popped out for a few bits of shopping supplies and generally lolled about. More of the same planned for tomorrow. ๐ Oh and maybe some baking, been ages since I did any of that. ๐
You weren’t preaching ๐ but you certainly are very sure of yourself and what i ratherl iked was that i realised just how sure of myself i was too.
Now, why was i house of cards ish? Did you think i wouldn’t come?
Comment by Merry — 21 January 2007 @ 12:25 am
Oh it wasn’t just you I had HE chats with – although probably the longest, drunkest and most arm waving about during the middle of ones were those around 3am ;). Lucy was subject to an instant message one earlier in the week and Ali and I did more drunken ‘we know it all’ type stuff on Friday night. Oh and the woman at the library who’s daughter happened to have an essay for her ‘literacy’ homework on the pros and cons of HE and was asking me for some real life opinions. As I say, a good week for HE ๐
The childcare felt house of cards all round really – a morning relying on someone with four children of her own travelling halfway down the country – I don’t need to tell you the things which could have gotten in the way of that happening ;), then a full day relying on one friend who works nights without her own transport and two children of her own in the morning followed by someone taking two trains and a bus with her own child to get here and take over. Add all that extreme road and public transport cocking up weather, seasonal bouts of chickenpox and other child illness possibilities, a husband several hours drive away, parents in a different continent and I start to sound, well faintly hysterical ๐ But it was fine, which was just as well as I had absolutely NO back up plan other than sneaking D & S into those class visits and taking them to work with me, which would have shown just they’d have responded to one, two, three rabbits if nothing else! ๐
Comment by Nic — 21 January 2007 @ 9:49 am
LOL when you put it like that it does sound much more ‘house of cards’ from your point of view – but it all happened pretty much as arranged, amazingly!
It was lufferly to drink wine with you like a proper person, really enjoyed that, and thanks so much to Ady for the lift back over. Can well imagine it is nice to just be you four again.
D and S really do seem to be thriving on the change, from what I saw on Friday, when Lucy and I changed over, certainly no anxiety about it, which must mean you’ve handled it pretty well.
Mind you, it would have been entertaining to see D and S joining a school group for the library session.
Comment by Ali — 21 January 2007 @ 2:13 pm
Random plans are often the best ๐
Comment by Merry — 21 January 2007 @ 5:06 pm
A friend in Hertfordshire who home educates below the radar wanted to get library cards for her children. She fortunately got a nice librarian who told her this would be a bad idea, as in Herts a child cannot apply for a library card without filling in the part of the library card form that covers the child’s schooling. :rant:
Is it like that where you are? Hope not. If so, I hope you’re reforming the system from within.
Comment by Bob — 21 January 2007 @ 8:46 pm
But are they actually organised enough to go through the library records? Could you just fill in a lcoal private school, or would they check? Or just make up a school name? I can kind of see her paranoia, but I’d be disappointed in myself if I let The Fear stop me getting library cards for my kids.But then I don’t think staying below the radar is that important, it’s probably better (for The Cause!) to be known and be arsey ๐
Comment by Alison — 21 January 2007 @ 8:51 pm
From what I hear a made up school name would be found out, and there’s a large probability that fake attendance at a real school would be checked :sigh:
Comment by Bob — 21 January 2007 @ 9:44 pm
Whilst i like bot having to bother with the LA by not being known, I would never let that concern stop us doing something. . IME most people don’t care that much anyway- we know a Primary school deptuy, whose wife worked for the LEA and was in the same office (or at least a nearby office) to the team dealing with HE’ers ๐ anyway, once you start going to the library staff will soon twig when you are there when all the other kids are in school
I can’t remember about our library – which is slightly different anyway, as whilst linked in with the county system – same cards etc. it is actually run by volunteers, when we joined SB was not school age anyway, but if there was a question, just put Home ed anyway. Most of the staff we know know SB is home edded and think she is lovley ๐
Comment by DaddyBean — 22 January 2007 @ 8:23 am
We’ve been members of the library since we moved back home so D would have been 3.5 and S 18 months. They both got the under fives cards and as I recall there was no questions about school at that stage. No idea whether there is for older children but I will check this week – I don’t work on the desk where they join people yet, I’m not trained ๐
Whilst I consider us not known to the LEA we are clearly on a register of having school age children which I can only assume is via the health service, something which seems to be area specific. I suppose it is all council databases though so I can see they’d tie them up, much to my paranoia about having our every move tracked. With the exception of not sending the school forms back when they came I have never been otherwise furtive about our HE status, I assume we will one day get ‘discovered’ as we are known in so many other areas.
Comment by Nic — 22 January 2007 @ 9:54 am