Children, Schools & Families Bill

For those who may not have heard of this, it is a Government Bill which introduces all kinds of new things for parents, schools and home educators. For example, schools will have the right to restrain your child without your permission or even knowledge. Parents will have to sign contracts with the school which usurp parental choices in education (and also in family time), and may impose fines on parents not complying.

Not to mention the part about home education which gives local authorities a power to enter homes and interview children alone which even the police do not have unless they have suspicion based on eveidence that a serious crime has taken place.

This bill, if it becomes law, will fundamentally change the balance of power between the state and parents in favour of the state. Do you think this won't affect you? Think again. It will affect anyone with children in this country. They're starting with the home educators because we are a minority, and one that many people are suspicious of, at that. But if this bill goes through, it's only a matter of time before *all* parents are CRB checked in order to look after their own children, before health visitor visits become compulsory, before the state is able to tell you which school your children must go to, what qualifications they have to take, who they can and can't see in their family time, before the state can inspect *all* parents to check on their 'suitability' against a state measurement.

Don't let this happen. Sign the latest petition to keep family life free of state control, here.

Remember:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemoeller

Busy Time

As the year tips over from summer to winter, I have such a busy couple of weeks. Tomorrow I am running our local Not Back To School Picnic, which I'm very nervous about. After being in the local paper last week we also have a photogrpaher coming to this event and I'm really hoping it looks good and will help inform people about home education and what it's all about, and dispel some myths and prejudices.

Today is also the last day for responses to the Select Committee Enquiry into the Badman Review, so I'm also wondering what will happen with that. I sent in our local group's response a while back and I know lots of other people have also been working on responses. Fingers crossed.

Tonight we have our first home ed group Adult Social Evening. Thankfully, I'm not holding this in my house (like that would be feasible, NOT!) but I am a bit nervous about it. What if no-one turns up? What if we have nothing to say to each other without the kids butting in every 2 seconds? Eek!

And next week there's the first joint event we're holding with our local museum, which is also rather nerve-racking. Add to that our usual weekly meetings, plus the next assignment I need to do for my course, and the recent inspiration I've had for a new novel, and things are looking rather busy.

Well, suppose I'd better stop sitting here blogging and go and hang the clothes out, then do the shopping.

Stuff we've been doing

The last few posts have been rather full of my thoughts, concerns, worries and hopes, so I thought this one should be a quick catch-up on the stuff we've actually been doing just in case I have given the impression of wafting around wringing my hands like Lady MacBeth!
So, houses:

My son's 'work' laid out for Granny to see (this was totally his idea!):



My daughter's work:

And finally, those Houdini caterpillars:

Some of them seem to starting to pupate now. I think a box of chysalises should be easier to look after!
Junk modelling at Home Ed Group today, so it should be interesting getting the results home on the train afterwards!

Meeting with MP

This afternoon a home educating friend and I met with our local MP to corner him about the Badman Review. I think it went as well as could be expected really. He had at least *heard* of home education before and did not need to be told the very basics. He even didn't ask about socialising or socialisation - hooray!
It seems he is already involved in putting together some kind of enquiry into the Government's current obsession with safeguarding and agreed that this had gone much too far. I think he was kind of on our side, but not for our reasons. He wants to oppose the Government on this because he has a typical Tory antipathy to 'nanny state' type legislation, and also I think to try and put one in the eye for the Government - but to some extent his agenda doesn't really matter as long as he's fighting to opose this for us.
However, he didn't seem very positive that this opposition would work. He seemed quite resigned to the fact that these proposals will be implemented, which was rather a depressing prospect.
We made all the points we had meant to - pointing out that safeguarding was a much more relevant issue within schools than within Home Ed, and that parental responsibility for child welfare still lay with parents, not with the Government. We highlighted the major problems with the report - the right of access and the interviewing children alone - and the current lack of training of EWOs and how this would only get worse if their role was extended without further training. At the end we left him with a big wodge of stuff to read - the stats, the points, the arguments - everything put together as the 'meeting an MP' pack by the Badman Review Action Group.
Will it do any good? I really don't know. He promised to keep us informed, and I'll keep corresponding with him to keep it in the forefront of his mind. I'm glad we met with him, at least we've done the best we could.

Idle opinion

A timely and interesting article by Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson in The Telegraph pointing out that home education is an entirely sensible option and that Ed Balls is talking balls and that Graham Badman is, ahem, a bad man. Gosh, the people involved in this review could almost have been written by Dickens in the aptness of their names for their current roles. Anyway, due to this article, I have forgiven Tom Hodgkinson for having written books which I wanted to have written myself but which nobody would have published if I had, given that he is the editor of The Idler and I am a Nobody.

Double success

Two very good things today. Firstly, we had the first meeting of our local Home Ed Group in our new hall home and it was a resounding success! Loads of families there and everyone enjoying themselves. We easily made enough money to cover the cost of the hall and the drinks supplies, and everyone was very generous with bringing bits and bobs to add to our resources. Now we're already starting to think bigger!

And the second thing is that I have another article published in The Mother magazine. If you are a subscriber, check it out, it's the article about the Highly Sensitive Family.

Badman's Report, of course

Well, if there's anyone in the Home Ed community who hasn't yet read it and despaired, here is the link to Badman's Report and a real humdinger of an intrusion into private family life it is. Quite apart from the compulsory registration, there's the recommendation for the new power for LEA inspectors to have 'right of access' to home educator's homes and the right to speak to children without their parents present. Plus the usual crap about enforcing minimum standards by forcing parents to submit plans, curricula and expected achievement outcomes. I wonder what will happen if you submit 'I expect my child to be healthy, happy and curious' as a planned learning outcome? I notice he also recommends that flexi-schooling should be made easier and that exam provision should be taken on by the LEA and should be free to parents for the 'standard' exams. Which I suppose is a good thing (trying to look for the silver lining here). However, I can't pretend that I'm not utterly depressed by this report. Why should home educators register when pupils at private schools will not have to? Why are we suspected of abuse when most of these horrific (and thankfully rare) cases occur to children who are below school age anyway? Or are they going to use these recommendations as a way of opening up compulsory state access to younger children too?
I'm utterly fed up with the govt right now. They need to sort out all the stuff that is allegedly under their control before they seek to extend their powers into things which do not concern them. Where is all the money going to come from to enforce and police all these new ideas, that's what I'd like to know? I'm going to write to my MP, of course, and suggest that everyone else does too. Even those who don't home educate yourselves - if you have children, they're after you too. Fight for everyone to still have the choice. You are your child's parent, not the state.
The consultation is here so everyone get repsonding and tell the govt to butt out of your family life and how insulting and outrageous you find it that the govt wants to register home educators, dictate curriculum to them, have the right to enter their homes for no reason, and speak to their children alone without their permission.

Is home education on the rise?

I know that much of the media is convinced that home education is on the rise and I'm starting to wonder if, for a change, what they say might actually be true. These last few weeks in particular I ahve had so many asking me about home education with a view to doing it themselves. We've had various new people at our local Home Ed group but I didn't think too much of it - most of them were already home educating but had only just found the group. But now I've spoken to at least 4 families in the last month alone who either have children at school or preschool who they are considering home educating instead, or who are deciding on the educational method for children under school age.
It's heartening for me, because the more home educators there are in the area, the more potential we have to become a vibrant area for home educated children, with a variety of skills and experience to offer and hopefully enough people to make up lots of different social and educational groups, meetings and outings. It really does say something about the complete loss of confidence so many parents have in our school system that even here in a very conventional and traditional area, so many parents are taking what can often seem like such a bold step. I shall be watching this space eagerly over the next few years.

Pancake Day!

Well, the pancakes went down well today with the children who assured me that they *love* pancakes, despite me remembering only too clearly that last year they wouldn't touch them, which is why we haven't had them again till today. Oh well, good to know that they like them now.

What didn't go quite so well was explaining *why* it was Pancake Day and what that meant. OK, so it's the last day before Lent. OK, so the son of the Christian God spent 6 weeks in the desert being tempted by a devil. What's a devil? Um, a not nice person who tries to make you do wrong things. OK. So, what did the devil try and make Jesus do? Um, he tried to make him a king rather than go and be executed. Huh? So what was wrong with that? Moving swiftly on, Jesus was excecuted on a cross and Christians believe that saved them from their sins. So, a bit like the Aztecs throwing people down their pyramids to get the sun to come back? Erm, guess so... And then Jesus came back from the dead on Easter Sunday. Looks of pitying scorn. Mummy, people don't come back from the dead.

OK, so the religion lesson didn't go so well then...

Half term

Now, tell me why it is that half term should have so much impact on us when we home educate? Well, because we can barely go anywhere during half terms due to huge crowds of (often badly behaved) children and their (often equally badly behaved) parents - over-excited, rushed about, exasperated (and that's just the parents!).
At the beginning of each half term I tick off all the things NOT to do during the week - playgrounds in the afternoon, swimming at any time, any children's attraction such as farms, soft play, the library. And definitely never go into the town centre.
I feel so sad for all these children who seem quite bwelidered to be out and about during the day, and also for their parents who don't seem to know what to do with them or how to interact with them.
However, mostly I feel sorry for us as we have a week in which we can't do any of our usual things and it's dull. Roll on the start of school next week!

Stuff we've made

So, first the crafts. Today we have made treasure maps (aged with tea-bags, not that you can see that very well in the photos). This one was my son's:



And this one is my daughter's:



And a couple of days ago we made Mr Men biscuits with a set of cutters which used to be mine when I was a child and that my mum recently found in a kitchen cuoboard clear-out and brought over. I was quite impressed at how well they came out, but didn't take the 1970s instructions to paint them with vast amounts of food colouring. Mr Sneeze was a bugger to get out without breaking his legs, and my daughter observed that this was probably why there wasn't a Mr Tall cutter. I had to agree.


But this is my question. Do other people find this 'fits and starts' pattern to home ed life? It feels like we do several 'activities' or special craft projects, or workbooks within one or 2 days and then nothing but lego, or playing Spiderman, or listening to audio books, or making huge messes (I mean picnics for their toys out of tissue paper, of course!) for several weeks until I start to worry that we're 'not doing anything' and instigate some more activities and then the whole thing starts all over again.
I mean, obviously I offer ideas and stuff if they can't occupy themselves and we read together every day and often go out to groups and stuff, but I don't want to get in their way when they're obviously flowing in the activities they're planning and carrying out for themselves. Is there an ideal balance? Obviously, they're still quite young, but my daughter's 6th birthday tomorrow is making me wonder if I should be *doing* more in some way?
I was reading an argu... I mean intelligent discussion on one of the HE yahoo lists this morning in which the merits or otherwise of autonomous HE were once again bandied back and forth. And I'm always very aware that true autonomous HE doesn't consist of just leaving your kids to get on with it, but actually requires offering opportunities and ideas and facilitating well when one sticks. We've never even been fully autonomous anyway. I'm not sure what I'm asking really. Any thoughts?

Bad HE Mum

I feel like I'm failing the children this week and it's not just the usual 'new year, new regime' kind of thing. I've been ill, seemingly constantly, since late November and instead of feeling better, I'm iller than ever. I'm not one to say I've got flu when I have a cold - in fact I've only ever had flu once in my life - but I'm starting to wonder if I've got it again now, at least a mild dose. I can't shake this cough, my chest is tight, my nose and sinuses are blocked, I'm feverish and achey, and just so damned tired all the time that I'm really finding it hard to pull out that energy the children require of me. I'm particularly upset that I can't read to them - usually we sit and read together a lot - but my throat is so sore and has been for over a week that I just can't right now. Just getting out all the craft things seems a huge effort right now. I'm feeling completely sorry for myself!

Good HE Mum

Well, despite being ill, ill and then ill again just for a change over the solstice, christmas and new year, I pulled myself together, got out the new science at home book we got for christmas and forced myself to do some of those messy, time-consuming and fun projects that the kids love and that parents wish they had never started, about halfway through. So, we have made cornflour and water to study the weird properties of non-Newtonian liquids (behave like a liquid if you're gentle with them but like a solid if you whack them hard with a spoon - but, hey, of course you knew that!). And also made a hot-air ballon out of tissue paper, paper clips and with a hair-dryer! As you do!
I'm tired now, can I go and have a little lie down? *totters off*

Another book

What with the nasy weather, and the children taking ages to get to sleep, I've been doing lots of reading recently, and here's another review.
How Children Learn At Home by Alan Thomas & Harriet Pattison was a fascinating read - academic yet accessible and rather inspirational and quite a relief for those of us using mainly informal learning with our children. I was particularly interested in their comment that the way informal learning was acquired in all its chaotic, leaps forward, regressions and general piecemeal nature was highly similar to the way learning is acquired at the cutting edge of scientific research, the methods of writing novels, composing music and various other highly creative and high level projects. Maybe my children will be geniuses yet!
The way the book is split into different subject areas - reading, writing and maths in particular makes it easy to find the area you are most interested in and the quotes and example from families are illuminating and fascinating in themselves.
All in all a great read, especially if you're home educating using informal learning methods, or if you want to know how these ways of learning may fit in with school.

Samhain activities part 2

The children's Samhain poems - this is my daughter's:

The Pumpkins Shine Bright

The lanterns are getting lit,
It gets really dark.
Firework Night is on its way,
The bonfires are lit soon.
The leaves are falling quickly.
People dress up and scare people.

And this is my son's (not quite so seasonal, but very definite):

Untitled

I like engines,
Especially blue engines.
I like engines a lot,
I like all engines.

So there you have it. Part 3 to follow...

Feeling more positive

I'm generally feeling a bit more positive about things this week, despite having a really really awful night last night which ended with everyone awake, both children screaming, me really cross and shouty, and my husband rather bemused about what on earth had happened to kick it all off!

Otherwise though, the allotment is finally starting to look like I had envisaged it would - ie, nicely dug, covered in leaf mulch and planted up with overwintering crops. I think about half to two thirds is like that now, but there's still a lot to do, mainly round the edges, and I would like to get it under control before the spring growing season makes all the weeds grow again!

I had a long discussion with my mum this week about how the kids are doing, in terms of their development, education, social skills etc and she was really encouraging. Given that she's a primary school teacher with over 20 years experience, I feel she is in a position to know that the children are not falling behind where they 'should' be and although I know I shouldn't care about where they 'should' be, I find I can't quite let this go. Especially in view of all the doom and gloom spreading in the HE community currently due to the latest guidelines proposal and the potential impact of Contactpoint.

Our new HE group moved to its winter venue today and it worked pretty well. We actually had the entire soft-play to ourselves and even met another He-er there who knew nothing of the group and had come that morning entirely by chance! There seems to be a hard-core of fairly regular attenders forming, and they're all nice and the kids get on well, so I'm feeling quite positive about that too.

The cat's stitches are due to come out tomorrow too and she seems generally to be healing really well. I hope she can go outside again soon as I'm getting fed up with my bad nights being added to by the cat hurling herself noisily against the back door at 2am in a fruitless attempt to get outside.

I have an optician's appointment tomorrow so all this positivity will probably soon be punctured by finding out that my eyes are worse and that it costs a king's ransom for new glasses.

Swimming

After only 3 or 4 trips to the pool, my daughter is now swimming widths with armbands and treading water without, and my son is having a great time splashing about both with and without armbands quite confidently (not sure if he is actually swimming or not as he splashes around so much!). But if I had needed any back-up for my decision not to put them in swimming classes, it was provided today when some swimming classes were going on for school children in the other pool while we were there. I was actaully quite shocked at how bad they were - they did the classes in groups of around 10 children - the others had to sit in the gallery and watch until it was their turn - and even when the the small group was actually being taught, it consisted mainly of them standing around on the side of the pool while they ignored the swimming instructor and messed around until they got shouted at. Then they had about 5 minutes in the water, then out and in with the next lot. Several of them were watching me and my kids rather wistfully as we swam and played about. I felt really sorry for the kids in the classes, it certainly looked dull to me.

New home ed group

I have accidentally co-founded a new home ed social group - as you do! I was just chatting with a friend a few weeks back about how it would be nice to have a small, informal, social kind of group nearby, made a tentative post on a local yahoo group, was taken up on the idea by another parent and lo and behold! - it started today. And it went very well - we met in a local park and around 8-10 families turned up which was more than I'd imagined. The adults and children all got on very well, so now it's going to be a weekly thing. I'm a bit stunned at how quickly it's all happened. My daughter is more than ready for this kind of thing and was in her element bossing, er, I mean, *organising* the other children. I did feel a bit bad for my son who would obviously die rather than be left out, but actually isn't really quite ready for this kind of thing yet and it was a bit much for him to cope with. I know how he feels. I'm shattered.

Autumn Equinox

To celebrate the Equinox we've made dark chocolate cakes (to symbolise the growing darkness of course and not just becuase of any old excuse to make chocolate cup cakes!) and written our now traditional celebratory festival poems.

My daughter's poem:

Oh, The Leaves Are So Pretty

When the leaves turn red,
It begins to get cold.
The leaves are beginning to turn
Yellow, red and brown.
It's the prettiest colours we have seen.
It begins to get darker in the evenings,
Less going out to play Carnage.
It gets really dark, really early.

And my son's:

Only Be With Mummy If You're Scared

It's not going to be sunny in the afternoon,
The leaves are going to fall off,
The leaves might turn brown, yellow or red,
No playing Carnage before bed.

(I should point out that 'Carnage' is a chasing game they often play with Daddy in the garden during the summer after tea and before bed-time!)

HE and the internet

I'm so glad that I'm home edcuating in the era of the internet, I honestly don't know how people coped before it!
Yesterday, I was asked about cheese-making and off we went to YouTube and found a short educational film about making cheese! How fantastic is that? We have also found similarly fascinating stuff about flamenco dancing, trees, various animals and all kinds of subjects in the past. Obviously books play a big role too, but it is great to be able to see and hear things like music, examples of spoken languages and moving pictures of animals. It makes home edcuation that little bit easier and more accessible.
One tip: always check out the clips on YouTube you are planning to show your kids beforehand (alone) as there is some bizarre and horrible stuff on there too!