I had a morning off everything today as i had a chiropractor appointment (back now pretty much completely fixed) and then needed to go and buy some dancing things for a show (white catsuit, glad it’s not me!), pop into work and then go into town to the one remaining, almost entirely inaccessible, branch of our bank. I sent a few emails for work, things that i needed doing for the site and other admin bits and then went into town.

I don’t often get to listen to the radio these days as the girls prefer cds and moan, so it was pleasant to be enjoying the sun, the window open and the peace. Three songs came on – Heaven is a Place on Earth, Spirit in the Sky and Cruel Summer. All have particular memories for me and i was smiling, thinking of the people i remember because of them and rather enjoying the fact that not one of them makes me think of anything sad. I was thinking that Cruel Summer would be a great blog post title, but that for me this summer has been pleasant and enjoyable and that i’d have no reason to use it. And that made me think of people i care about who are sad and of how moving it was to bike ride around Ferry Meadows this week behind the Race for Life people, reading their dedications, pinned to their backs and seeing their passion and determination. And of all the people who, in small ways, make differences.

And then i reached the car park and checked my phone, only to get an email telling me that a close professional colleague, someone who has worked for us on project for the last 2 years has died unexpectedly, leaving a wife and daughter behind. Someone younger than me, with so much going for him and such a massive part of our team of strangely linked work acquaintances. But unusually in website land, someone i had actually met and whose geographical closeness was part of choosing to use him because it was good to be using the skills of another local small business.

K was a really lovely bloke to work with; professional, courteous, polite, local and happy to come out to see us or work over the phone with us. He was quick and accurate, creative, thoughtful and helpful. He was charmingly, tear-jerkingly in love with his wife, thrilled to be a new dad and the pleasure that brought him simply bubbled over into the hundred of emails we exchanged over our working relationship. He made an enormous difference to our business and to many other businesses and i know he’ll leave a huge hole in our team and in many others. And the thought of his wife and daughter left without him is simply ripping a piece out of my heart. I’m stunned.

God bless K. Thank you.

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Combination of 3 projects; a very hastily done animation of her map project landscape (LEA man was coming and we wanted it finished!) with a standing stone Celtic circle n the back ground that gradually falls over.

Not an exact map replica, but not bad.

Exhibition of work. (Set up after he left, we’re not pandering to all that!)

Three pics of animals wallowing in mud, so you can only see their heads. Must do daylight ones, especially of the hippo as the detail is lovely; very Aardman like.

And this pair of elephants, which i think is just beautiful and quite extra-ordinary for a 9 year old. It seems to exude playfulness and love from between them.

It may be that you’ve read my posts on the Home Education Review recently and dismissed it and the comments about what it means for the wider community of parents who do use schools, as nothing more than hysterical rubbish from someone who ought to not mind the idea of permission and registration and regulation and withdrawal of licences and minimum standards.

If you were one of those people, or might have been, you can go and read what i said here and here.

And now the government is going threaten parents with fines of up to £1000 and court action if their children are unruly, badly behaved or not upholding, in the schools opinion, their side of the “home school” agreement. An odd decision, since i think (off the top of my head) truancy is still rising despite similar powers to ‘combat’ that problem. And if you’ve never signed a “home-school agreement” (and i have) they are a bit vague and woolly to say the least.

Sometimes, maybe even often, bad behaviour will be because of bad parenting, sometimes it will be because of problems in school, the influences of other children or teachers in school or plain and simple boredom. Or lack of connection because they aren’t engaged with what they are learning, not surprising given the government is now having to alter it’s policies on educational provision to “devolve power back to schools”  – and wash it’s hands of failing standards and cut some costs, if i’m not much mistaken. Centralised decisions on what individual children need doesn’t work apparently; we need more personalised education, suited to the needs of individual children. (Sound familiar… like, i dunno… oh, being home educated!!!!)

I’m completely convinced that bad school behaviour is not necessarily parental influence; i know a boy who behaved badly, truanted, smoked, took some things he shouldn’t have, drove cars and bikes too fast, drank far to much and eventually got expelled for persistent truanting and lack of effort. His dad is great and his brother didn’t have any of those problems as a teenager. He’d had a few problems growing up, his mum died but mostly, if you talk to him now, he says he was bored at school, because he was very, very clever and disgruntled with the restrictions on his life. He needed to live it, so he rebelled so he could.

Cleverest man i know. And i know a few. I’m married to him.

So, the bad parents probably won’t learn masses from parenting classes unless they are very lucky or very ready to change, the policy is likely to be about as effective as the truancy one and the schools, well – will they change? A staggering proportion of senior schools, despite widespread delight at their abolition, ordered voluntary KS3 SATs this year, so i’m not holding my breath.

Any way you look at it, it seems to me that parents are about to find themselves punished if the school fails to educate their child in a way that enthralls them enough to ensure they behave well and want to turn up. Which is odd, when you think about it in context of the HE Review, reviewing parents and children and forcing them back into school if they think the parent isn’t doing well enough.And even odder when you consider that the law says that a child’s education is the responsibility of the parent, which they can hand to a school if they wish. The relationship, it seems to me, ought to be more like customer and service provider, with school expected to provide a service that is good enough to be worthy of the custom.

What will the parents of these unruly kids who are facing fines do? HE isn’t going to be much of an option when the new legislation comes in, that’s for sure. The system is going to have those parents every which way.

They came for the home educating parents, but i did not speak out because i was not a home educator. Then they came for the parents who chose a bad school, but i did not speak out, because our school was good. Then they came for the parents who chose the nursery with a sex abuser as a nursery nurse, but i did not speak out, because my children went to a different nursery.

And then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak up for me.

Still think i’m delusional?

With thanks to Tech for the title and Grit for her series of posts and inspiration

Today, our poor children made polymer chains and explored non-Newtonian fluids, ate a healthy meal in the company of each other and interested adults and then enjoyed the cakes baked by one of them, collaborated on making sure all of them were appropriately dressed for sun and water play and then had a wonderful sunny afternoon, laughing and living in beautiful weather, in a beautiful garden with several adults who love or care for them very much indeed.

Science is snot what you think.

Very proud of Fran for handing her project in a day early (in the end, evidently dates are not her strong point!) Apart from helping her to do a page plan so she could see what needed to be done and then keeping her at it over the weekend, she has done it all herself. We managed to have enough conversations over the weekend so that i think she has at least learned a few new things about the Tudors, but she has definitely learned how to put a project together.

Tell you what though, if she does come back to being HE’d next year, i’ll be expecting a lot more of her! (And we’ll be working on punctuation!)

In between co-ercing Fran into home work stints and taking Amelie to gym and the others to dancing, i did some stuff. I made this a while ago so it got finished off, put on the wall and then blogged over at Fimo-Ideas.

After yesterdays fun, i wanted to have a go at something, so i made this.

Like this!

Forgive the ropeyness; going to need a tripod and a light – really can’t face spending hours on photoshop to make it better. Still a good exercise in skill learning anyway

The girls all sat at the table with me and made various things. Maddy and i have hit upon a rather good idea to combine two projects, so we are gonig to have a go at that tomorrow and see if we can put our plans into action.