And Then The House Was Silent Once More

..And all the children went back to school.

YES!

Littlest has finally left the building, well between the usual school hours most kids his age would be out the house anyway.

Thank Goodness.

Seriously, before I get any mean trolls suggest I'm not very nice saying that about my son, I love him dearly, I do a lot for the child and I don't begrudge it in anyway. I'm his Mum, and I always will do anything for him.

However, from the perspective of needing space from each other, and finding Home Ed a very hard slog to get used to, I am happy he is back at school were he should be.

From his point of view too, moving house was hard for him and Mini too, but for Mini, who straight away went into a school, and Brownies, and afterschool clubs, it was very difficult for Littlest to be stuck at home all day and hard for him to settle and make friends to replace the old ones.

I am glad I stuck to my guns and got him into the same school as his sister as I feel if we'd sent him to the not very good catchment school, he wouldn't have been a priority for them to move.

He popped in and met his new class and teacher (who is a joy after the last one the kids had), and bless them, they were as excited to meet him as he was to meet them. They'd even made him a card to welcome him.

He has gone in today, a little nervous but mostly happy to be back at proper school.

The Home Ed cupboard has shut for business. I don't advise anyone to not have a try at Home Ed, but it can be different depending on the child. It can also be hard to get them used to something when they are used to a school environment.

For us, it just didn't suit.

Its very strange having no children in the house. I went off to the town centre earlier to search out school blue shirts (£20 from John Lewis for 4 as no supermarket has any left now- ouch) and kept thinking I'd left him behind.

It shall be lovely to get back to blogging and baking and I can finally sort out where everything needs to go in the new house too.

Happy at last. All as we should be.

...And Next I Decided, Actually, Let's Fight Back

We've now somewhat, only just, settled into life as a half home Ed half usual school family. Its been very hard at times to get Littlest to adapt to working at home or, in the local park, or library.

The biggest hurdle we have come across is the size of our little house, which I was previously ecstatic about, is now creating dilemmas we could not have forseen.

Like my lovely through lounge diner.

It's light, airy, easy to keep tidy, and cosy warm. What it isn't, however, is separated from the rest of the house. Thus, its not a happy situation as of course a small room on its own would be much better as it could be turned over to home schooling. All we have is the through lounge and a big cupboard, which was previously going to house the overspill of Elder and my records (omg, Amazon for records, what new heaven is this? I love it) and the Decks. Its now the "School Cupboard" as Mini has christened it.

I kept thinking about the appeal though. Surely, surely there was a loop hole? Surely there was some way to show that it wasn't fair, that they had already made their mind up other than the shockingly small amount of time it took for us to get a full three page write up with the decision on it?

Music Lesson-with a twist

I googled the Appeal Code I had used before about timescales. Maybe it could shed light on something or anything I may have missed?

It did.

There, in black and white, on their own Appeal Code page on the Diocese website, it said that, should new information be submitted by any party without first being seen prior to the hearing, the hearing should be closed and rearranged.

Yet, the Head did indeed use new information, from 3 different bodies in the appeal hearing, which she simply waved in the air n the form of paper with emails allegedly on it, without anyone seeing them beforehand.

I have since asked, several times, to see these emails, as we contacted those who she quoted, and found she was hardly honest about what they told her. Surprise surprise, we never have gotten to see them. Nor have the appeal authority.

No one adjourned the hearing. No one mentioned she had broken the rules. In fact, on looking through the code, there were  at least three sections where they have broken the rules.

So, I thought, fuck it, I'll contact them at the Diocese, see what they have to say.

Basically, in Orgasms for Jesus language, they told me to naff off.

How polite.

They told me to go tell it to the Ombudsman. So I am going to. In fact, I collated all the facts, all the information, and put it to the Ombudsman.

Yes, they may say there's little to do now. They may suggest a rehearing. But I hope that no matter what the outcome, the Diocese, and their attitude towards non Church members daring to want both kids at the same school is dealt with.

Finding things for our Autumn project

I have no great issue Home Educating Littlest, of course I don't. The problem is its no fun for Littlest, he has made only one friend since we moved, he misses Mini all day and he would rather be in school. Its not something we decided to do as a family, we felt pushed to. And Mini is dreadfully jealous of her bro being at home with Mummy all day, something she'd love to do as she seems to think he sits around, does one worksheet and then watches TV or plays in the park the rest of the time.

Fingers crossed this all gets sorted out soon.

A New Frontier in the Parenting Day to Day

That's a bold title right there, isn't it?!

I was quite tempted to title it "True Confessions of a Home Ed Virgin Aged 32 3/4", but was concerned I may get sued by Sue Townsend's people.

By that alternative title you'll gather what we decided to do regards Littlest and his lack of school, not to mention my lack of choice (eg-attendance at shit school or criminal record/massive fine/made out to be a crap mother) of what school he went to.

I got some lovely comments from you guys online, so thank you very much, and I did indeed find out who runs our local council.

Luckily, it was Labour, who are my preferred party anyway and who are clearly after any vote they can get (owing to politics in this country turning into a Democracy version of X Factor).

Bless them, I messaged their Facebook page on a Sunday, not thinking I'd hear for days, if at all. Give them their due, I received a messaged within an hour, saying they'd look into it and suggesting they were as baffled as me.

Down to them, suddenly the Reading Admissions team changed tack. Gone were the threats of court and the "get your kid to our choice or else" conversations. These were replaced with soothing words of consolation and understanding.

I told them though that, politely, he would not be taking a place at the school 9/10 parents we had spoken to would choose not to send  their pet Guinea Pig, let alone their child, and had investigated educating him at home.

No arguments were forthcoming this time, thank the Lord.

So, with my trusty laptop (yet not trusty net connection- bloody TalkTalk, but that's another post to come soon), I researched Home Ed, the Nation Curriculum, our rights and responsibilities, and anything else I could think of.

The Net is great for newbie home educators, its a vast tank of knowledge waiting to be sourced, both for me as "Mum and Teacher" (as opposed to my usual tag of "Mum and Nurse, Doctor and Consultant") and for Littlest too. There are hundreds of websites with age and curriculum appropriate material on them for Year 2, and some of these are already known to Littlest as he used them at the old school last year.

Basically, we can set the pace and style, as long as knowledge gets in his noggin. And, unlike other kids, he doesn't have to share me as a teacher or his source material. If he is unwell, we can do quiet games. If its warm enough we can, as we did on Friday, go on a nature walk. He didn't even realise he was learning doing that.

It has been a bit scary at times- the first day was a nightmare of him being a cheeky sod and telling me I'm not his teacher, I'm Mummy so he can be a bugger as he's not at school. But all I did was fire up my net again and ask for advice from those in the know with Home Ed who suggested rather than sitting down and talking at him, to go and do practical number work with sums in the shops instead. He took far more in that way than he did with it on a page.

We have been playing Boggle and Junior Scrabble which are great fun ways to promote spelling and looking at words which will add up to the biggest score. We even made a full Box Trolls costume from old cardboard boxes- not something he would have done at school due to time and material constraints.

Its not going to all be easy, of course, but compared to what we have been through the last few months, its definitely less stress.

Feel free to say hi if you Home Ed too x :)

We're off to do art ourselves.