The country is going mad, mad I tell you.  It has been reported that a 10 year old girl was reprimanded by local police for playing hopscotch with a homemade chalk drawn grid.  Apparently it was akin to criminal damage – you what?

Two weeks ago I posted about proposed changes to the school day which was stripping children of their right to play and grow up too fast. Now our children are being treated as criminal and having anti social behaviour if they draw and play the age old game of hopscotch.  Hopscotch – I could understand it if they were using spray cans to draw there grid, but no it was simply chalk!  My children love chalking it encourages creativity they are not confined to one piece of paper.  There drawing can be as big or small as it chooses.

Lets just clarify a few points, this game is free to play, this game is active, this game is innocent. In a society that charges quite a bit for after school activities, has rising obesity levels and children that are subjected to adult story lines in TV programmes and images on many computer games (call of duty anyone?) they decide to pick on the simple game of hopscotch!

My best friend is a police officer and I know that she would walk past this type of game without batting an eyelid and these officers may have been a little over zealous but where has common sense gone? We live in a postmodern media saturated age and whilst lots of the technology I embrace (Erin is a whizz on the iPad and it is great for hospital visits) I long for a traditional childhood. You cannot beat children playing outside, it is the summer and I want to see children playing traditional games. Children have lost the art of skipping and entertaining themselves. They are often so used to being entertained both in the classroom and outside of it that they can’t entertain themselves. I am glad that I don’t overfill my children’s school evenings – they have always been encouraged to play – they all go to park several times a week, Dylan and his friends enjoy playing in the trees after school and Chloe with her friends play rounders behind the house or tennis in the free court five minutes away from our house.

So come on people, think a bit. Drawing hopscotch in chalk is not a crime – it never has been and I hope it never is. It maybe a little noisy outside your house in the summer as children play outside more and whoop it up a little. BUT that is better than being indoors on computers.   Children should be children and they should play.

 The original text can be read in todays Telegraph. I have linked this post to Mummy Barrow’s Ranty Friday linky.

Mr Gove you really have upset me today.  I thought there was little else you could do to make my life even more difficult but again you have surpassed yourself.

I first stepped into the secondary classroom 13 years ago and I loved it.  I loved teaching English I got great academic results from my students and I supported those that struggled.  I enjoyed having the time to build relationships with my classes.  We enjoyed reading together we have had fun and enjoyed our lessons.  I got my students to make soundtracks to the books we read.  We acted out scenes, we imagined staging them, thought about the props, choose which current actors would fit the parts and why.

Ofsted never worried me, I wanted the inspectors to see my classroom, to see how much we did.  But over time that has changed.

You now make your judgements based on academic performance and progress only.  You don’t seem to care about fostering a love of learning.  Exam results are all you see.  I entered teaching after gaining a distinction in my training year.  I was young and the wage was not comparable to what other graduate careers offered but I knew and believed that I would quickly progress.  I did, but tomorrows trainees may not – you are trying to get rid of our pay scales meaning that the increments each year would stop.   What would tempt tomorrows graduates to pick teaching I wonder, especially when they are paid less than most other graduates ? 

So why have you riled me so much today when you have been beating teachers with your stick for the past couple of years?

I awoke to news that you want us to work longer hours and have less holidays.  Whilst at first glance you may get some support for cutting the holidays, as some sections believe, we have it easier than most. Overall most will acknowledge the policy is damaging.  It is damaging to teachers but more importantly it is damaging to our young people.  Both my husband and I choose to be teachers.  We have three children ourselves.  My husband gets home at 6pm and easily does a further two hours of prep, marking and admin in the evening.  I work part time 3 days a week, but put my youngest in nursery for one of those half days that I don’t work so I can mark and prep in peace.  We work at the weekends too.  We spend Sunday afternoons sitting at a desk whilst our children entertain themselves.  Work life balance – that is a joke!  Yet you want more – you want blood.

The children we teach are exhausted at the end of a term.  I see this from the students I care for and my own children.  And yet you want more.  Do you plan to increase the spending on children’s mental health and well being because you will need to.  Have you lost direction so much that you forget we need whole rounded children.  If we want children to be well adjusted adults we need to care for them holistically.  We want rounded individuals that are fit and healthy.  This means they need to develop other skills that they often do in after school clubs – you have depleted the curriculum so much that there is no time in school.  My son’s primary school cannot now even take the children swimming for one term a year as they need the curriculum time.  Our children also need the socialisation they receive from their parents and family.  They need time at home, time with their siblings and time to relax. 

I want to parent my children.  I want to enjoy them.  I want them to turn into sucessful happy individuals.  I don’t want to pick up the pieces after you have put them through the ringer. 

I am beyond ranty today and can only hope you are near the end of your tenure – recent Education Ministers haven’t lasted as long as you – I’m praying that you are on your way out.  And for the future…….

Well can the last trainee teacher turn the lights off when they leave.

Your faithfully, an exhausted teacher who feels battered and bruised by this Government.

P.S It is not just teachers who are disgruntled it affects and bothers children.

I have added this to Ranty Friday

You will not find any pictures of my husband on the blog, none on twitter and very very few on Facebook. Social media doesn’t run through his veins like it does mine. Don’t get me wrong he views my facebook feed most days, he claims he likes to know what people are doing but he doesn’t feel the need to have his own. He likes to stay anonymous on the blog too which I respect.  Yet today he is coming out!  He has agreed to be todays star feature.  

 Last week I turned to facebook on his behalf, tasked with the responsibility of creating a book character costume for world book day he searched for inspiration. He didn’t want to buy a costume, he also has meetings with parents scheduled (he is a senior teacher) therefore he wanted to be part of the fun but wanted to remain comfortable and professional.

Lee rejected all of my suggestions from Harry Potter to Dracula. Time was ticking. Then suddenly he decided,  he found inspiration from social media. He found the costume he wanted on YouTube. I didn’t think we could do it. It seemed like a huge task in such a short space of time.

This morning he headed off. We are so pleased with our my effort.

Yes we have created an easy costume from the book ‘Diary of a wimpy kid’ . I cannot take all the glory, the idea and instructions are on Youtube for all to find.  But I managed to do it.  For someone without a crafty bone in their body this is a real achievement!

It was quite straightforward to make.

1. Use a beach ball and papermache.  I used a wall paper paste for our glue.  Several layers over several days will be needed.  I wish we had longer to spend on this.  I was drying it in front of the heater most days!

2. Cut two ears from polystyrene and cover with paper mache. 

3. Cut the hair.

4. Cover a drinks can for the nose.

5. Cut a hole on the base that your head will fit through.  Let the air out and remove the the beach ball.

6. Paint the head, ears and can with white paint.  The hair is painted black.

7. Attach the ears and hair by using cocktails sticks.  The sticks easily penetrate the polystyrene and the paper mache head.

8. Super glue the the ears and hair for extra strength.  Cut a hole for the nose and push through.  Tape can help secure from the inside.

9. Paint one final layer of white paint over the head.

 10. Wear with long white socks, black trousers, white top.  Carry a black backpack and you are ready!

I have one of those ‘a child of our time’, born at the start of a new millenium. 02/01/00 what a cool date of birth.

A new dawn

A new beginning.

While many will remember partying the year 2000 in I was at my house, in my home, waiting for my baby.

I had been in and out of hospital since Boxing day, she (not that I knew Chloe was a she yet) was moving less, I was frightened and scared. I’d had the flu, been bed bound, had gestational diabetes and couldn’t cope anymore.   New years eve saw me back on the ward being monitored.  Enough is enough a consultant announced, go home see the new year in, be back here at 8am for an induction, this baby is coming out!

After a difficult labour I was handed the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.  My millennium baby arrived on Jan 2nd, she didn’t nab us any freebies for for coming on the 1st, she was seven hours too late for all that! Lee almost dropped her and was sent sharply home by the midwife to get some sleep and told to come back later.

I was left in awe of what we had created. Just watching her.

Therefore it is a small wonder I have watched and devoured each episode of child of our time.  Marked the developments against my own first born.  Compared, observed and remained captivated.  It is poignant this year, as they become teenagers.  The diversity of the children amaze me, I am inspired by some and reflect on how much their lives have changed.  It challenges me to reflect on our own lives.

I felt sad for the woman who talked about not having regrets but clearly regretted not having the career as the solictor she had envisaged.  Do we always think the grass is greener?  I would love to be a stay at home mum at least until Erin is in school.  To not worry about when they are broken or when  children are ill.  To have time to shop in my favourite stores like John Lewis when it is quiet, rather than rush in and out at the weekends or half terms.  To be able to take my time , learning new skills like proper home baking or spend time looking at curtain fabric or other home decor bits. However modern life and fiances just don’t allow it.  I respect and admire  Alison who has raised her son, when she herself has profound physical disabilities.  It gives me hope of what can be overcome, shows determination in bucketfuls.

Child of our time was set up as a developmental observation not a sociological experiment but I personally think it is both.  The sociologist in me finds it fascinating especially how those children have been shaped and in turn how they are shaping the environment around them.  The physical differences between the children is vast in both height, weight and maturity but more than that I love looking at what has influenced them, wether their family situation has an an influence, about their gender, class, ethnicity and location.  These are social characteristics I watch for.  I wish that we had been a part of this, it is social history at its best.

Some of the families have suffered heartbreak that is beyond imaginable to me.  It makes me very humble and grateful for what we have.  Erin’s health issues dominate so much of my energy and time and it is a reminder that whatever what she goes through it is not life threatening, it’s not going to stop her doing what she can.

Comparing Chloe to these children makes me realise how lucky we are.  So far we haven’t had any big fall outs with her.  We are close, she works hard at school, she helps at home.  She has amazing friends and communicates well with us.  Long may it continue.