Last post....and school???

Before the PC "Maybe" gets packed away... I say maybe because I'm having to work every evening and Darrens response has been to get stuck into the packing ( On thank you god, you are good to me... keep the overtime rolling in ;-))
So I dont actually know what will get packed next! I came home tonight to find all the kids home ed/reference books and resources missing... in the car and will be delivered tomorrow!
So home ed, all bar workbooks is now off....I wonder if packing would be considered child labour or maybe an essential life skill???

We have some slightly expected/unexpected but for me, challenging news.

Sophie has asked numerous times recently to go back to school. She misses having a group of friends she sees regularly, despite being bullied and actively asking to be home educated and remain at home when we missed out on a place at the catchment school here, all of a sudden its all change and she wanted to go to 'a' school like her sisters. ( small, small classes, caring, unlike state schools!)
We felt it was just not do-able until we heard about a small ( less than 120 pupils) independent christian school nearby which was very well regarded and we could just afford it now I'm working most evenings, that's if they would take us. The fees are cheap, I cant really see how they cover the costs never mind make enough to pay staff but somehow they must. Hence them takingf 'us' on. Thy certainly dont run as a profitmaking organisation thats for sure!

We visited yesterday and she hid behind me for about 1/2 the afternoon but after meeting the special needs teachers( one of whom home educated her kids inc one dyslexic for 12 years) and being able to chat to some of the children, learning that they are incredulous about being asked "Have you ever been bullied here?" and also positive and cheeky, lively and happy she asked if she could maybe try for just a day?

I just don't know how I feel about it, sad, happy, confused.... I wasn't sure I wanted a return to 'school' however its not the state system which I can see for my children is massively damaging.
As for Sophie, she had packed her old school bag ready for friday( the day she will try it) first thing this morning and was dragging me off round tesco to ensure she had what she would need.
The school is completely supportive of home education and has a proportion of students who flexi school so that's what we will arrange for her if she likes it on Friday, until such time as she decides she either wants to be home educated or start there full time which will possibly arise as an issue in September when arrangements will need to be firmed up one way or another.

All the children work at their own pace and can be up down whatever in a whole range of subjects and the children are a max of 16 per class (for educational reasons but also they just don't have room for more, its run in 3 church halls!)The children with any additional learning needs all have full time group support in mainstream, much more than would be offered in a state school.

On reflection Ive given it a lot of thought and can see that both Sophie and Connor have very different learning styles and needs which I do struggle to meet at the same time. Sophie is so academic and loves the written word, workbooks..aspires to a raft of GCSE's and university I feel Sophie does miss out on what she needs. If flexi-schooling can give her what she needs then I will go with it.

At the end of the day all I can do is my best, my best to give my children the things I think they need, and hopefully the result will be their security and happiness and from that ( I believe) is borne success. I hope I'm right. Like most parents I suspect I'll get a lot wrong however Ive learned a lot about autonomy since taking the home ed path for my family and, as with Chloe, I need to think what Sophie wants and needs on all sorts of levels, rather than only what I would choose for her "If I had my way...." But as with Chloe who strongly chose school ( her school) and continued to choose school despite knowing she could choose home education if she wanted to. I feel Sophie needs to be able to say "actually, I'm choosing school, if this is OK for me and I am happy, this is what we do". Whether that's flexi school or full time. That's autonomy in action

But I admit I'm struggling.... I distrust 'schools' so much after what the last school my children was in did to all of us ( esp my mental health) that its so hard to trust again that things will be OK.
I guess I needed to write all this down to kind of form it all in my head... it is a trust thing, can I let go? will it be OK? nobody knows really do they but I think I owe it to Sophie to let my own feelings take a back seat and as always as I promised myself and Chloe when i first had Chloe that I would put her first..( and I consciously looked at her as a teen mum and promised my newborn that) I did and shes thriving and now her younger sister has to be the one who challenges me,who I continue to remind myself of that promise... to put their needs first. We can't all have what we want but we should always if possible have what we need.That's my job as her Mum

Thanks for listening, maybe Ill get to post an update after Friday, maybe I wont....!! ( but If I wont, hopefully Ill be in our new house)

Oh and our nightmare neighbour, his son and his sons friends urinated on our front door the day before yesterday.... another reason for leaving asap....... I wont miss this place!

We have the keys!

But nothing moved in just yet! Today I spent most of the day throwing stuff out which is rubbish or broken while the kids did some work.

Sophie did some Maths and English workbooks and an hour of education city. Connor did mainly education city before they both helped me clear out clothes they have outgrown for friends/the charity shop.He had speech therapy in the afternoon. He's improved so much since being home educated ( almost 1 year) that his speech has gone from only understandable to people who knew him well to not needing anywhere near as much input and concentrating only on individual sounds.His therapist is amazed.

I am investigating the possibility of maybe doing a car boot sale next weekend, theres too much decent stuff to just throw it out or freecycle it all. I hope I can make a little bit towards the cost of a new bed for Connor. Ill start moving bits and pieces we dont use tomorrow morning as I have to go past the house.

We met the owners to go over details, find out where everything was etc this evening. The owners said "do as you want with it, decorate it as you want, just mainly enjoy it !!" I wont be telling the kids we can decorate their rooms... I dont think I can face decorating!It doesnt need it anyway!

At several readers request we took a few pics tonight..... This is the lounge and kitchen

Where the hell do I begin?

Is the question facing me tonight! Im looking around and wondering where to start!
We get the keys to the new house tomorrow night and the task seems daunting to say the least! Whenever we've moved in the past its been me whos done the packing... all of it!
Just like when we go on holiday, its my job! Moving the furnture is 'his' job alledgedly, he'll get his mates over and it will all go swimmingly ( except it never does!) Im seriously contemplating professional movers for the furniture if we can afford it ( please god let it be so!)

Chloe went back to school tonight, all tears last night, doesnt want to go, hasnt done her presentation right,her mate isnt going back anyway so why should she...?... by this evening I called her and its all "Oh mum its lovely to see everyone and Im sharing with the new girl and she likes everything I do and Ive finnished my presentation and its all on powerpoint for tomorrow and its just FAB" and her mate who swore she wasnt going to go back,of course she was there *rolleyes*!
I was really sad, I had to work so its the first time Ive not taken her at the start of term but she didnt seem to notice really. Thankfully Darren stayed and settled her in, helped her unpack etc! Its her last term in the lower school and she is sad, Im sad too. Im sure the upper school will be right for her in september, the lower school has done so much for her,its where shes learned that she can succeed that school isnt for her a place where shes a failure.Shes totally blossomed and Ill always be thankful to them.Im just trying not to think about september which will be full of new opportunities and new challenges!

Its odd to think by the time she comes home next we will be moved into the new house... she said "Its odd, Ive slept here for the very last time now" and yet we havent even packed anything at all up.
With her returning to school, education proper for the others should get back on track in terms of routine but of course with moving I dont know if that will happen.
I'll do my best to get them working on something they can do relatively independently in the hope I can get on with some packing. If they arent engaged in something seperate they will regress to toddlerhood and start finding "treasures" which just of course cannot be parted with at any cost in the boxes I end up with which are destined for the charity shop!Moving is a good excuse to get shot of all the toys they long outgrew but wouldnt let me get rid of. I suspect I will be squirrelling them away in the middle of the night!

Viva Espana !!!

The holiday was lovely, if a little cold! It had been really warm until we arrived, however we were blown by a very cold wind all week which meant we spent most of the week wrapped up more than we'd expected!

We spent time visiting the surrounding area and admiring the coastline which was really breathtaking, even if it wasnt warm enough to lie on the beach!

The kids had fun in La Rambala in Barcelona meeting the street entertainers who had fantastic costumes!

We visited La Sagra Famillia and rode on the metro.

and visited Gerona and ate Paella ( the kids insisted on taking a pic, it was HUGE!!!)

The kids enjoyed the pool, even though it was FREEZING!!! I had no intention of getting in there!

Chloe was very camera shy but she was with us honest!!

The Animal School

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.
The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.
The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He was exhausted from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.
The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.
At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little was named top of the class.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.
Does this fable have a moral?

We're on the move

..........and not just on holiday!

Cosmic ordering has delivered again it seems! Having mentioned to a colleague in work how much my present housing situation and awful neighbour noise was getting me down she said "You know, Im sure I have a friend who is about to let her MIL's house out" It was close to work and had been completely renovated a couple of years ago. Sounded perfect!

She said she would ask but nothing more was said. Today however I had a call from her, she hadnt seen her friend as they usually meet at school,the house was still available, they hadnt been happy with the tenants the letting agency had sent and as we were being recommended would give us first refusal on the house. Of course we went to see it fast!
It turns out I used to teach the landladies little girl at the centre so we already knew each other in passing when we met.
The house is lovely, its just as my friend said, completely renovated with a lovely kitchen diner, large living room, garden, downstairs wet room/toilet, upstairs bathroom and three generous bedrooms. The floors are all laminated, the blinds etc are staying, we literally need do nothing except pack up and move in!
The sun was streaming into the garden and it was just perfect. We said yes as soon as we had time to talk to each other and ring her back this evening!
It will take me less than 10 mins to walk to work, Darren can either ride his bike or drive to work quickly( 4 miles) and its on a bus route.
Best of all, weve been offered a very reasonable rent on it, we never would have dreamed we would get a rental which is such good quality.

I suspect we'll be very quiet again on here, we'll be packing as soon as we return from holiday!

Cheeeeeeeeeeese!

Im back public!

Having discovered that I can set the blog to private if I want to post anything again and those who asked me to be a reader will be automatically reinstated!

The Easter holidays have dragged. Ive not spent an awful lot of time with the kids since Ive had to work. I took them in with me on many days but of course they are in with all the other kids. Work has been OK for the most part but the house is a tip. Nobody tidied anything much up for a fortnight so I'm surrounded by chaos. The saying "Nobody notices what I do until I don't do it" is very true here! Sophie's managed to completely miss a weeks trampolining ( I'm furious) as I had no idea she hadn't been going when Ive been in work. Allegedly 'nobody knew'
I was meant to be taking them to a fire station for a home ed visit but I didn't even wake up this morning until after the time when we needed to have left! whoops! I hope Ill be forgiven by the organiser!

Its nice now the schools are back to spend some time with them. I worked a ridiculous amount of hours last week but were off to Spain soon so we'll have a fortnights uninterrupted time!
Its nice that Chloe gets the month off or I just wouldn't see her on her own! We've been shopping this weekend to get some clothes for the holiday and she chose some lovely things. I'm not sure whether to be sad that she no longer fits the kids clothes or happy that shes in adults clothes and is choosing some flattering, tasteful stuff!
Shes taller than me now ( not hard, I'm short) but I'm left feeling "when did that happen without me noticing!"

Education has started again for all three with Chloe wanting to join in with the younger two We spent some time this morning looking at the local and national maps of Spain and finding our route to the caravan site from the airport on both.We talked about scale and detail and how to look at maps to plan a route to various attractions that they fancy visiting( we wont have time for them all!)

Chloe's done some of her presentation on a hobby which she has to deliver when they go back to school. Sophie has done an exercise on 'debates' and structuring argument from a SATS revision guide this morning before getting on with some maths work.

Connor did some reading which he did really well. I hope hes catching his peers, the book he chose was labeled 6-8 years and he's 9. He managed with just a few hiccups.

He's done some 'draw write now' and drew a very pleasing Koala bear. He did the writing underneath too. He finds drawing and writing so difficult he was overjoyed when his Koala looked like a koala! Chloe was interested so shes sat down and completed a giraffe complete with nice writing underneath which she will take back to school to show her English teacher whos been nagging her about improving her handwriting.
They really like the 'draw right now' series so huge thanks to Merry ( patch of puddles) who put them on her blog. I'd never heard of them before!
http://www.drawyourworld.com/ is their website, they are available at a discount from amazon.

The kids are now using domino's to practice adding and Sophie's busy with the abacus working out her divisions which completely foxed her! Thanks granny for digging out uncle Jo's old one ( hes now 23! Thankfully she doesn't throw good stuff out!)

I have to go into work for an hour later and am dreading it.... this holiday is definitely coming at just the right time!Todays gone so quickly, I dont know where the time has gone!

Its snowing here again..... roll on wednesday and I hope its warm in Spain!

Pictures! As promised

Dont know why these are rotating.... or maybe they arent for you!
anyway... heres the pics of center parcs!