Category Archives: General

Anyway, so to the weekend, a little shiny jewel! We weren’t quite so prepared as normal, and the climbing frame wasn’t rocketty – so a bit disappointed – and I hadn’t got a treasure hunt organised, which I had originally planned to do. oh well. the rainedrops arrived the day before – which was lovely. we did loads of tidying and sorting, so didn’t get in a game of agricola – sob. [will bring when i visit!] and the next day actually saw us more or less ready! [well, for us!] ER wore what was going to be SB’s costume and facepaint, SB wore an alternative – which was v snazzy! BB wore her red catsuit and had a catty face – for about 5 seconds before dunking into paddling pool [ ], and RR had a flower facepaint.

People were arriving and welcomed, and the party swang [swung?] into action. We had a lovely load of local HE as well as muddlepuddlers, and the kids all got on well – a raucous lets empty the pool game seemed to be the focus of this bonding! Loads of yummy food, i sang into the arms of pimms, when my very own jean-luc wasn’t striding past looking manly. I think tim was more of a ds9! such a trekkie!! [tho i was rimmer!! - thanks to merry, in a slightly asymetric fashion ] I was v happy to have so many friends around, and happy to see them all. i do apologise to those i wobbled too. does help though. Baby O nearly tempted me… BB’s rather OTT meltdowns x 2 untempted me… bless her, she was overtired, as was SB, who fell asleep infront of the narnia showing! I did manage to paint a number of faces in a vaguely sensible manner despite pimms, and this ended up including lots of butterflied girls and an allstar.

a relaxed next day – good as jax and i stayed up waaaay to late!! and more frolicking in paddling pool from offspring and general fun, and sad to wave goodbyes. T-bird and aprillia decided that it was too sad, so stayed another day which was a lovely bonus.

contemplating animals for next year as bb wants to be a guinea pig. ? on safari??

oh, and i lent out a number of books, so for those of you who can cope with scifi…

and this rather excellent series

today we were going to go cycling. i am v keen to go on lovely new bike. SB still too rough though. she got up at about 5-ish and slumped in front of tv pretty much all day, apart from a few bursts of rummy playing and a mega vanilla cream [aka peppermint creams without peppermint!] making session. she even slept a lot of the afternoon- bless.

BB was much more active. she got her face painted – i have done that one before for SB – didn’t make me any more competent! and then she fiddled about abit before i interested her in some painting. sb looking unwell, so fell asleep on me. bb therefore did some electronics kit and watched some tv and generally pootled about until i snuck out. we then painted some alien faces, ate blackcurrents and made up silly stories. back in and a long soak for both girls and sheepdip affair for me! if the arrive, girls and chris will be costumed for the weekend!

i did a last bit of fun with my niece and nephew, and face painted them – e again a butterfly, and m a bat. think they looked roughly right! bb was a sunset scene and desert island sb wasn’t interested as feeling rough and snivelly – bless. they all did a bit of playing but sis keen to get off so we waved them goodbye. sb immed collapsed into a heap, so we watched ice age 2 and then went out to paint pictures that might be vaguely spaced themed. and i mean vaguely! both girls being flopping, we watched some /bang which wasn’t so successful, and then robin hood and finally numberjacks. they were parcelled off to bed as exhausted!

Go Sussex HE-ers

i have, obviously, at the top of my blog got a set of mission statements. a loose grasp of what i thought we might try and do a present to SB over the next 2 years. i thought long and hard about what we had in the way of resources, and how to make it attractive. Well, obviously I won’t be thinking that hard again, because with the Badman review I am becoming officially autonomous. Its not something that sits well with a natural listmaker like me, but there is no way I am going to provide my lovely woolly plan, and then be expected to deliver on it!

we are not an educational factory. If you think of school as a lovely shiny factory for cheap as chips identical tableware, then we are the small potters in the fringes. our pieces are individual and may not share the perfection and identical nature of the factory, but we love them for the individuality, the blemishes and the effort it has been to make the whole. I can’t see the pot my children will be at the end, and since i think we are child led, rather than autonomous, i think that my shaping will effect the end pot. but i expect it to be largely determined by the material used. my girls. i am not sure that the bean counters and measurers will appreciated my yet to be determined pot compared to the shiny regimented ones they hope to see. AH well.

We don’t educate autonomously because we have things we like to do regularly – the key one being maths! we don’t sit down at a desk everyday until this and other liked options are done, and many days they aren;t done at all, but… And music practice. why learn an instrument and not be encouraged to practice it. it isn;t forced every day, but i do point out the more regularly you practice the quicker you get better.

i see lots of home educators educating with lots of different twists and styles, from the what appears outwardly to be laissez-faire autonomy, to what appears to be an excellent classical education. ANd I am jealous of all those styles, they all seem to work well for that child/that family. And yes, there is a difference if you SAT the children now, but i am not at all convinced that it matters. All i am convinced about is that we should encourage a love of enquiry, a need to find out, and facilitate interests. I cannot see how you can assess a process until it gets to the end. i have no idea what poorly trained LA assessors are going to make of it. the evidence is that it is variable! i don’t think autonomy is the only way, i think it takes a lot of input and bravery to work, but I DO think that it is effective, or certainly has been for the children i have met.

I like the idea of having a basic story arc for the girls to fill in. to provide the tabula rasa base that they can decorate as they like. i am very, very grumpy that this is all threatened. bah humbug!! i do think I will keep a monthly private summary if i can so that we have a page to print out of what has been done, as ‘evidence’ grr!!