Petits Haricots

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!!

i am catching up in leaps i think!! last wed was latinetc day at deependers – first for quite a while since they have been at kentwell. i decided to wrap up the polymers with 2 contrasting bouncy ball speriments [ingredients in the wed science bit of sidebar] one of pva and borax and the other of liquid latex and vinegar. giggle at both my TA and the kids pointing out my huge use of vinegar – it is just a cheap and safe acid for them to use! both young and old groups did well, but i had a migraine getting proportionally bigger and bigger, so didn’t do all the looking at properties i had prepared. the littlies did french, the mids and bigs did latin and all crafted with beads. i think i left my fimo from merry there though i felt so rough in the end chris transferred me home!!

no idea what the children did in the rest of the day though. i worked thurs as well, and know that lots of packing went on, as i was then picked up from work and driven to wicksteed park for a fab weekend. ooh, think that is the cue to press publish and start the next one!

yes, so we got the tent up and wandered down to the beach for a mosy around! both girls had a fab time paddling and making up see monsters, until BB really saw one an exited the sea pdq looking absolutely terrified. she maintianed it was a giant squid. we kept suggesting it might have been seaweed, but only the removal of the offending rock with seaweed on it persuaded her that we were right. it did have something of the squid about it though.

the next day started off rainy, so the girls did some craft kits in the tent whilst the worst of it settled, and then we went down to the beach with our suntent – mostly known as a wind and rain tent really! and fab it was for the shelter!! BB found the first fossil – a small ammonite, and we all played in the sea. realising the pebbly nature, we invested in sea shoes for bb and sb, and things looked good. a chippery lunch on the beach added to the treat value. ahh, this is what holidays are all about! at the end, we went to the local fossil shop and replaced some sharks teeth for bb, and found a box for sb to fill with agate pieces to say thankyou for all the washing up she was going to do – she did do the washing up of brekkie and lunch without fuss all holiday. SB really is a good helper.

next day looked really rainy, so we went to nearby lyme regis for a museum day, and by the time we were all parked, the weather was gorgeous! our first stop was the first museum we walked past – dinosaurland. i loved it, bb mostly loved the title, but did zoom around and played a bit, and SB obsessively collected all the answers to the questions on the leaflet. there is something appealing to me a bout a huge tableau of belemnites all together really. and it was one of those semi-eclectic little museums that have a bit of a buzz about them. would recommend. we then moved on to have lunch, though we did have to walk out of the restaurant shortly after arriving and have a discussion with bb on the words yuk etc. i guess i was also not exactly relaxed as had started the day with an upsetting dream and was waiting for news from sis. but we did have a lovely meal and then wandered round to the working mill where we went on a fabulous tour by the miller of the day. SB was v interested and asked sensible questions, the the chap more and more directed his talk and display to her – she was v happy. bb and i had a go at using a quern stone together – quite hard work!

we ambled down to the sea front and had icecream and fudge on the beach – i made a poor swap with sb, so she wolfed down loads of fudge! we then moved on to the more traditional lyme regis museum. again sb made a good stab at the leaflet, and bb was v happy with the more interactive exhibits, and we all came away having learnt something. indeed we all had to be dragged out a closing time!! by now both girls def au fait with the mary anning story and various types of local fossil. the museum had some books out which we have already got, and would recommend.

we made the mistake of walking uphill to the supermarket and then being caught in a torrential downpour. BB’s ability to walk evaporated, as did my ability to be patient. we then miserably staggered back to the car! luckilly a simple tea restored everybody’s equanimity!! and chris and i played my birthday present game – it has turned into our camping game, and v happy we are with it!

we have been away! we spent a weekend at a forest campsite with the porticos before moving on to charmouth to fossil!

we really needed a relaxing and regrouping time, and were lucky enough to get that. time to breathe really! the forest park bit was mostly spent cycling around the road, drinking tea and chatting. bb in particularly loves the opportunity to just cycle wildly around, and campsite roads are perfect. she often persuaded gwenny to cycle with her – who luckilly realised bb must always ‘win’, and i did some circuits on my lovely bike too. SB did a fair bit of games playing with ernest, and bb, buttercup and sb did convoluted games with schleich elves and such like. we did try a cycle ride in the forest which started well, until bb had a small strop about continuing, so we waited for chris to sort out trailgator and the others played swingin and jumping over trees and branches quite happily. a toilet need and a puncture meant we had to retire without really getting anywhere, but low key and relaxed anyway!!

next day we went to see some ‘wet stones’ at avebury – but actually didn’t rain much so were nice and dry. the children mostly ran about and rambled and pretended to listen to a short description of what they were seeing and the highlight for them was running up and down the huge ditch. gwenny and i talked about brains and pickling them- giggle, so i did at least educate one child! BB got her first bit of retail therapy in – nannabean had given them 10 each, and it was burning a hole in her pocket. she got some stones to share [which she did, bless] and some shark teeth which she loved.

picnic by the cars and then a debate about where to go next, which saw us off to caen locks as recommended by porticos. the high point for the girls was being allowed t open and shut 2 of the locks by one of the canal boats going through. oh, and the ice cream. bit rainy that night, but fine enough to take tent down in the morning, wave the porticos good bye and set off to charmouth.

we did, unfortunately, have a crisis on the drive down, chris had left bb’s shark teeth on the roof, and on driving off from the service station the inevitable happened… BB was disconsolate, in a very noisy and angry way for the next 2 hours…

i am limbo-ed at the moment. prob still stuck in grief, i don’t actually want time to move forward, moving me further away from nanny and her memory and love, and moving me forwards well, to somewhere i just don’t want to be considering at the moment.

however, i am determined that though i wish to be stuck in time, that i still want to love, play and grasp the day with my family. life is there to be lived to the full. i might not really be managing to, but i am trying, and i am very much hoping not to cast a gloom across family and friends.

at the weekend, we were a trifle gloomy though, going to get things from little nanny’s house. me and the girls went to entertain mum, and try and keep her going. although we had some communal weeping over family matters, we went out and about with the girls, and visited the church where she married and i was christened. the girls liked that. mum put in a prayer card. later that day the church was burgled and the silver stolen. honestly, how can people do that?

chris and dad were ably helped by Max – bless him, i’m sure he had no idea what he had signed up to!! and managed to get pretty much everything into the van and off. came back to merry’s sunday roast – giggle – atake away pizza, and had a chill out end to the day. helped keep me sane anyway.

mon was a work day for me, but the girls had sport, streetdance and then the home ed sports day – which even a few gallons of rain didn’t dampen. tho bb called down the forces of the gods when the icecream van drove off as she was waiting…

today the girls had their haircut. sb is very short and layered – and it looks utterly fab. bb’s is a bit layered but not so different.

and then we set off for little nanny’s funeral. my sister couldn’t be there, so that seemed like a huge gap. but the service was lovely. the vicar was v good actuallly – i think he is a vicar, it was a sort of c of e service at the crematorium. my nan wasn’t a church goer at all, and i have no idea if she had a belief. but, like us all, she did adore hymns. we had the lord is my shepherd, and a last minute plea from aunty margaret for i vow to thee my country. there may not have been many of us there – nanny had lost all of her closest friends, but some of her neighbours came, she has 2 remaining siblings, reggie came, but phyllis is too old to trek from newcastle, her b-i-l, uncle robert [peggy's husband] did come, and it was lovely to see him again. i gave robert and reggie big hugs, as with little nanny gone, i probably won’t meet them again. reggie i only met at aunty peggy’s funeral, but robert has been a constant. her remaining niece [liz from germany] and nephew came, as did one of their children, and obviously all of us direct descendents apart from my dear sis and family. and i think most of us sobbed our way through the ceremony, and afterwards hugged each other a lot. the girls cheered us all up afterwards by being a little too wild in the rain… and then back to little nanny’s house as a reduced gathering, where we all started to face up to life without nanny, which currently seems a bleak place to be. thankyou for all the wellwishing friends on brightkite, facebook and privately. i have been very touched.