ADs don't want your freedom, ADs don't want to play around

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎵 Every day I hear a different story
People sayin' that you’re no good for me
Saw your lover with another
And she’s making a fool of you, oh

🎵 If you love me baby, you'd deny it
But you laugh and tell me I should try it
Tell me I’m a baby, and I don't understand

Go Wham!

I lost you for a bit... hello again everyone.

Good luck and all that to everyone catapulting a child back into school today, or this week. (Or previously, I think the kids here (Scotland) went back a week or more ago.)

and all round, no fees, no bullshit.

Went into my GP’s surgery for the first time since February this morning, I wore my lanyard and it was OK. The only odd thing was that they are now keeping repeat prescription request forms behind the counter instead of in the magazine holder type thing they have always been in. I assume it was “because of COVID” but they had other things like leaflets in the racks.

I succeeded. For anyone else worrying, no one cares. It was a complete mixture of masks and no masks which I found reassuring. Londoners appear to be back to totally ignoring each other as it should be .

Also, anybody besides me have y6es?

I've now got a yr6

Had a good dose of normal helping with the first school swimming lesson. I was even back in the school building for the first time since 18th March 2020!
They loved the swimming. Unfortunately they'll only get half the time as it resets back to the usual split of timings, they should be on their second half now. The year above had their time completely disrupted and cut up. They managed about 3 weeks before lockdown then got a bit of catch-up in the summer term, but only about a third of the usual time.

It's the secondary schools I am worrying about now.

@ISaySteadyOn

It's the secondary schools I am worrying about now.

Same here, especially with SEN involved. We didn't manage to get an EHCP either, he's coping sufficuently in primary. I decided not to appeal. It has been recognised that he needs enhanced transition, but I just don't feel lile I have any game changing evidence to make it worthwhile and it would have been on the late side to support choosing a secondary. If he hadn't have been out of school March-Sept 2020...

I never did have a proper face to face conversation with either DC's teachers last year. Some things were done by video call but I find that much harder to retain.
At the moment I'm trying to get myself back to my own "normal" and an EHCP battle is not going to help with that; a different story if it was likely to work.

ifs.org.uk/publications/15592

Nothing surprising. The ADs were predicting all this a long time ago.

I just hope this school year is better without the threat of bubbles popping all the time...

I lost the AD threads, but glad I found you all again.

@BogRollBOGOF

ifs.org.uk/publications/15592

Nothing surprising. The ADs were predicting all this a long time ago.

I just hope this school year is better without the threat of bubbles popping all the time...

I'm glad people are pointing this out. I'm slightly concerned it's going to be used as a stick to beat electively home educating parents with (look, home schooling isn't as good as school!) but it's good that people explicitly have to acknowledge that school/ bubble closures damage children's education (and deprived children's education more).

The next step would be acknowledging that teacher assessed grades widened the gap between pupils from deprived backgrounds and those who are not. It looks like Wales may be moving towards more teacher assessed grades in general so at the very least this needs to be carefully monitored.

I know there were mums in my daughters class (always the mum!) who had time tabled several hours daily learning during lockdown, and had children willing and able to do the learning, and the mums were either furloughed or not working so had the time.

Then there were mums like me, working full time with reluctant/ dyslexic/ dyscalculia 10 year old learners who barely managed 30 minutes. Thankfully there are no academic pressures to contend with so all good and DD gets extra support at school anyway.

I’m sure a large proportion of children did zero schooling whilst schools were shut.

Perhaps the only saving grace is that our schooling system means that pupils of similar background and parentage end up at the same school so teachers won’t have a massive disparity in the classroom, but an entire generation of school children are now in a desperate situation. But I guess it’s more fodder for the sink universities in years to come.

I tried v hard to homeschool and failed quite badly at it. There's making a conscious decision to do it and then there is the last two years where people have, essentially, been forced into it. Conflating the two is wrong.

I am, however, not too bad at finding non dementory schools . Where I may get to work in the library.

Frocking hell - this was shared on an AD WhatsApp group.

It has bits that are farcical (moshing as a behaviour and Wimbledon as an ideal way to have large gatherings- no hugging or kissing of strangers when a favoured player scores!)

But then You read further into the perfectly normal behaviour that it seeks to change and how to enforce the new desired behaviours by using group psychology.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753521000886

It’s absolutely terrifying that these people want to turn us into mindless compliant idiots.

So at a festival we will all wear masks with our favourite band logo, not sing along, not mix with other groups, we shall instead stand like zombies, clap politely and not sing, because we want to demonstrate we re good members of our chosen group.

It’s exactly the same manipulation used when the mask mandate was lifted. Non mask wearers are selfish impolite inconsiderate ‘others’ while mask wearers are unselfish, polite and considerate. Of course there is never any explanation or thought put into why those adjectives are used or if there is any truth to them, just mindless repetition which sadly is effective (see another thread where people were mortified if they forgot their mask to nip into the local shop). There is no doubt in my mind that the last months have led to a massive increase in knowledge of how to manipulate the public and which buttons to press to create behaviours. Unfortunately there is a naive presumption that those doing the pushing have our best interests at heart.

Which leads to another question? It is obvious that the best thing to support the nhs is a mass population level lifestyle overhaul. So why are the social manipulators not pressing those buttons instead of seeking ways to turn moshers into robots?

WTAF is really going on?

Well I’m a uncaring non mask wearer.
Even the shops seem to have given up, empty hand sanitiser, hardly any mask wearing and nobody seems to care anymore.

It's helping me get over my public transport anxiety.

We had a family birthday, family and friends together in the garden and house youngest 2, oldest 74 about thirty of us. We had the best time lots of hugs and kisses, so carefree. Not a mask or nervous twitch in sight.

As it should be. That sounds lovely

I'm so bored with it all now. Sent kids to school with a cough this morning. They had a cold and it's gone on the chest, as it does for most kids. 🤷🏻‍♀️ expecting a phonecall 📞 but couldn't not try.

Better they go to school if they can. I'm with you.

I had a tired one whinging about a headache... it is most likely to be the depletion of back to school energy and being done in after 3 days, plus wanting to keep up the hours of his insomniac older brother despitethe fact he needs more sleep. He's made it to the end of the day anyway.

Had lost you for a while there.

I'm half French and have a few French friends locally. I'm sure you all know the traditional French greeting among friends (la bise).
Saw a couple of new friends on 14 July: after a moment's hesitation, we all gave each other a kiss on the cheeks. Saw another French friend in town a couple of weeks ago, stopped, kiss on cheeks. Saw a different friend today, I went for a kiss, she had offered her elbow. She was shocked. Oh no, we don't do that anymore, no-one in France does it (she has been there for school holidays). So obviously there are different attitudes. (But my parents were in France too this summer and definitely hugging their family).

Went to Cheshire oaks yesterday was lovely only a few mask wearers there was sanitizer at the entrances few used it. Lunch at cafe rouge pretty normal. They're very short staffed though. Wasn't busy .

Discovered Costco wows, Christmas decorations galore

I really don't get elbows as a greeting. They're hard and knobbly and you end up at least as close as a handshake. Plus I always did sneeze into my elbow

I've done enough grumbling about the UK in the past 18m but there are worse places to be and I'm very glad to not be in France.

We've had quite a number of ADs with French connections!

Costco does its seasons early, so now is the time for their Christmas stuff, it'll go soon after Halloween!

Hello again lovely people.

My state in Australia is still Covid free and we still have a mask mandate. My experiment in light civil disobedience continues. I only wear a mask in places it seems sensible (pharmacy or GP waiting room) or if me not wearing one would put undue pressure on a poor mask wearing staff member just trying to do their job. Oh and if I were to travel I’d wear it in the airport and during the flight.

In case anyone is wondering - yes I believe Covid is real and I’m double vaccinated.

The result so far is that not one person has said a thing to me about not wearing one! I’ve been pleasantly surprised.