ADS and the winds of change

[justasking111]

All set onward and upward friends

Well gardening, heatwaves and water shortages Sheesh gonna be interesting water wise as the summer progresses

The joys of gardens and laptops!

Just saying hi here as I know you guys get me
i'm not really paying attention to the inquiry as I can't cope

I don't sit around thinking about it but sometimes, I'm on the train or something, I get flashes of my 2019 life and it hurts.

and then I have to shrug my shoulders and get on with my day

The inquiry isn't going to tell us anything. The outcome already decided before it started.

I am still dealing with the effects of lockdowns on my children. I tried my hardest to help them but there's only so much I can do.

for you@EmmaEmerald . I understand. And now there is an ever present fear that it could happen again for any reason.

I'm paying no attention to the enquiry coz it's a white wash. In Wales we're not bothering to have one all Drakeford is interested in are rainbow flags anyway

ISaySteadyOn agreeWhat I've seen of the reporting is exactly that, a whitewash.

As you all know, I had total brain fail in lockdown and I'm now really feeling the financial effects. I know I'm luckier than most but the lowness that comes with it all...argh.

I do feel so sorry for the children.

Yep I bet the enquiry concludes that we should have locked down earlier and whether we should have locked down at all wont even come into it

I remember at the height of the madness watching flights from all over the world landing at Heathrow airport from countries devastated by covid. Those flights were the first inkling I had that we were being conned.

@justasking111 Yes me too. We were all locked down while they were flying in and out

Unfair! He's also concerned that having forced parents to home educate for an extended period, a few of them now fancy carrying on doing it. Obviously this is unacceptable and guidance must be tightened.

So many children have disappeared from the normal state education system I know they're concerned in England.

https://www.monmouthshirebeacon.co.uk/news/education/welsh-government-questioned-over-home-school-plans-612017

This is all I can find about Wales. Our local primary school is busting at the seams 38 to a class, shared teaching, TAs laid off, promised building improvements to empty the porta cabins cancelled. It's a mess.

Drakeford doesnt want to take the consequences for his actions. Well whod have thunk it.

The problem with the new guidance (I'm wishing as someone in the home ed community) is that it leaves it up to the LA to decide both what a suitable education is and whether a child is recieving it, with no right of appeal. Some people have taken their children out of school because they couldn't cope with the school or were being bullied and the LA were unhelpful - now it's up to that same LA to decide whether the education is suitable.

There's also very confusing guidance about whether the LA has to meet with the children and what the circumstances of those meetings should be.

I know people will have vastly differing opinions of how home education should be monitored and I don't want to detail the thread but the main point is that in trying to solve the problem of his own making, Drakeford is likely to make things harder for families who are in fact successfully home educating.

Actually, it struck me in 2020 that they might try to ban home schooling.

I don't have children but I know two people who do home ed and I find it striking how much it can add to quality of life all round. The amount of unnecessary shit that kids do - arguably preparation for the workplace but if you have to do that shit as an adult, why not just wait?

I remember taking my grandson to the RSPB one sunny morning. There were four mums there each with children. They were having such fun doing the trails. Ended up back at the sand pit play area where they all had packed lunches. I discovered they were all home educators. It was a happy relaxed scene.

Today, we are off to the zoo to look at spiders for an essay I am having DD write. Yesterday we focused a lot on mathematics. After an initial nervousness, I am finding the flexibility very helpful to our quality of life.

To be fair "Making shit harder" could generally be Dripford's general mission statement.

Covid confirmed that my eldest needs the boundaries between "home" and "school" very very clearly defined and that, despite being a good teacher - I couldn't teach her as she's had a lifetime experience of how to push my buttons.

I'm a hell of a lot more "anti-school" than I used to be though - I won't blithely follow rules imposed now and I'll ask why and challenge, and I have zero fear of being what the MN teacher crowd would describe as being "that parent" since they showed fully just how much some of them loathe kids and their jobs and need to fecking retire. Likewise - term time holidays - I would NEVER have done those previously and would have apologised profusely if I needed to pull the kids out of a school day early for a medical appointment or whatever - these days I don't even make a request - I just say "they will be absent at X date, their attendance is good and I understand that this will be recorded as unauthorised" and do it. The goodwill is totally and utterly gone between me and wanting to respect the teaching community at large now - I'll respect the ones who do right by my kids, but after what the lockdown-loving, SEN-hating, schools should never have reopened one put DD2 through, which we've never recovered from academically completely losing one year of academic progress and no end of self-esteem... fuck indiscriminate respect and backing teachers you know are half-arsing it. With DD2 I could probably do a better job than the pandemic years at school did her academically - but she needs the social interaction to improve her speech - I can have her speaking beautifully if I push the SALT tasks, but she needs that range of interaction to generalise it.

Coffee that sounds good to me. I find it odd that schools have all that stuff going on.

You've moved home, am I right?

Moved within the local area - we needed more space for a very very long time - especially since things went more WFH/hybrid, so getting my current job opened that all up for us a bit more. Lockdowns and home schooling/home working/home uni in a 2 bed house, really closely packed houses and tiny gardens so loads of garden noise - almost broke me completely.

Coffee I remember you wanted to ditch those memories, I hope it's helped?

When I went on walks, I was horrified at the amount of garden noise. As a general trend, it seems to be getting worse, but in lockdown it was particularly awful.

That's interesting about the garden noise because where I am, it was really creepily silent for a while so when my neighbours out back started playing music, I felt relief. Someone was living!

It helps that they have good taste in music and always turn it off at a reasonable hour though.

@CoffeeWithCheese you sound like my DILs. They now take the children out of school with my blessing. They'll take a long weekend the other week booked a cheap Airbnb two nights the children surfed, caught fish, built fires. They ate lobster and squid.

As for school one middle aged teacher is a lazy mare and unpleasant with it. Parents try to keep their kids out of her class. Other teachers have put in complaints it all falls on deaf ears.

Another teacher who's older during covid refused to work because her OH was vulnerable, when the kids went back they had to use so much hand sanitizer some of the five year olds had eczema type problems on their hands. She'd scream at them through a mask and visor, put everything on the TA who completely lost it in the playground when a child dallied coming in. Unfortunately for the TA the mother and friend were passing the school saw it all and reported her. The teacher and TA denied it but CCTV luckily confirmed it.

The head backs up these lazy teachers every time it's baffling.

Me I tell my children to be that parent and advocate for your children, because no-one else will the governors are either nodding donkeys or quit

Does anyone have a share token for this?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lockdowns-were-wrong-why-did-no-10-ignore-me-lvq252l9v

@JenniferBooth www.thetimes.co.uk/article/91e30fa8-11e5-11ee-9673-09365d127a9f?shareToken=c193b6879be5abb84d9ec854039c53a9