and finished them a few hours ago - I’m really pleased with them as I had no idea if they’d turn out ok.
I’m now making a sleeve to finish a raglan sweater I started about a year or so ago for a 12m old, and will hopefully be ok for this baby next winter (it’s blue, so no problem with the colour) and then I’m going to knit a very, very simple cardigan with some wool DH is buying for me today which shouldn’t take too long - it really is very simple. All in garter stitch, and all in one piece with no collar. Hopefully I’ll be able to have it made by the time the baby comes and I’m planning on starting something for Flopsy or Mopsy - something nice and complicated for them to wear next winter. I expect it won’t be finished until baby number 3 is the right age for it, but ho hum! It’s the process that counts (so I keep telling myself!) and I’m really enjoying having something to be doing that’s practical and creative to keep my mind off the fact that I’m about to be letting go of what could well be my last baby. I don’t really want this one to be born as I don’t want to share it with anyone - is that selfish? With Flopsy and Mopsy I moaned and whined my way through my last few weeks - back ache, indigestion, inability to eat anything I wanted, not sleeping etc. etc. but then both times we were expecting to have more. This time we think it might be the last baby we have, which makes me want to hang onto this pregnancy as long as possible and is making me far, far more tolerant of the unpleasant bits of late pregnancy that I was with either of the girls. I’ve actually cried a couple of times at the thought of this pregnancy ending - no more feeling those lovely kicks and tumbles in my tummy. That’s something I’ve always felt sad at losing, but the idea it might be the last time I feel it makes me feel especially sad. Oh well, nothing I can do to stop it happening, and there are so many wonderful things to come once it’s born - cuddling a tiny little being again, seeing the girls’ reaction to him/her, seeing his/her reaction to the girls.
Flopsy and Mopsy have stuffed their shoes with bread and have moved their chairs into the middle of the kitchen. They are now sitting side-by-side on their eating their bread out of their shoes:
I’ve been burying my head in the sand about this (ashamedly!) but at last have realised that I need to act, just as so many of my fellow HEors and HEors-to-be are doing. UK HEors who aren’t yet aware of the worrying situation, and all of our wonderful friends and family who support our decision to autonously educate our children, please read this post (from Carlotta) and if you feel you can, follow the suggestions Carlotta makes. Over the next week or so I’ll be making my way through the list myself. Many thanks!
Home Educators everywhere:
If you are not already aware, it may be of interest to Home Educators to know that the government are preparing to look at the way that home education is monitored and otherwise controlled. This is being done under the aegis of the Department for Education and Skills, (the DfES), the government dep’t that is responsible for developing strategies in education. Part of their remit is to aim to achieve excellence for all and their functions will accord with the Every Child Matters agenda. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/aboutus/
Following last year’s DfES consultation on draft local authority Home Education guidelines, in which many local authorities expressed frustration at not being able to monitor home education as they would prefer, and which many HEors felt did not adequately or fairly represent the views of a large portion of the HE community, the DfES intend to conduct another consultation on Elective Home Education. The DfES describe the proposed consultation as being “a full one, conducted via the Department’s consultation website.”..where they hope to ensure that the documents are accessible to as many people as possible. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/
Put simply, it appears that the DfES is considering using the Every Child Matters Agenda to insist that HEors conform to standards as decided by the state. This could mean that they would like to impose a system of routine monitoring to assess progress. It would
also, in all probability, mean that they would like to intervene in the matter of educational content, either explicitly through the imposition of a curriculum or through the method of punitive monitoring.
The DfES’s complaint with the current system is that whilst schools are subject to close inspection, home educators appear to get away with it and that “whilst s437 of the Education Act 1996 provides a remedy for LAs which have concerns that there may be no suitable provision, this is unwieldy, time consuming and expensive and in some cases will be nugatory where home educators are making good provision but are resistant to LA enquiries.”
To keep Home Education as we know and love it,
1/ Write to Elaine Haste of the Elective Home Education Department (DfES) at Elaine.HASTE@dfes.gsi.gov.uk or at info@dfes.gsi.gov.uk and ask to be included on a list of those who receive information about the consultation.
sample letter/email to DFES :
“I am a home educating parent. I understand that there is to be a DFES consultation about light touch changes to the “monitoring” of home educated children. Please keep me informed of any further developments with regard to this consultation.
Yours sincerely”
Elaine Haste
Elective Home Education
DfES
Mowden Hall,
Darlington
DL3 9BG.
( If you would rather remain more anonymous, I understand that you can create a hotmail account, or use a new e-mail address, but I do need to research this more, I’m afraid. )
NB: This does NOT mean that you have taken part in the consultation and the DfES cannot honestly claim that you have. The reason why this last point is important is that HEors who are experienced in the area of government consultations are rightfully cynical about the uses to which these exercises are put. On previous occasions, HEors have found that they may as well have been shouting at the moon, since their views were not adequately or fairly represented in any conclusions or practice, though the DfES nonetheless was able to band it about that they had consulted us.
So why bother signing up now if we don’t plan to actually take part in the consultation? Signing up is important because the DfES needs to know just how many of us they are going to have to deal with. They need to realise just how many of us will resist changes in a serious way. If the ptb think that they currently have significant problems with the dealing with HEors under the present legislation, they need to realise just how many more problems they are going to have should they change the situation in the way they appear to intend. This will only happen if the numbers of us who look as if we are going to be resistant to change really stack up.
If thousands of us dig in our heals, refuse automatic monitoring, refuse to use their curricula, and make it quite clear how much trouble we are going to give them, I think they will think twice about going down the route of increased monitoring and interference. The law may be awkward to enforce now, (and so it should be, imo, for otherwise we would live in a police state) but it will be a damn sight more difficult for them to enforce if they try to change it, for not only will they find themselves issuing bundles of expensive SAOs, but they will also find out that many of our children have unusual educational needs for which they will rightfully have to cater.
2/ Spread awareness. Send this post (or improved version) anywhere you think helpful. Tell at least 4 other HEors what is going on and get them to sign up, as above. Get them to tell at least 4 others. Put this on Local HE Lists everywhere. Blog the story if you have an HE or any other kind of blog. Use this explanation there if you don’t have the time to re-write it fully.
3/ Spread the positive word about home education (personalised learning, healthy happy children etc ) possibly using the recent media stuff about “toxic childhood”. This would be the “battle of hearts n minds” stuff.
4/Sign the petition at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HErights/
5/ If you are a member of Education Otherwise you might want to communicate your feelings to the EO Government Policy Group about what you would ideally like EO to be doing about all this. You could also speak to your Local Contact. If you are a member of any other home education support organisation (or you know anyone who is) please pass on general information about the forthcoming DFES consultation.
6/ If you have any energy left, I would also write to your MP, whose seat will doubtless be a much more marginal than it has been for years. Tell her/him , for example, that you don’t want your private family life invaded, that should the situation change and HEors be told what to do, you believe that changes will lead to a challenge in the law that holds that parents should be responsible for the education of their children and that you will encourage parents everywhere whose children are failed by the state system to sue the state for it’s woeful failure….see this by way of an example.
HEors managed to resist similar state encroachment in the US. They jammed the switchboards, looked as if they could be an expensive problem, and frightened candidates by threatening to use their vote in this consideration alone. We can do it here too.
Do copy anywhere if useful.
This is what we did this morning - thanks Mum, for thinking it up and buying the materials:
The Daily Mail had this article yesterday. A snippet:
The report showed that the proportion of both primary and secondary schools deemed inadequate virtually doubled to seven per cent and 13 per cent respectively over the last year.
So essentially, what Ofsted are saying is that the Government is crap at ensuring that schools provide children with a good education and that the situation is in fact getting worse! And the Government think that they are qualified to interfere in home education???? If they can’t even ensure a good education in schools, how can they possibly think they’re going to be able to ensure that HE’d children will get a good education?
Tomorrow I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant, which means that in one week’s time I’ll be classed as ‘term’ and baby could, in theory, healthily arrive any time from now on. It also means that in only two week’s time, if my last two pregnancies are anything to go by, I’ll start the joyful process of two weeks of pre-labour - waking each night with twinges and wondering if by the next morning I’ll be in labour. Luckily this time round I’ll be expecting it and certainly will not be getting my hopes up each night! I hereby pledge to completely ignore any contractions that can be talked through! (ha ha! As if! I defy any pregnant woman close to her due date to get through runs of contractions without getting her hopes up!). Oh gosh! It’s all going too fast - must get wrapping Christmas presents - hope DH remembers to bring home some wrapping paper tonight. And must remember to ask mum if she’s got round to washing the baby clothes yet - I feel like I ought to have them ready in their drawers soon - and if she’s managed to get any of the extra baby-gros and vests we needed. Anyone got any nice knitted baby cardigans and bootees going begging? I seem to remember Mopsy wearing heaps of them when she was a winter newborn, yet you can’t buy them anywhere for some reason - probably not ‘fashionable’ enough at the moment. I wonder if I’ll be able to knit something myself before the baby comes…eek…overwhelming nesting urge coming on…must look for newborn knitting patterns asap! Oh my goodness - I just can’t wait to cuddle a tiny little newborn again! Especially that first moment when I hold it the second it’s born - all slippery and warm and incredible and beautiful and…hold on…need a tissue…really hope the girls are awake to see it being born. Flopsy wants to find out the sex for us - she wants a boy but we want another girl as all our baby stuff is girly. It’ll turn out very expensive if we’ve got to replace it all with less flowery/pinky/lacy stuff! I feel a bit like there’s something major I’ve got to get ready that I’ve forgotten to take account of - I’ve got nappies, ordered new wraps, made liners so that’s all ok. Mum’s in charge of clothes so that’s all ok. All the Christmas presents are ordered and we’re just waiting for them to come in the post. DH will get the Christmas box down from the loft with the Advent calendar in on Tuesday - his next day off and last one before Advent starts. We’ve tried out the birthing pool and we know where that’s going and how to fill it etc. We’ve moved the front room round a little so that we know we can move things easily to fit the Christmas tree in. We don’t do very many Christmas cards so that’s one less thing to worry about. Mum hosts Christmas Day each year so don’t have to worry about that. Need to get a stocking for the baby (got the presents) in case he/she comes before Christmas - yes, I know the baby won’t care if he/she gets pressies or not this year, but Flopsy and Mopsy will be very concerned if he/she gets forgotten! Dh needs to get the baby car seat down from the loft when he goes up there next week…and the moses basket. We also need to wash and make up the baby bouncy chair - something I found invaluable with both girls as babies! Should the baby ‘bring’ a present for the girls, I wonder? Must talk to DH about that. Mind you, they’re both so excited about the baby coming (Flopsy says she’s looking forward to the baby more than she’s looking forward to Christmas!) that they probably couldn’t care less about whether or not he/she comes bearing gifts! I still can’t access that niggling thing that I think I’ve forgotten! Hopefully it will come to me soon.
Sorry to anyone who read through that rambling post hoping for something of interest to pop up at some point…sometimes blogging is the best way to get thoughts in order, I find!
…perfectly illustrated by Allie. I’ve talked on and off about this subject throughout my blogging time, but to read an adult’s account of what they genuinely felt as a child trying to live up to expectations is so powerful - much more so than speculation about what our children feel when we praise them or label them.
Today Dh took Flopsy and Mopsy out for an Autumnal walk to a local country park where there are a few farm animals to see and lots of trees dropping their beautiful orange, yellow, brown and red leaves all over the place. Oh yes, and, most importantly, lots of muddy puddles! Flopsy’s been taking lots of photos with various family members’ mobile phones lately and DH let her have a go with the digital camera today and here are the results:
We’re really impressed, as we have been with her phone photos recently. We had wanted to get her a digital camera for Christmas, but we are aware that it would be much better if we could go into a shop and try some out. Unfortunately I’ve got to the stage of pregnancy where I just can’t manage shopping without my back becoming really painful so that option was sadly out. Hopefully she’ll still be keen on having one for her birthday in May, though and we’ll be able to go and spend a nice long time choosing her the right one.
Here are some photos DH took of the pair of them today:
It’s a real bugbear of mine that breastfeeding is blamed for tooth decay in babies and toddlers. It doesn’t make any sense that something so natural would cause something that, only a few hundred years ago, would stopped huge numbers of children surviving and potentially ended the human race. There is very little scientific basis for the myth and a lot of scientific evidence dispelling it. I’ve just added an article I’ve written on the subject to my ‘pages’ section. Hope someone finds it helpful!
Sorry! It’s for no reason other than that I’ve been focussing on birth preparation and NCT things. I had also been considering changing our blog rather dramatically, or maybe even closing it completely, but have decided against it. I’ve discovered the Baby Milk Action blog which is very useful and going straight onto my blogroll. Look at yesterday’s post on there for some information about the Body Shop/L’Oreal situation and Anita Roddick’s ‘interesting’ take on the situation - apparently, despite encouraging boycotts as a way of adding consumer pressure throughout her working life, she now says “…boycotts rarely work and the people you hurt are primarily the weak and the frail. And when all you do is boycott then there is no chance of getting a lever on the way the world is.” Isn’t it sad how nearly everyone seems to be prone to corruption when large amounts of money are involved, even when they’ve spent their working lives trying to prevent such corruption?
Mopsy is now sitting on my knee saying ’stop working, Mummy, stop working’ so I’ll stop writing now with a promise to try and blog more regularly again!
