What a stunning tree.

We took Captain Chaos for a walk this morning. Still trying to process yesterday’s school review meeting. Maybe it’s because I am tired but I just can’t get my head fully round it’s implications. It’s times like this when being a single parent sucks… No one to talk things through with. No voice of reason. So the ideas and words just keep swirling around.

I turned up carrying my 300 pages of notes (sorry Trees…). When I opened the paper pile a must do House DIY list dropped out. Sadly nothing can be ticked off the list from the last meeting. Where does all the time go.

The meeting lasted two hours. So many discussions. So many disagreements. So much frustration.

I suspect the best way to summarise is to see a never ending circle.

I ask for something. School confirm it’s not happened. Health Service says the need is real and should be met. School says they don’t have the resources to do this. School asks the Council for funds. Council says it’s not an education issue, it’s a health issue. Health Service says they don’t have the money and it’s an education issue. And on and on. If we give money to health to provide additional support then that has to come from the school and they then can’t even meet his minimum care standards. So Son has real unmet needs – everyone agrees on that but no one is prepared to provide the funds. Everybody at the meeting clearly cared about our son. Let’s be honest Health and Education have been hammered by our current Government. You can only cut things so far before things start falling apart.

Let’s quote our Prime Minister again

“I’m on your side….”

Just sod off. You are not on OUR SIDE. You are just looking after yourself. You don’t give a damm about kids like our son. Get back to looking at your, your husband and your friends off shore investments….

So the bottom line is Health are going to write to the Council and request additional funding. Council are going to write to the Health Managers and ask for additional funds. While our PM sits in Chequers and tries to find more desperate ways of staying in power. Go on May why don’t you bribe the DUP with billions of pounds of public funds again – while lecturing the rest of us that ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’. Madness.

More positively school are going to try some minor adjustments to see if that helps our son. They are also going to formally request exceptional one-off funding to pay for an in-depth dyslexia assessment. The funding probably won’t come but at least school now recognise the impact dyslexia is having on our son’s educational performance.

So hopefully at the next meeting we will have seen some progress and at the very least confirming that

  • Son has started getting some more tailored support,
  • I have started doing some of the DIY projects which are badly needed,
  • I will have gone paperless so more beautiful trees will be saved AND
  • our incompetent and distinctly unpleasant PM is consigned to historical ignominy…..

69 thoughts on “Trees”

  1. Its so complex isn’t it? I love your attitude to the whole thing though despite all the frustration. I think the hard thing is that for people in power they often have not a clue what certain people suffer or what the true needs are. It’s a beautiful beautiful tree.

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  2. I’m so sorry to hear about the struggle with your son’s school. It’s just a huge round about that it can’t be helped because all parties are unable to help. I hope that things change and begin to get better for you and your son. No kid should ever have to struggle through school. It’s just not fair.

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  4. So sorry that you and your son are having such an appalling time. Unfortunately your review meeting went entirely as one would expect with any degree of experience in any western education system. I do hope the school staff are starting to get used to you and are getting less defensive, wary etc, and even becoming a little friendly perhaps ? All the best for what is ahead.

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  5. Wondering how the meeting went. Thanks for the fill-in. Yes, high hopes and prayers that even some small adjustments will be made so that your son is better! Thanks for keeping your concerned readers informed!

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  6. You, sir, are stuck in what is termed as a ‘circle jerk’…and everything that implies.

    When I think of ‘world leaders’, I think of the puppet masters in the background. No supposed ‘leader’ rules alone. They all have handlers…those that put them there, those that keep them there and those that remove them. May is a figurehead, just like Trump. The REAL power, we can’t & won’t EVER see.

    I appreciate your righteous anger but, you are wasting your time raging against that machine. Throughout history, the Lords care not about the serfs…and that will never change.

    Love the beautiful tree…

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  8. I really hope they get all that funding. I forget how lucky we are with our son to have an IEP in place, and offers of aids or special accommodations if he needs them.

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  9. It is a truly beautiful tree – type of Birch? – or Beech maybe?? Love the photo! 🙂

    Thanks for the update, even if it must feel like banging your head against a tree! (so good when it stops… it just doesn’t stop in this case, it seems?)

    Your systems must be a little different to ours, but they are close enough that i can see the typical ‘local’ government versus ‘Federal’ government funding two-step. Everyone agrees there is a problem and that it should be fixed, but the local government (the ‘Council’??) wants the Feds (May’s Health Dept?) to provide the money and the Feds want the local’s to fund it and they pass the buck from one to the other and back again and nothing changes and both save the money for another ’round’ when the next person brings it up (or the same person does) and the bureaucracy continues ‘shuffling’ along.

    I used to work in our Federal Govt’s Education department – Iv’e seen it from the inside. 😦

    As i see it – it’s an EDUCATION issue. The school is the one who is supposed to be providing your son with the education he needs to be a productive member of society. The fact that he has a condition that may be medically diagnosed does not alter the school/education system’s responsibility to provide an acceptable level of education to your son. If your son was wheelchair bound it would be up to the school he attends to provide ramps etc to enable him to access the classroom and whatever other needs he had while attending.

    If you ever want a sounding board for ideas – you’ve got my email add. Anything, any time – OK?? I might least be able to make you smile, if nothing else! 🙂

    Now get baking Frank!

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    1. I have worked in both education and health. Before we started messing about within internal markets, competition and austerity the thought process was basically. If the problem is or could occur after school or college then it’s likely to be a health issue, otherwise it’s education. It was so much easier to work together. It was seen as public funds not ‘our budget or bottom line’. Thank you sir.

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      1. And a big ‘Thank You’ to you, my friend.

        Did you broach the topic of insufficient supervision in potentially dangerous school environments at all with them – surely that is their responsibility? A teacher’s aide should not come under a ‘Health’ budget surely?

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      5. I was thinking as in ‘The Left hand has no idea what the Right hand is doing… – School adminstration/Teachers supervision. 😦

        Not a good situation.

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  10. It seems the US and The UK have similar problems when it comes to kids. I don’t think that it’s something they prepared for during their inauguration and so they just pretend its not a problem.
    However, children with special needs are in need and the country’s (UK and US) biggest problem is, not giving a…well you know.
    As a parent of an ADHD child, I find I do A LOT of support health wise and education wise at home. Public school just doesn’t cut it, never has. They say they do a really good job, but, I know different. I don’t homeschool because that removes valuable social skills from her repertoire of growth.
    I’m moving across the country to a ”better” learning environment because where I live, children are just not important. Not to mention, Cleveland, Ohio is very crime infested.
    Trump is a…well you know.
    So, with that in mind, I look to the 2020 election with hope. Perhaps the county will turn around at some point and children will learn NOT to suffer from the fools of a corrupt figurehead in government.

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    1. Parents shouldn’t have to move to secure better health and education. But it happens in the U.K. to. Many of our areas are criminally making diagnosis much harder to get. Not on health grounds but on budgetary factors. You have got to have hope. I really hope the move works out for you. xx

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  11. Sad to see the terrible fight you are having. Sadly, nowadays, you have to fight for EVERYTHING, even very basic needs. Your son deserves so much better from our system. But I am really glad to see that there is SOME progress. It is a long fight. It tires you out. I know that, and feel your tiredness. I understand it. Sadly, the fight has to go on though. I wush you all the best Gary. You and your son deserve so much. Much much love to you xxxx

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  14. I admire your persistence and determination. I can easily it’s more frustrating than I imagine.

    As for the political dimension, I’m no political scientist, but what you describe strikes me as yet another manifestation of the ancient struggle for resources between the elites and the non-elites. Ever since our species gave up its hunting/gathering bands to live in hierarchical societies, there has been an endless struggle between those two groups. At least so far as I can see. Your mileage might vary.

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      1. Precisely why it’s always a mistake for us common folk to think the fight is won and we can long rest.

        What do you think, though? As I see it, your and my job — and the job of everyone else who has noticed anything at all about what’s going on — is consciousness raising. We don’t need to make careers of it, but it would be nice if we get the word out now and then.

        It seems to me it’s no accident that the elite/non-elite battle isn’t as well known with the public as perhaps something as important as it should be. Seems to me it’s a bit intentional it is not so well known.

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      2. It’s probably because the narrative is so closely defined by so few people now. It’s got worse. The likes of you and me are not supposed to think about this just get on with life. We are supposed to be purely cogs in the wheel. Wha do you think.

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  17. Totally understand your feelings of exhaustion and frustration over this. My son is now 33 but those constant school meeting when you have a child that is statemented is so hard. I empathize with your feeling of not having anyone to talk things through with, its the worst part of being a single parent.

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  18. Good for you. The fight is for other children as well. Your son will be fine as he grows older. He is truthful and thoughtful. He watches you and will fight also.:)

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