Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 105 Comments

Moody

It’s been one of those days. Lack of sleep, work piling up, house falling to bits, nothing seeming to go to plan. Mood level – somewhere between not great and moody. This photograph sorta sums it up.

Well Son went to school for the first time since he had his accident at school last week. He was still in a lot of pain but we decided to give it a go. Dosed up on child painkillers he was dropped off. School given clear instructions to contact me immediately if he was struggling with the pain and I would pick him up.

No phone call came from school so I assumed things went ok. If only.

Apparently during his first lesson the pain started to get worse. At the end of the lesson the class teacher noticed he was struggling and he was told to get his bag and go to reception. Reception then sent him to see a senior teacher – a teacher who has had no contact with our son previously. Son told him the circumstances, that he was struggling with pain and the instructions I had given school. The teacher went onto the computer and after a few seconds said something like

“You have had a lot of time off. Your attendance record is too poor for you to be sent home. Go to reception get some painkillers and then go to your next lesson.”

So he stayed in school, in pain and in his words not able to concentrate on any of his lesson.

Mood level now – pissed off.

Yes his attendance record has dropped below 95% – a Government target. Yet that’s because he has had two accidents AT SCHOOL which have required hospital intervention and medically approved time off. Take those out and his record is just about 100%.

So it appears that if attendance drops below 95% then regardless of pain level or illness, a child will not be sent home. However a child with an attendance over 95% would be sent home. Apparently today a girl fell over and hurt her knee. She was in tears and clearly in a lot of pain but was not sent home due to her attendance record. Yet a boy who had a sore throat was sent home because they had a good attendance record.

Mood level now – Apoplectic.

So tomorrow I will drop off son and then demand to see the Headteacher. The only reason I’m not doing it now is that son wants me to calm down as he doesn’t trust me at the moment. That is probably a really good call.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 119 Comments

Tell me why

In my voice – Tell me why

  • My partner was taken from us when she was so young.
  • The system continually fails our son.
  • The Government can find billions to bribe other parties to keep it in power but can’t find the money to fund education support for the kids who need it.
  • I don’t sleep anymore.
  • They say the world is getting smaller yet I feel so isolated.
  • Chocolate has so many blooming calories.
  • Hair doesn’t like growing on my head yet it sprouts like an Amazonian Forest on the back of the my hands.
  • The cat continually finds a way into the wardrobe.
  • I can’t find any socks in this house.
  • They never made a Captain Scarlet movie.

In our son’s voice – Tell me why

  • My mum had to die.
  • Both my grannies had to die.
  • My hamster had to die.
  • My girl cat who was like a sister to me had to die.
  • I can’t read.
  • Some people think I am stupid just because I am autistic and dyslexic.
  • Shops have to be so busy.
  • Hazard is leaving Chelsea.
  • Do people have to kiss in films.
  • Marvel Movies are way better than DC Movies.
  • Most kids don’t like rock music.
  • Broccoli wasn’t deemed an inedible plant.
  • My Dad can’t cook.
  • In our dogs voice – Tell me why
      • I get shouted at for pinching socks.
      I get shouted at for digging holes.
      I get shouted at for eating garden tools.
      I get shouted at for eating garden furniture,
      I get shouted at for digging up plants.
      I get shouted at for burying stuff like socks.
      I get shouted at for pulling bits of the apple tree off.
      I get shouted at for escaping.
      I get shouted at for climbing in the hedge.
      I get shouted at for eating cat poo, cow poo, sheep poo.
      I get shouted at for pinching food.
      My best friend isn’t with us anymore. I know I am a dog but she was a really cool cat.

    In our boy cats voice – Tell me why

    • My sister isn’t with us anymore.

    • My best friend, the really lovely woman has gone. I miss siting on her lap.
    • I get shouted at for missing the cat litter by several feet.
    • I get really shouted at for missing the litter by so many feet I hit the wall.
    • I get shouted at for sitting in front of the TV when a movie is on.
    • I get shouted at for sneaking into the wardrobe and getting white hairs on all the black clothes.
    • I get shouted at for falling in hot plates of food.
    • I get shouted at for always tripping people up.
    • I get shouted at for sleeping on the laptop.
    • I get shouted at for sleeping on the toaster.

    In our gerbils voice – Tell me why

    • We don’t live in a toilet roll factory.
    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 55 Comments

    More school days like this

    We have had some big anxiety attacks and tough times recently so it’s nice to have a stress free post.

    “Dad I shared a desk with a ladybird today. He watched a bit of history with me.”

    It’s always good to get close to nature. Especially when you are at school.

    “I wish all school days could be this good”

    The school has a system that everyday a pupil is taken out of classes and assigned to school reception. Basically for the day they deliver messages, photocopy stuff and do admin tasks. It’s supposed to broaden their horizons. Today was our son’s turn. It certainly broadened his.

    “Basically every so often I would deliver a message to a teacher. It was funny when the receptionist asked me to deliver a message to a teacher and the teacher was stood at reception. I delivered it without moving. Then I had to deliver a message about a kid who couldn’t come in today as he had come down with flu – he said he was doing this yesterday as he hated French.”

    “Greta would be very annoyed with me. Every time I used the photocopier I kept getting the paper upside down. Wasted so many sheets. I did get a great copy of my hand”

    You can’t believe how relieved I was when he said hand….

    So what happened when you had no work to do.

    “I went to see the teachers and they just sent me back to reception. Finally one teacher told me to go to the library and get a book to read. Ha ha he doesn’t know I’m dyslexic. So I improvised”

    Did it involve your iPad and games.

    “Not entirely. Yes I played some very educational games like Space Invaders and Sonic. But I also watched a historical thing about how bad the British Empire was and how the navy went after Pirates.”

    So you watched Pirates of the Caribbean.

    “Yes. What a top day.”

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 45 Comments

    Parent Evening

    Sometimes school does make me laugh. On his return from school today I found a severely scrunched up piece of paper. It’s the invite to the annual parent/teacher consultation. I’ve got to decide which teachers I want to see. Tick the appropriate boxes then get ‘your son or daughter to arrange times with the teachers’.

    I just looked at our son and said that’s not going to happen is it really. Son smiled and said

    “Never in a million years”

    Then we both burst into fits of laughter when we read the next bit of the letter.

    We are happy for students to attend with their parents. School uniform is not required but we do ask that students do not chew gum or wear hats whilst inside the school building.

    WHAT

    “Dad isn’t that Hatist …”

    Yes son it’s very anti hat and it’s also very anti kiddie as well. So apparently it’s ok for an adult to chew gum and wear a hat but not a child.

    “Dad does that mean that I’m ok going in nude or wearing a satanic cross as long as I’m not wearing a hat..”

    Apparently so.

    So we probably won’t get any teacher appointments booked but we are still turning up so I can wear the biggest and silliest hat I can find at the charity shop.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 93 Comments

    Storm Bunker

    We had a large thunder storm pass over this afternoon. The cat was taking no chances. After the first bang he made his way to his storm bunker.

    Unbelievably the early morning cinema screening was very full. The cinema was mobbed. Not seen crowds like that since the ‘Everything for a Pound’ Store had a sale. It’s not a statistical significant sample population but from the early morning hordes I guess that The Avengers movie is going to pull in some astronomical numbers.

    And yes it is an astonishing movie.

    Yes the crowds unsettled our son but we took our customary place on the front row so no one could be in front of him or to the left of him. It’s so close to the big screen that I come away feeling like I’ve been chewing on magic mushrooms but it works for him.

    For 3 hours we both lost ourselves in the Marvel Universe. All our problems and anxieties forgotten. Heroic deeds fill your heart. With even a bit of free grief counselling thrown in by Captain America. But sadly it doesn’t last. You eventually find yourself back in the same place with the same issues.

    In fact it feels like we have regressed. Fifteen months ago we eventually secured some anxiety counselling for our son. I say ‘we’ as the fight to get some help started while my partner was still very much with us. It seemed to really benefit him. Progress was starting to be made. But now due to cutbacks that support has dried up. The anxieties are building and it feels like the system has cast him adrift again. We have been lucky really – far too many families get zero help – all they get is patronising comments from politicians who have no interest beyond their off shore bank accounts and rich friends.

    So as the thunder rumbles on we try to fight demons. Health anxieties, fear of death, school anxieties, friend anxieties, social anxieties, reading anxieties, fear of being left alone anxieties…..

    I’m no psychologist. I’m no health professional. I’m no education specialist. I’m not a grief counsellor. I’m just a parent trying to figure out this increasingly bizarre world with no one to help guide me. Doing the best I can. Deep down this scares me as what chance do I have when I can’t even come close to fixing myself. Queue worried face. 😱

    Pleased to report the immediate threat to life and property must have passed as the cat has made his way back to his favourite chair again. That’s one less worry to deal with.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 70 Comments

    Bogless Garden

    The Bog Garden needs some rain to become boggy again. Maybe soon as storms are forecast. It can’t be much fun being a bogless garden.

    Making friendships can be difficult for our Son. Maybe it’s part of his Aspergers, maybe it circumstances, maybe it’s something else. He loves texting a cool friend but they are separated my thousands of miles. He doesn’t often get to meet up with kids his age. Son has come across a few really nice kids. They let him tag along sometimes. He does like the feeling of spending times with friends. I think we all need that somedays.

    However the kids will often talk about the stuff they do. The meet-ups, the sleepovers, the trips, the clubs and birthday parties. Stuff he doesn’t get the chance to experience that often. That’s tough for a kid. Also after a while they often split into pairings and son tends to be left by himself. You see the kids walking in one direction and son heading by himself in another direction. I can tell when he comes back that he’s kinda sad. He’s so enjoyed the time with them but it does make him feel lonely. Today was a good example..

    As he walked back slightly apart from two of the other kids I asked if he was ok.

    “I think it’s time to go Dad. I’ve had fun and they have been very nice to me. But it was getting a bit awkward as they are best friends and wanted time to themselves. I could tell. It’s time to see my best friend my dog.”

    I’m so pleased he is getting a bit of time with kids his age. But I get so down thinking about the wider picture for him. I really get how he feels for one very good reason.

    I feel the same with my life. I get to link with a number of really close friends online but they are many many miles away. I occasionally get the chance to spend time with some really nice people. But they have their own life’s, their own close friend groups, their own families. I hear about the stuff they do, the holidays, the nights out, the meals, the parties, the romantic moments. I’m so pleased they get to do that stuff, they are such nice people that they deserve the happy times. But it’s stuff I don’t get to do anymore. A life I feel excluded from. That’s such a lonely and soul destroying feeling. I’m old and gnarled….. that’s just tough luck for me. BUT you just don’t want your kid(s) to experience the same feeling. All we can do is crack open a couple of sodas, hit the trampoline and see how many footballs our dog can destroy today. Time to try and forget stuff.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 57 Comments

    Money is clearly everything.

    Our local council is North Yorkshire County Council.

    Over a year ago our Local Council agreed to make savings of £2m to its service budget. Unbelievably our Council decided to end free home to school transport for disabled and special needs pupils aged 16 to 18 years old.

    This is the same council who does not provide any specialist support to kids with dyslexia.

    This is the same council who has been cutting the size of Educational Health Care Plan grants to disabled and special needs kids who somehow manage to get through the tough pre qualification assessment. Penalising the very kids who need the highest level of support.

    Today our Conservative Council – that’s the same party our Prime Minister heads, thats the Prime Minister who recently said ‘I’m on your side” – announced that the first year of the cut has resulted in a £800k saving. The Council reviewed itself on this issue and concluded that “the implementation of the policy has not had a detrimental impact on the ability of young people accessing their education”

    Well that’s well earned pat on the back for the Council then. Is it just me who gets beyond severely pissed off with this – please tell me if I’m missing the point with this because I will happily crawl back into my little hole if it is just me.

    Maybe some of our esteemed councillors should venture out of their plush council chambers, get into their Jaguar, BMW or Mercedes cars and actually see what the real world is like for a change.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 56 Comments

    Hermione

    On the other side of this Bush is a stunning view yet it’s blocked by plant beauty.

    Our Son loves history. You often see him watching very in-depth documentaries about a vast range of historical subjects

    • Romans
    • Viking
    • Pharaohs
    • Greeks
    • Persians
    • Incas
    • American Presidents
    • British Kings and Queens
    • Battles and Wars
    • and on and on

    Unfortunately he doesn’t get the chance to extend this knowledge at school (yet).

    It’s probably due to being put in the bottom set due to his dyslexia but the teaching is at such a low level. Son says he will keep watching historical videos as it’s the only way he learns anything new. He smiles when he calls himself the Hermione Granger of the History class. If the teacher asks a question he is always the first hand up but is never selected to answer.

    I think one incident really sums up the problem.

    In a test the class were asked to name facts about King John. Our Son then provided an in-depth answer which talked about

    • When King Richard the Lionheart was captured on the third crusade John (his brother) negotiated with the captors to keep him imprisoned
    • He lost most of his fathers empire
    • After he was forced to retreat from France he alienated himself from the many of the barons and a rebellion started
    • Eventually the two factions started negotiating after months of conflict. The end result was the Magna Carta which limited the power of the crown.
    • He then got the Pope to declare the Magna Carta invalid sparking more civil conflict which spilled into the reign of the next king – his son Henry III
    • He may well have killed his nephew (Arthur of Brittany) a potential rival
    • John was excommunicated when he refused to let the Pope have a say in the selection of a new Archbishop of Canterbury
    • He probably died of dysentery

    That is my son speaking not me. My knowledge of John ends with the Magna Carta being signed under his rule and the stuff in Ivanhoe.

    His teacher spoke to our son and basically told him that he provided too much information. That he was in Year 7 and he shouldn’t know this stuff until Year 10. That’s a way of inspiring his love of the subject. To be fair to the teacher her approach to learning is what the government wants. Sadly the government understands as much about education (and actually most other areas) as does that Bush in the photograph.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

    Angles

    Son came back from school with news of a maths test tomorrow. So we probably won’t get round to looking at the French Test which is Thursday. It seems like test after test. When I was at school the only test was really the daily trying to avoid being eaten by the Sabertooth Tiger.

    Son wanted to have a look at angles. So we went through a number of angles listing them as acute, right, obtuse or reflex. Went well until he started to struggle. As soon as you started rotating the picture and he couldn’t process the information. For example these angles proved very easy for him.

    Yet with the same angles but reversed he couldn’t visualise them at all.

    This replicates some of the stuff we have encountered with the way he scans words and number patterns. Maybe it’s something he can work on. Maybe it’s something he just has to adapts to. It was an area the Health Service wanted to look at but the specialist team was closed due to budget cuts.

    I need talk. I remember putting together an IKEA wardrobe. The bloody wooden demon took 2 days to assemble. It wasn’t until I came to stage 85 out of 86 that I realised I had put it together back to front. The door side screwed to the wall and the rear happily facing out. Partner not impressed with the idea of maybe knocking the wall through so we could gain access to the wardrobe from the kitchen.

    Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

    Spelling….

    Some roads are straight and easy to navigate. Other roads are not….

    A few years ago the U.K. Government changed the way children were taught and tested. To ensure that ‘children are better equipped for jobs a greater emphasis should be placed on spelling, grammar and punctuation’. As a result marks are now specifically set aside for these factor in exams. Labelled SPaG marking. It was argued that the previous inclusive educational approach was wrong.

    The Government approach is to focus on a limited number of correctly spelt words. Let’s produce kids who can spell one word perfectly rather than have kids who can use an extended comprehension.

    Where does this leave kids with dyslexia.?

    Teaching Groups, Charities, Dyslexia Associations, Parenting Associations and Health Bodies objected. But what do they know….

    Dyslexic Kids can apply for extra time in exams. They can apply for a scribe. They can apply to use a reading pen. They can apply to use a keyboard rather than pen. BUT.

    They have to demonstrate a level of independence to gain access to the spelling, the grammar or the punctuation marks. If they can’t then the marks are not available to them.

    Looking at our son’s case it probably means that when he takes his final exams if he opts for reasonable levels of assistance (as required under Equality Legislation) he will at best be able to access only 33% of the total SPaG marks available.

    In my eyes this is wrong. But this is modern U.K. education policy.

    Sadly it doesn’t stop there.

    The Government decided to change the course content for Computing. Computing underpins everything now. The range of potential computing skills are endless. So many of our kids have passions and untapped skills here. The opportunities are boundless. Let kids tap into this. NO. The Government decided that the course should now focus on coding and structured programming.

    Not often can I talk about a subject with anything other than guesswork, but computing I can get to amateur level. This is way beyond the dogmatic ideological buffoonery that underpins Government thinking. Why in God’s name have they picked the most uninspiring and regimented area to focus on. The approach seems to be let’s push out kids who can code rather than develop kids who can utilise the potential computers offer. Yes let kids have a basic grasp of coding then allow those who want to take it further the option to do so. I remember training in 3 programming languages – all becoming obsolete within 5 years.

    AND yet again the Government – The Government which is on our side – have penalised kids with dyslexia. Coding and programming is built around specific commands and symbol patterns. Dyslexics struggle with this. So our son is stuck in a weekly computing lesson which focuses on programming. He flounders as he can’t spell the commands. His confidence gets battered. His struggles with spelling are cruelly exposed. His love for computing is fading. The school knows this but cannot change because it’s the set teaching method. Madness.

    Sadly I could go on about other subjects and more Government interference. But the point has been made.

    Education is so vital that it should not be left in the hands of our self absorbed and incompetent politicians. How about the politicians just focusing on screwing up Brexit and leaving education to the teachers, the parents, the area experts, the kids. In today’s language that probably gets me labelled as a dangerous socialist. A Traitor. Frankly I don’t care. What I care about is the kids going through our educational system. Clearly that’s something our leaders clearly can’t comprehend.