Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 44 Comments

Problematic

A brief few moments of blue sky before the Yorkshire mist and drizzle rolled back in. It was nice will it lasted.

I received an email from school today informing parents that a pupil had tested positive for Covid. The pupil has been sent home and a further 20 pupils have been asked to self isolate. The concern is that the pupil had no symptoms and it can’t be established how long they had been infectious for. It is entirely possible that the in-school test last week provided an inaccurate all clear result.

Can’t say I’m entirely disappointed that Hawklad is currently at home.

But it’s sometimes not the easiest of options.

Did we have a hockey stick. Did we have a hockey ball. Kind of made hockey practice a little problematic….

Did we have any graph paper. Had the printer run out of ink. Kind of made detailed and accurate graph work a little problematic…..

Could we find a working green pen. Kind of made self marking work (if it’s not done in green then it’s additional marks deducted) a little problematic…..

Could we find the video showing the science experiment. Kind of made writing about the results a little problematic…..

Trying to keep a full, overcrowded school open based on solely on unreliable Covid self tests is a little problematic…..

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 40 Comments

Are we really happy about this

It’s still not even midday on this stormy Monday and it already feels like it’s been a long week. Much shaking my head at the areas and topics Hawklad is having to learn. Really how will these facts and skills set him up for the future.

Then he listens to the news. It’s filled with talk of pandemics, nepotism and a country rapidly appearing to be an inwardly looking police state. Women having to protest because they don’t feel safe. A complete and utter Brexit shambles. Ongoing environmental disasters. Lots of waving the flag and saying we are better than anyone else. Look how much we can blame on immigration. Everything has a price. Profit is king. A world where the makeover of the PMs flat is more important than a pay rise for nurses. Leaders talking about bringing Victorian values back into schools.

Hawklad hears this. He talks about this.

Are we really happy that our children are being exposed to this. Being brought up in this type of world. Learning this stuff. Are we happy that the likes of these people are in charge of our child’s education.

Deciding exactly what they learn, how they learn it, where they can source there information from. What part of the economy they can be slotted in to.

Is it really about the children or is just about the economy. If it is really about the children then why don’t we ask them what they want. What interests them. What works for them. What world do they want to grow up in.

I bet it’s not this type of world….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 23 Comments

A year

Still just too grotty for a daily photo so it’s back a year again…..

It’s kinda sobering that this photo is taken only 2 miles from our house. On what was one of my most well used running trails. Probably ran here twice a week as a minimum. Well over a decade of running. It’s a year to the day since I last was here……

I wonder when I will return.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

Challenging

So my first Covid vaccination is in two weeks. The second is at the end of April. There are still no plans to offer vaccines to children. So in effect it does really change our situation going forward.

As of tonight the full online school system will be turned off again. Hawklad goes back to trying to keep up with his classmates with whatever we can get our hands on. How well that works depends largely on the teachers and teacher assistants. Dependent on them finding the time to send class materials and work. Since September it kind of just about worked. Better in some classes than others.

I’m not entirely hopeful this time around. The teachers and assistants have to be involved in supervising the pupils doing Covid self tests. For a school with 900 pupils to do that twice a week is a massive task. Support for Hawklad is likely to be very limited going forward.

It’s going to be a challenging period for everyone going forward.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 39 Comments

Biathlon

I’ve always loved winter sports. Definitely my favourites are biathlon, ski jumping, skiing and ski cross. One of my dreams is to see it in person one day. Still waiting….. November to March is great as I get to binge watch it on TV. But when March comes it’s always quite sad as soon the season will be over. No winter sports for 7 months.

That thought has been praying on my mind. 7 months is a long time. What to do.

I’ve looked for some Winter Sports DVDs and Books but there isn’t much about. So I have a stock pile of 3 books and one dvd documentary. Plus one game on the Xbox. The probability of our family lockdown continuing through those 7 months is really high. With no trips out. No runs. Just feels like I need more this year to keep me going.

“Dad what are you doing?”

I’m trying to see if I can do GARDEN biathlon.

“Really. It looks like you have gone mad…”

No there is method to my madness. I’ve dug out my two old walking poles. So to pretend I’m Nordic skiing I’m going to use the poles to walk round and round the garden. About 30 times round the garden is about 1km.

“Ok how long is a biathlon thing then”

Going to start small first. The Spring is 10km with two shoots. So I would do 100 laps of the garden between shoots.

“I think I can see what’s coming next but ok, why have you got my Nerf Gun.”

Well after 100 laps of the garden my pulse will be racing just like a Biathlete. So I will need to control my breathing and steady myself for the shoot. Ok I don’t have a rifle and five circular targets. So I’m putting some tins on the fence and I’m going to try and knock them over with your foam Nerf bullets. For every miss I will have to do a penalty loop or in my case 5 garden loops. The first shoot will be prone and the second will be standing.

“OMG Dad. You have cracked.”

So from April one of my daily workouts every week will be my Biathlon competition.

“You have lost the plot”

Most probably Son, most most probably. But just be thankful I’m not trying to recreate Ski Jumping. 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 56 Comments

Whip

The sun almost shines down on a Monday morning. So the schools are now open again.

A real media blitz is underway telling parents just how safe things are and also reminding them of the fines that can be given out for keeping children off school. The Education Secretary is talking about change. Changes he thinks are necessary. Ways to extend the school day so children learn more. Changes to the school year drastically cutting back on school holidays. Finding ways to get pupils to keep studying during weekends and those reduced holidays. Changes he thinks are long overdue.

Strangely no mention of changes to make schools better places to learn and have fun. No mention of changes to the Government’s dogmatic national curriculum. No mention of investment in home schooling. No mention of changes to the funding cuts the Government has made to child mental health services. No mention of more input from pupils, teachers and parents in shaping a better future. The only change required is clearly to make children work longer.

But what do we expect from a politician who is supposed to be in charge or our schooling system and who makes a point of having a horse whip on the front of his desk. Photo from The Guardian

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 56 Comments

Back this week!

So much space…..

So all the schools are back this week. With some changes. A bit more of an encouragement to wear masks. All pupils to get a couple of rapid Covid tests per week. A test which gives inaccurate results in potentially 1 out of every 5 tests. But let’s not mention the giant elephant in the rather cramped classroom.

Most children and staff will be returning to classrooms in a country with rapidly emerging virus mutations without mandatory masks, in rooms likely to have really poor ventilation, with pupils definitely and staff probably without the security of a vaccination. And here’s the elephant entering the already cramped room. The PM has been doing repeated photo opportunities in classrooms. In carefully selected modern classrooms containing only a handful of children. Lots of space. But that’s not the reality for most schools. Too many are squeezed into small spaces. Nothing has been done to reduce the high classroom numbers. Not one thing. If Hawklad was returning then it would be to a class size which is between 30 to 32 pupils and 2 members of staff. In a building which is well over 50 years old.

Please tell me how this is a good idea.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 128 Comments

Britain

Are there any countries out there who would like a new citizen. I don’t take up much space, I’m happy to learn the language, sing the new national anthem and I’m house trained.

I’m sat here quite prepared to renounce my British citizenship. Clearly I don’t fit anymore. I don’t seem to fit in with the expected thinking.

Approval for the Government is at an all time high. On the back of a vaccination programme which was one of the few things they decided to leave entirely up to the public sector experts to sort out and deliver. Just don’t mention the fiasco of the privatised Track and Trace system which has now custom £37B. A country where many people turn a blind eye to the daily top level corruption which the Government don’t even bother hiding now. Where you are expected to ignore the court rulings that have found the Government is acting illegally. Shrug off the criminal negligence that has been our response to the pandemic costing thousands and thousands their life’s. Smiling at the empty food shelves and rising costs from the Brexit car crash. Preferring to moan about a bit of royal fall out rather than focus on the Government spending over £300k of tax payers money to pay off a bullying allegation against the Home Secretary. Seemingly ok with giving the wonderful NHS staff a miserly 1% pay increase while it hands out billions in dodgy contracts to party backers and personal friends. Believing that we are all in this together while the PM seeks rich charity funds to pay for a £200000 makeover of his flat.

As I’m not OK with this maybe it is time for me to pack my bags. The question is where do I go. Before Brexit I had the option of moving to any country in the EU. But now that right has been removed as clearly a loss of personal freedoms is seen as progress….

So where are the countries that I should move to. The ones that still have a moral compass. The ones you can be proud of. Sadly that is not Britain.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 41 Comments

Sleeping Bag

Another morning of home isolation. Another day of home schooling. Another largely sleepless night.

A night spent in a sleeping bag.

Yesterday morning I decided to give my duvet an airing outside as the sun had decided to shine. It wasn’t until 3am when I felt sufficiently tired that I noticed the duvet-less bed. Yes it was still outside. Outside in the pouring rain.

My poor duvet has been on the radiator for 8 hours now. It’s still drenched. So I guess it’s another sleeping bag night facing me. But actually that’s no bad thing. It’s something different. In seemingly ever repeating days of sameness, CHANGE is good.

Bring on the sleeping bag.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 41 Comments

Frustrating

The sun goes down on another school at home day. It was one of those days where it feels like for every step forward we took two giant steps back. Such hard work.the really frustrating thing is that it wasn’t the actual learning which was the issue today. No the frustrations came from repeated system crashes, missing content, confusing instructions, formatting disasters and online tests that will only work with exactly the right spelling and format.

We can make home schooling so much easier for the pupils than this…

So with the frustrations still ringing in my head another school communication arrived. All about the required Covid testing to support the schools reopening next week. Each family will be required to self test families using the rapid result kits TWICE a week. On top of that all pupils will be tested with the same kits once a week in school.

My one question is that if our schools are completely safe and not hubs for virus transfer (according to our PM) – why is this level of testing required…..

The school letter also apologised to parents for the confusing over masks in the classroom. A few days ago the PM told schools that masks had to be worn in the classroom. Our school wrote to parents to inform them of the new rule. Unfortunately the rule has now changed again. The PM has now said they are only recommended and school can’t enforce them.

More frustrations……