Not the best weather for a partial solar eclipse. But there is always hope. Lying on the ground with Hawklad looking up at the clouds when he should have been doing his science class.
Then for a couple of minutes we get the best type of science teaching. Real life science.
I give you the famed cloudy Yorkshire partial eclipse.
Whisper it. It almost feels like summer here in Yorkshire. Warm, dry, traffic jams, the shops are sold out of strawberries and watermelons. Yep it must be summer here.
So next steps….
This morning Hawklad mentioned that he is now aiming to return to school at the start of September. If he can’t go back then he will go for full homeschooling.
Today in the summer sun we tried a day time walk. The first day time walk for Hawklad in over a year. A carefully selected walk. Quiet. Rarely visited. Across farm land. It was a success. An hour walk completed. Ok not another human encountered but it is another step forward.
So we have less than 3 months to see if we can build Hawklad from deserted walks to being crammed in a classroom with 30 plus other students and teachers. That’s a tough ask. So little time to take so many steps forward.
The walk with the mad dog is a lot more pleasant when it’s weather like this. Whisper it, I got a little sun burnt. Sun burnt in Yorkshire. That just sounds so wrong on so many levels.
Feeling a bit burnt by school. The big school year exams start on Monday. We still don’t know the actual timings. We don’t know which subjects are on which days. We don’t know the arrangements for Hawklad. We don’t even know if he is sitting the exams. This week school is closed. So I’m guessing it’s wait until first thing Monday and hope we hear something. If not, then I have no idea what will happen. It’s just a mess.
Nothing I can do at present so I might as well use my time more usefully. Go and find the sun cream. That’s sure to bring the rain back….
The end of the school half term. To sum up the last 7 weeks of school at home –
The support is rapidly drying up.
More lessons passing without much support for Hawklad. His work isn’t getting marked in most cases. Increasingly we are having to decide on the areas studied. Whether they are in line with what his class are covering, we have largely no idea. The year exams start as soon as the school returns from the week off. We still don’t know the arrangements for Hawklad. We don’t even know the detailed exam timetable.
Definitely feels like we are getting cut adrift. The support we battled to get for him a few years back has largely been removed due to wider commission decisions, not on individual case circumstances. He’s supposed to see a paediatrician every 6 months but due to cut backs in service and a pandemic, it’s now been over 3 years since his last review. The local council keep putting off his annual education review, again the last one was nearly 3 years ago. School do not provide any additional in class support p.
Maybe it’s partly single parenting and sometimes I get to feel really isolated – but it certainly feels like our family is being cut adrift. Sadly that’s what happens with the vast majority of Autistic and Asperger teenagers. Cut adrift.
It’s just rained again. No surprise there then….
I’m picking up the courage. The courage to go outside and do some gardening. I have pile of seeds that need planting. I’ve kept putting that off for weeks now. To wet, not enough sun, frosts at night. Problem is that April has gone. Now May is almost left us as well. Our short growing season is getting very short. I did plant some stuff at the start of April but even that has struggled. Plants appeared then stopped growing.
The only exception is one solitary potato plant in a bucket. That one is getting on with growing in this cold weather. I have high hopes for that plant. That plant feels like a winner.
It’s just about making the most of things I guess.
Next week is the school half term week off. Then it’s the school’s year exams. At present we just don’t know how they will work for us. With Hawklad currently being unable to get into school, it makes sitting exams problematic. We have no idea what the plan is. Do school send the papers to us. Does he do them online. At the same time as the other pupils. Or does he do them at a later stage. Does he even sit them. From what I can gather some of the subjects have been sitting practice exams over the last couple of weeks. Hawklad hasn’t…..
For Hawklad it’s just about making the most of things. Getting through to the summer and then it’s decision time. Can he return to school. If he can then is it best for him to learn in the school system or go it alone. Getting on with things regardless of the weather.
When I first moved into the village all those years ago I remember going for a walk. No map, no real idea where I was heading. Just went to explore the new locality. Near the farm track in the photo is a path. On that first walk I followed that path. It looked like it was going to take me in roughly the right direction. But with no map I couldn’t check. Guess what. It went in the wrong direction. I got lost and it took me hours to get back home.
Hawklad has been submitting homework studiously all school year. He’s hardly had any marks or feedback returned. He’s been asking me to check his work as he just wasn’t sure how he was doing.
This morning out of the blue he received a very brief teacher comment about a piece of work submitted last week. The first feedback from this teacher in over a year. The comment simply said ‘Spot on’….
Here’s the problem. I had checked that work and it was good but it had mistakes. Some big mistakes. I had sat down with Hawklad to show him where he was right and where he was not so right. We talked through ways to answer those areas better. That’s feedback. I’m sorry but ‘Spot on’ doesn’t help Hawklad. He could end up going into exams doing some things the wrong way. Yes provide praise and reassurance but please also give tips to improve…..
Moody Yorkshire….
Feels like a landscape from say Wuthering Heights, or Jane Eyre, or Nicholas Nickleby, or the Secret Garden. All novels set in Yorkshire. Move 40 miles and it could be the opening to Bram Stokers Dracula.
Yes Yorkshire clearly can do Moody and Menacing. Maybe that’s why they filmed Garfield 2 just a few miles from here. 😂😂😂😂
For over a year our world constricted. It was a small bungalow, a garden, and a big sky. Very hemmed in. But now Hawklad is trying to take his first steps back into the wider world again. This means a few walks around the village and along the country lanes. Just a few steps and the views change. That makes such a difference. The world just feels like it’s got a whole lot bigger.
It’s nearly 1pm. I need to pinch myself. Is it really a school day. School at home day. So far absolutely nothing from school this week. No lesson material, no assigned work, no idea what the class is doing. Nothing. That’s three blank lessons so far.
It’s been that quiet we even checked to make sure we hadn’t got the dates wrong and school is on holiday. But no, it’s a full school day.
“What shall I do Dad then….”
Well as we have no idea what his class was doing. No idea even what subjects the class was looking at. It’s a blank sheet of paper. A good chance for Hawklad to set the agenda. Take control of what he learns. So I said what any self respecting Dad would say.
Well Son you can go and wash my car……
“No Dad. What school work shall I do.”
What one subject do you most want to learn about.
“History, definitely history. Second World War.”
Ok spend the morning indulging yourself in the that. And when you finish. You can get off your backside, go outside and clean my car 😂😂😂
***********
And that’s what he did. He studied the Nuremberg War Trials. He so far hasn’t got round to cleaning my car. But here’s the problem. He’s taller than me so I can’t really put my foot down anymore. I might just have to do that job myself.
School. Oh school. Oh what fun it is….
Couple of burning questions from today’s school at home project.
1) Of all the subjects Hawklad has to take this year, two stand out as the strictest. The subjects in question are Art and Religious Education. Today’s message from the RE Teacher. You have to do your RE homework. If it’s not completed by the start of the next lesson, in full and to a high enough standard, then you will receive the appropriate penalty.
I’m sorry that approach won’t work with Hawklad. Stress him out and you have lost his focus. He ain’t going to learn like that.
2) Unusually school has sent work today for Hawklad. But here’s the thing. Hawklad is struggling with severe anxieties relating to health fears. So what was the work they sent….. Research heart disease. Watch a video about someone having a heart attack. Read about other common causes of death…..
Deep sigh. Let’s hope the next day goes better…
Yes it’s another one of those massive, multi lane Yorkshire motorways.
We are a couple of weeks into the start of trying to help Hawklad build bridges back towards the wider world again. It started with us taking the mad dog for a walk at night. Nighttime as it would be quiet with no other people out and about. Small steps in breaking out of walls that surround our little house and garden. The isolation which started 15 months ago.
We quickly realised that actually it’s always pretty quiet here, not just at night. So we started going for the walk a little earlier. Now nearer 7pm. Guess what. We still hardly see another soul. Currently that’s perfect for Hawklad. Very rarely we see a farmer or another dog walker. When that happens Hawklad immediately turns on his heels and heads quickly home in the opposite direction.
The other thing is that Hawklad doesn’t like to walk on the path. Just doesn’t feel comfortable doing that. So we walk on the road. Our massive and very busy road….
Well you can see just how big our road is. Just how busy it really is can be gauged on one fact. We have been walking every night straight down the middle of the road. Not once have we encountered a vehicle. The road is ours….
That’s such a cool feel. Such a cool feel for both of us. I can concentrate fully on talking and in the quiet bits, on dreaming.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 