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Age

A bit of that Tropical Yorkshire Jungle….

We knew this would begin to happen eventually. Almost 10 years back, the first Autism Specialist who worked with Hawklad warned us what would inevitably happen. Initially he would get support from a number of health and education teams. This would last until he became an older teenager and then it would start to change. Services and support would then be withdrawn until basically he was on his own, with his only support system being Family. As the Specialist explained, the system hasn’t got enough resources and is continually being further squeezed. Support needs to be available LIFELONG but in the UK you get to an age when that support is withdrawn. Hawklad will then be expected to fend for himself come what may with only family to turn to. Some describe Adult Autistic Support Provision in the UK as PATCHY, others call it NONEXISTENT.

That is such a worry going forward,

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Summer

Yorkshire SUMMER..

Proper WEATHER..

This is midday and it’s 12C..

We are most definitely missing the frightening heatwave hitting much of Europe.

So School is most definitely out, I guess it has been for a month now. But nothing official, just kinda happened. The fabled Parenting Handbook doesn’t really cover this, WHAT HAPPENS NOW. Like most things, I’ve ended up WINGING it. I supposed that School would be in touch. Providing guidance on what needs to be done with things like picking up books, passing on key records, returning school property, official last day when school is shot of the pupil, where to get career guidance, college help, exam results, who you need to contact if you have any queries about next steps, if problems are encountered. We just knew what day the last exam was happening. He just walked out the exam room and that was it. Well part from a Muppet Dad embarrassing him as he walked towards the car. Apparently it’s not COOL to stand precariously on the car roof and applaud while wearing a bowler hat which is at least four sizes too small.….

But we received nothing. I did email school to get Hawklad’s results emailed to him. The only other email we have received since his exams was a bizarre one about the School Prom. He had no idea the Prom was happening but a couple of hours before the Event, we received an email asking that if pupils attending the Leaving Prom were arriving in a TRACTOR, could the Tractors not drive over the School Lawns or Fields.

Glad that’s been cleared up then.

Thankfully Hawklad saw the funny side of things. “At least I don’t have to comb my hair… I’m hoping to go the whole summer without doing that “ So far so good in that one then….😂😂😂😂

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Almost out of the wood

Almost out of the deep dark wood. Isn’t it sad that even after all these years I can still recite The Gruffalo, word for word. Where did those years go…

One moment I’m reading out The Gruffalo to toddler Hawklad, and in the blink of an eye I’m trying to explain magnetic fields inside solenoids to him. Wow, bring Julia Donaldson back please.

Thinking about it, I look like The Gruffalo now.

Hawklad has done so well, 18 exams down, 2 more to go tomorrow. Then he is out of the deep dark wood, pesky school finished. The poor kid is out on his feet, sadly I bet he isn’t the only Year 11 feeling that way tonight. How is this supposed to be a true reflection of potential, skills, talents, character and personal accomplishment. IT ISN’T, in reality it was never supposed to be. It’s about the system rather than individual child.

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1000

The garden is still largely bereft of colour. Thankfully a couple of colourful characters are trying to buck the trend.

I was musing over a concert next year which happens to be nearby. Three old Rock Bands from my youth. Judas Priest, Saxon and Uriah Heep. One I managed to see a few decades back, the other two, it would be my first time. Maybe this time.

Following much friendly winding up from Hawklad, I worked out that the current combined age of those 3 bands was in excess of a 1000 years. Following on from his maths revision, Hawklad estimated that adding me into the mix takes the number closer to 2000 years. 2000 years ago the Romans hadn’t even got round to invading England yet. There’s a thought…

Another thought is that the first exam is less than 2 weeks away. Less than 2 weeks and some of the subjects are still teaching, still trying to get through the set curriculum. Hawklad ain’t getting through everything as it is, never mind adding to it. As Hawklad put it

Next week would be bad enough just trying to learn 25 love poems for English Literature which might as well haven been written in Vulcan, but I’m also supposed to revise six other subjects and all this new stuff. Actually I could do with being a Vulcan like Spock.

Deep sigh.

Is it time to go to my prehistoric heavy metal concert yet…..

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Exams

A few minutes later we got seriously wet….

Hawklad’s final school exams are fast approaching, they start in a months time. School are now providing a weekly one hour teaching assistant session to help with English. Another subject teacher is providing revision instructions which help. The rest is down to us now. The REST means revision and subject learning.

It’s a real mixed bag across the subjects. In History (his best subject) we have just about completed the course and can start to revise. This is the subject which has consistently provided teaching materials for Hawklad to work with and marked his submitted work. But in the other subjects we are still scrambling around trying to cover all the topics. It’s clear now that he has missed out significantly being at home. The school and the national education system isn’t setup for pupils who miss significant portions of classroom teaching on health grounds. On top of that teachers are having to cope with class sizes of up to 30 with increasing pressure from Government to stick to prescribed teaching methods. They just don’t have the time to teach outside the box now.

The end result is that Hawklad is having to learn new material when he is supposed to be revising old material. The dilemma now is do we try to cover all the missing topics which would effectively rule out any real revision in most of the subjects OR do we take a punt on just covering some topics and revising these. Cover everything thinly or cover some of it a little more in depth….

In Geography and Sciences we are going to try to cover the entire subject and see if we can squeeze in some crash revision over the last few days. In these subjects we are dumping all the school material as it is so incomplete. We have bought into an online science teaching site that was recommended by a fellow blogger ❤️. For Geography we are finding teaching videos on YouTube.

We have also largely dumped the school maths materials and I’m reteaching the entire subject. Again we hopefully will get a couple of days to crash revise at the end.

With English and Literature we will cover some of the course using the teaching assistant weekly sessions and by watching teaching videos we find on YouTube. Here we just can’t realistically cover all the required reading content in the time left, so we intend to cover and revise just part of the course (and hope we get reasonably lucky in the exam).

The other factor is the actual exams. School haven’t been able to organise a mock exam for Hawklad, so he won’t have sat any practice exams at all before these main ones. In addition, with the time constraints it’s unlikely we will be able to spend too much time practicing exam questions at home. That is just so not ideal. The knock on effect of no exam practice is that we haven’t been able to test whether Hawklad will be able to write his own answers, or whether he needs to type them or if he needs a scribe. All we can do is have a stab at guessing which way will suit him best and then see who it goes in the first exam. If it doesn’t work out then we will have to switch approach for the second exam.

As Hawklad says ….. what could possibly go wrong ……

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San Siro

I guess the rainbow season has started.

“Ok Dad, if I somehow manage to pass every exam then I think that probably means we should do something special to mark that.”

Absolutely and actually why should it be just dependent on the outcome of some random exams whose outcomes can be far reaching. Exams that are such a poor reflections of real person, their effort, the struggles they overcome, their character, just how amazing they are and just how much they have to offer.

So my mind wandered to what that prize could be.

And once again I was so far away from the answer.

“If I do that then can you look into getting me to Milan. Going to see Inter play at the San Siro. I don’t know how you would get me there, maybe we could try to get there using Switzerland as the base.”

Time to get the thinking hat on but I do know that our old Swiss base has direct trains to Milan each day. How cool would that be for Hawklad.

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Parked up

It’s a hard life on the pet sofa. Boys will be boys.

I’m writing this in my so called car listening to a bit of deep and meaningful art, an art form called Whitesnake. Here is a random fact, that band’s lead vocalist worked in a fashion clothes shop which was next to my Dentist torture site. That Dentist was an ex army, old school medic and it showed. The caring nature of Rambo who has just found out that Arnie has much bigger biceps than him. That Dentist practice was horrible. But to be fair to him after every horrible, painful appointment he would make his one allowance to being a member of the human race. It was his attempt to be nice, to be caring. He would let you pick out a lollipop from the sweet jar, I guess it was all about keeping business healthy…

Anyway I’m parked up in a community library parking place. Hawklad is having his FIRST one to one, direct bit of teaching since March 2020. We have been after this since then but school just haven’t been able to free up teaching resources. Well now, two months from Hawklad’s final exams it’s happening. Unfortunately it won’t cover all the subjects due to teaching resource constraints, the sessions if they can continue will be sporadic. After Science, History and Geography were excluded from these sessions the focus was supposed to be on both English and Maths. Unfortunately school have dropped Maths now. Apparently someone has walked out on school and they won’t be replaced until after the exams.

But at least it’s something. Any helping hand is a good hand.

A Teaching Assistant will be providing a short session covering a bit of English and a bit of exam techniques. I wonder if they will cover any of the areas we have requested. I really hope it helps Hawklad.

Looking at Hawklad’s face as he went into the Library he had the same terrified look that I must have had visiting that Psychotic Dentist, just WAY WORSE. This is so not easy for him, he is so close to an anxiety meltdown. It shows just how little contact he has had with school staff, zero relationships have been established. It’s probably also a reflection of just how painful an experience this school has been for him.

Let’s just hope that like my trips to the dentist, he can put this behind him and actually he gets something out of it. In my case with the Dentist at lease I got some dodgy chemical filled fillings and a sugary lollipop. I want so much more for him. I just want him to feel at ease with life and be happy.

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Bewildered

A new walk for the two of us in North Yorkshire, we are so blessed to live here. So many places to breathe.

Although I think these shelters aren’t going to be much cop against our tropical weather….

Three days since school returned from a week off and not one single communication from a teacher. Nothing. Maybe School has given up any pretence of supporting Hawklad now.

Deep Sigh….

I was thinking back to how naïve I was just a few years ago. I kinda still assumed that life, parenting, everything, was perfectly logical, straightforward, fathomable.

Did I really think that.

What a monumental muppet.

Now I know. I know how I feel. Tired, confused, battered, walking through life’s avenues seemingly wading through unremittingly thick, bucket loads of treacle – seriously hard work.

Why was all this such a surprise to me, I just needed to look back at my parents. Bringing up 5 children, both parents having to work to try and make ends meet. Trying to maintain an old battered house which had an outside toilet and one coal fire for heating. The only holiday they enjoyed was the very rare day trip to the beach at either Saltburn or Whitby. I’m not sure they ever truly figured out their youngest child, ME, I was baffling to them. My parents trying to do all this while coping with a failed, dysfunctional marriage.

I bet they felt a lot like I do, like many of us do. Worn down, tired, disillusioned, perpetually bewildered.

Yes I understand that now.

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Bracing

BRACING…..

If one word sums of the Yorkshire Coast, then that word is going to be BRACING….. A few brave dogs braved the North Sea but not for long. I lost a game of chicken and had to endure ice cold wet feet. That woke me up.

On the way back WE talked school. Sadly a school that is increasingly ‘missing in action’ as the May Exams fast approach, like an out of control Freight Train.

The more I see, the more I hear, the more I realise just how bad school has been for Hawklad. Looking back to when he was going everyday. He told me that he use to bin most of his pack up school lunches for two reasons. At least once a week he never got the time to eat lunch due to work requirements – I’m not sure a child going hungry is the best way to create an enriching learning environment.

The other reason, the MAIN REASON.

“Dad I used to get so stressed by school, so sad, so unhappy. I truly hated that place, I was scared of it. The teachers didn’t seem to care, the never noticed me. I was never allowed to be myself. It would make me sick, too sick too eat….”

Speaking with his NHS specialist, they can’t keep up with the tidal wave of child mental health problems in school.

How can this happen.

How have we got school so wrong, so stress filled.

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Secret Garden

Still no snow has shown up at our little hilltop village. It’s getting harder apparently to get the perfect conditions for snow in this part of Yorkshire. But just thirty minutes drive and we can get into the Moors. These Moors do get snow….. So a couple of weeks back we headed over to get some of that elusive white stuff. Night time is perfect, Hawklad gets the place to himself.

It’s only a short drive but you do feel so far from civilisation. No school here. These places are so special and wow the night sky. No light pollution.

This is what this looks like during the day and much later in the season. Perfect.

Perfect location for wonderful literature like The Secret Garden. The Secret Garden’s themes of rebirth and healing, we could all do with some of that.

As we wandered across the snow covered ground with just the light from our head torches to illuminate the way, it’s much easier to forget the trials of the day, well at least for a few moments. The school journey isn’t going well……

Minimal support, so it does feel like it’s a never ending fight against the system. What’s crystal clear now is that school has only given us access to a fraction of the course material over the 2 years Hawklad has been away from the classroom. With just a few months until his final school exams and he has so much to do just to catch up never mind revise. I genuinely fear that there is just too much to do in those few months. He simple isn’t going to get a fair chance in those exams through no fault of his own. He so wants to start college in September, to take the next step. Why is this so hard. Why is the system seemingly so keen to write him off without given him a chance.

Just a few moments walking across the desolate moors, forgetting all this, it does feel good. Sadly that feeling doesn’t last long enough. Two weeks on from that snow adventure and this schooling struggle is just getting harder and more frustrating. We could really use another snow adventure, find our own SECRET GARDEN.