For those that don’t know Yorkshire is called the White Rose County.
School is a bit of a strange bizzaro world. A world in which most things are back to front and I’m not just talking about my pants 😂😂😂. An education world where Art invades all the subjects except Art. Where Maths becomes Computing. Computing becomes Comic Strip Studies. Where Citizenship becomes Comic Strip Studies. Where Geography becomes Science. Where Science becomes a million ways to learn about ways to get ill and where History becomes Victorian Criminology. You get the picture….
But what is even more unsettling is where the subjects he has elected to go with next year increasingly forget about Hawklad and where the subjects he is dropping within 4 weeks are given him increasing amounts of attention. Where his marks have gone through the roof in soon to be dumped subjects – 89% in one soon to be ex-subject. And in the subjects he is continuing with he is struggling to get hold of the exam paper to even attempt to try them…
You kind of assume that your country is geared up to support its young people. That they matter. Well they should matter and countries should be geared up. But this is Britain, where support and mental health services have been under funded and in recent times cut back. Britain which has a Government that wants to return to ‘good old Victorian values’. Britain where children are only seen in terms of future economic value. In Britain where support is frowned upon by those in charge. In Britain where children taking time off in the immediate aftermath of a significant bereavement is described by the Government as ‘extended holidays’.
In 2016 Hawklad lost his granny and mum within 6 weeks of each other. A traumatic experience for anyone but for an 8 year old with Aspergers, it’s an emotional maelstrom. But here’s the thing. Sadly he won’t be the only child in this position. But where’s the support. Schools are not set up to cope. In Hawklads case the school cared but where clueless. The specialised education services in the area had been effectively closed down to meet savings targets. I approached his Doctor who just referred to child mental health services. He warned that they had a backlog of cases. That was all the Doctor did. Hawklad was already on the waiting list for Aspergers support.
That was it for over a year. No support. Left up to me, someone who was struggling already. How do you start to help someone when you are broken.
Finally we got to see the Child Mental Health Team. They worked on anxiety issues but no bereavement counselling, no Aspergers support. Luckily his dedicated worker was wonderful and she did try but it was not her area of expertise.
Fast forward to 2021 and Hawklad still has not had any bereavement counselling. Taking a wider view. He had some help with a physiotherapist but that was cut. He started speech therapy but that service was cut. He has had a few months of Aspergers related support but the specialist retired and was not replaced. He has had no dyslexia support. He does get some support for anxiety but that is patchy.
AND he is one of the lucky ones in Britain….
It has to be better than this for all our children. THEY ARE NOT JUST ECONOMIC RESOURCES. It won’t change here under this Government, it will only get worse. BRITAIN is BROKEN when it can’t care for its children.
Apparently Hawklad missed 6 exams last week. That’s a whole lotta exams missed in just one week. On the bright side, Hawklad did complete 5….. 5 out of 11 is almost a pass.
Hawklad completed those 5 exams because the teacher or teaching assistant emailed him the paper. In the 6 he missed something didn’t happen and I just can’t put my finger on what didn’t happen…. Can you.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. The teachers are now tied up in the year above mock exams. It’s another mess. We bury will be so glad to see the back of this school year.
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.
A school email exchange with a teacher kinda went this way yesterday.
Have you started the exam.
No I’ve not seen the paper yet.
Do you understand what your doing…..
No I’ve not seen the paper.
The instructions where clearly set out in the previous lessons.
***************************
After an hour of looking we finally found an oblique reference to a question. Well hidden. One of those – it was clearly set out in section 635, clause 9, subsection B.
As clear as mud and so hard to find. Pupils and Parents don’t have hours available in the daily schedule to pour over every single document. Every single page. Every single well hidden file.
Did Hawklad answer the right question. In the right format. In the right way….. still no idea.
Apparently I was wrong yesterday. My inner Lefty took hold and clouded my vision. I made an inappropriate attack on politicians who benefit from expensive and exclusive private education while refusing to properly fund pupils in the rest of the education system. I wasn’t the only person to get annoyed at that thought. But we were slapped down by the Eton educated Prime Minister. Children enjoy exclusive education because their parents work hard.
Many do. Can’t argue with that. But then you turn the argument around and what does that mean to a poor child in a poor school. It means that they should blame their parents for not working hard enough……
Clearly I’ve let my son down by not working hard enough…. That explains the gaps in his education.
I should really follow the example of our illustrious leader. Travelling 200 miles in a private jet to attend a summit of world leaders where he says he wants to talk climate change. Clearly getting a readily available and environmentally friendly train is not working hard enough for him. Treating himself to £13000 worth of gourmet food during the lockdown while refusing to give our poorest children free school meals when they need it the most is clearly hard work. Getting a rich friend to pay £200000 for a designer makeover on his flat while cutting 40% of the overseas aid budget is real grafting
Another day of school at home. Another day of me demonstrating how little I know about Science and French. Surely answering questions like why would the earths magnetic poles switch?, involves more than incoherent mumbling and awkwardly shuffling of my feet.
Je suis un muppet et plutot stupide…..
Maybe those parents doing homeschooling should have some boaster classes. Bring the likes of me up to speed. Deep sigh. Not much chance of that here in England with our current law breaking charlatans in charge. They can’t even look after the pupils correctly.
Our so called Government has announced an extra £50 per pupil to help them catch up and deal with the impacts of COVID education disruption. That disruption has been massive. Apparently £50 is a world beating some that shows commitment to the next generation. The US is giving its students a top up of £1600 per year, Netherlands the funding is £2500.
Our Government would much rather spend money on important stuff like a new Royal Yacht costing £200M. It also comes from a Prime Minister who enjoyed the privileges of a Private Education at one of the worlds most exclusive and expensive schools. In today’s money that cost somewhere near £50000 per year.
Another fine Yorkshire road. I’m trying to work out if it’s 8 or 10 lanes….
So the week off from school is over. It’s back to early alarm calls. Not looking forward to them. Not exactly feeling rested or renewed. Just feeling worn down. In need of a break. Oh hang on I’ve just had one of those 😂😂😂😂😂
So the morning has started with year end exam. No warning. An email was sent a few minutes before the exam started for the class. Don’t have a problem with that. You have to protect exam questions. It’s the lack of warning. It’s that looking at the questions and realising that large parts of paper have not been covered for Hawklad. It’s expecting that we would try keyboard entry for exams but this has been sent in a format that can only be handwritten
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….
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 