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Rush hour

One of those mighty motorways that cut through the North Yorkshire Moors. This is rush hour….

It’s rush hour with Hawklad’s exams now. Two weeks of mayhem, 12 exams in 10 days. It’s an official slog now. That’s how it’s designed to be. Zero marks for coursework, everything on final exams. Exams squeezed into just a few weeks

Hawklad has officially got to the ‘hit the wall’ stage. He has really tried, tried to catch up on being out of the classroom for over two years. Tried to catch up that time, with let’s say ‘patchy’ support from school, over just a few weeks. Too much cramming, trying to force in so much information. And now, with two weeks of exams to get through, he is zonked out, brain fudged. He is still trying to learn, revise, but it’s not going in anymore.

It feels like running a marathon. At the starting line you stand with high hopes, focusing on running a great time. You set off and it feels ok. Then at some point, it all changes. It starts to hurt. After that it’s just about survival. The mind and body have gone. Any thoughts of a decent time have gone, it’s now about just trying to get to the finish line in one piece.

So one particularly bad day for Hawklad when he was tired, nothing was going in. He felt like he was going backwards. STUFF IT. We went for a drive on the Moors. Exams are supposed to be everything, but life goes on. Exam Rush Hour will never give you views like that.

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Break

I must have walked past this tree at least a 1000 times and yet today was the first time that I truly noticed it…..

So it’s 8 exams down another 12 to go. So much for Hawklad to learn and revise over the next three weeks. Currently he is ‘enjoying’ a week long revision school holiday before the exams come flying back at him. Poor Hawklad is mentally shattered, these exams are taking so much out of him, he is drained. Trying to cram in almost 3 years work into just a few weeks, across a number of subjects. Trying to do this while trying to cope with the stress which the revision and exams are placing on his hard earned reading skills. Trying at the same time trying to learn to type exam answers up without any speech or grammar assistance.

It’s unbelievable to think that just under three years ago school had decided that he would never be able to read. The fact he is doing these exams unaided is already the biggest of big WINS for him.

But he is drained. Really drained.

So we through out the revision playbook. He needed a break. So he is having a couple of days off before he dives back into the work again. Two days off will hit the revision but it was the right decision. We all need to recharge sometimes.

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Ok that wasn’t part of the plan

Routine and familiarity is so important to Hawklad. Change is best approached with planning and preparation. Especially when he is under so much additional exam stress. As a result we have been trying to map out a course that has been as smooth as possible but sometimes all we can do is whisper “REALLY…..”

Been so many instances just over these first few exam days that have put obstacles in the smooth path.

After the first exam, Hawklad getting stuck in the classroom for an hour due to a faulty printer and national rules. Then having his invigilators changed at the last minute. Then being given teacher tips on banker questions that always come up and then they don’t this year. Or finding the day before the exam that he hadn’t been given part of the course. Or the cat and dog having a fight for the first time ever, a proper full on fight, just before another exam. Or other things…..

And then we got those extra days. A day mapped out to just focus on revising for his weakest subject for the upcoming exam. Minutes into starting work and this happens to the conservatory where he was sat.

Yes a shimmering sheet of supported roof glass shattered in seconds. I think that’s a bit of ‘s’ alliteration – I’m clearly learning as well. The end result….

Randomly one inner roof glass sheets turned into a glass rain.

I have never seen so much glass pieces. On the floor, on furniture, in revision papers, in Lego sets, in clothing. Everywhere. Thankfully the safety glass did its job and no injuries, well apart from my hands trying to sort out the mess. Spooked Hawklad, Spooked Muppet Dad, Spooked Pets. We could have REALLY done without that. So his favourite revision spot is not so favourite now.

Don’t you just love exam time….

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Fudge

Week 1 completed.

4 exams.

15 still to go.

Back to back exams on Monday.

Brain fudge level, OFF THE SCALE and that’s just me.

The high point (🤯🤯🤯) of the week has to be poor Hawklad having to stay in the exam room for an extra hour after the first exam had finished while IT tried to fix a misbehaving printer. National rules state that if you use a computer to complete an exam then the student has to stay in the exam room until each typed sheet has been signed and dated. The teachers were really apologetic but they had to follow the rules.

The other highlight has to be me printing out what was a highly rated article on ASPERGERS and then sat scratching my head why the article appeared to be a cooking recipe. I did find out how to make ASPARAGUS creamy parcels.

What a monumental MUPPET.

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One week

The daily dog walk is getting very yellow…

More farmers opting for this round here.

It’s less than a week before Hawklad’s first exam starts. It’s starting to feel very real now. Very rushed. Very unnerving. Not feeling planned, feeling very out of control. Not controlling direction, much more being bounced and pushed around.

No exam revision breakthrough yet but he is trying. The problem is that this statutory process suits the system, certainly not Hawklad. He works best when he can focus on one topic and then go deep on that. Switching between topics disrupts his thinking, his learning, unsettles him. So randomly sitting 20 exams, across 6 subjects, over just a few weeks is so counterproductive to him. To him it feels like any progress made is then largely lost as he switches to a completely different topic.

The last few weeks he has also been trying to build rapport with a Teaching Assistant he has worked well with previously at school. If he needed to use a scribe in the exam then this seemed like a good option. The Student and Scribe need to develop that understanding and confidence for the best chance of success. With Asperger’s this is even more important. But now the Exam Board has ruled out using this Teaching Assistant in his exams. New regulations prevent scribes having a direct teaching link with the student. The Teaching Assistant has been providing some one to one English help as part of the weekly school sessions. Back to square one on this, any scribe would now be a stranger to Hawklad, he won’t have time to build up a rapport with a new potential person. A scribe is now not an option. So he is committed to reading and typing up his exams without help. With the grammar and spelling assistants turned off – he losses marks for using these.

A week to revise.

A week to try to learn to type much faster.

A week isn’t long enough.

Less than a week to go.

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Rush Hour

Stood in the middle of the road, in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors. It’s rush hour….

Who can spot the vital national security establishment which they haven’t really bothered hiding….. how did they get planning permission for that. Us mere mortals living in these parts struggle to get permission to build even a small coal bunker these days.

Coal bunkers, I remember them. As a child our outside toilet was built next to the coal bunker. The toilet always had a faint hit of black soot covering the seat, the floor, the walls and the toilet paper. Probably not the only things covered as well…

So Hawklad’s exams are fast approaching. In Maths, History and English Literature we have just about made it to the revision stage. For the other subjects sadly we are still scrambling about trying to complete as much of the syllabus as possible. Just need to keep reminding Hawklad that each day, more progress is made. Even if sometimes it just feels like one small step, it’s still helps, it’s still moving forward, it all adds up.

There is so much additional stress and anxiety that’s why it’s so important that Hawklad gets a chance to breathe, to enjoy some of each day. And that’s why we found ourselves stood on an empty Moors road . He fancied a trip out to somewhere quiet, miles from anywhere, miles from the EXAMS.

Job done…..

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Butty

Do you think I would get away with this in my garden as a bit of a water feature. You don’t think that it might be a tad pretentious. My current water feature is me walking about with a watering can….. Imagine the fun Captain Chaos would have with this.

We were in the garden (without a water feature) playing table tennis and trying to lift Hawklad’s spirits after a demoralising couple of hours revising. He was frustrated and dispirited because we had picked up that he had been using the wrong method to calculate something in mathematics. He’d apparently been doing it the wrong way for a couple of years but as the teacher hasn’t been looking at his submitted maths work, it wasn’t picked up until we spotted it.

He had an Easter Egg, I had a coffee with a BUTTY.

I came from a family that survived on Butties… Dad would always say only POSH people called them sandwiches. Most items could be placed between two slabs of bread for a tasty meal. Family favourites included

Fish Finger butties

Chip butties (My favourite)

Crisp butties (Mum’s favourite)

Baked Beans butties (don’t wear a white shirt eating this one)

Sausage butties

Yorkshire Pudding and Gravy butties (a particularly messy one)

Mushy Peas and Vinegar butties

Fried Egg and Tomato Ketchup butties

Last nights Pizza butties

Pork Pie butties (Dad’s favourite)

At one stage I even started having Pot Noddle butties

All things butties. I even once remember a debate about whether a slice of bread sandwiched between two other slices of bread counted as a Bread Butty or just three Slices of Bread. Whatever the answer to this philosophical point, we had so many butties as a family for one good reason. Bread was cheap, it was a cheap way of padding out our meals.

Now a thought has crossed my mind. Sitting in our garden, it’s summer, after the exams, next to that giant water feature, having a butty. That works…

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Bath

Run that by me again…. WHY did I need a bath.

Rolling around in the MUD….

Barmy Brexit or down to a few inclement weather days in Spain. For whatever the reason, many of Britain’s supermarkets have quite a few gaps on the shelves these days and what products are there has become way more expensive.

This week I was plodding around our local store, a store that was looking even more barren than usual. Hardly any gluten free cereal, no cough medicine, hardly any fresh veg, no eggs, no ……

That kinda thing.

But I was ok, humming away to the store’s choice of music this fine day. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Al Stewart. If stuff isn’t there then chill out. We have soup. We have chocolate. We have crisps. We have sausages.

Then it all changed.

Mood darkened.

Then it was definitely NOT OK.

Remember The Simpsons Movie and what finally set off the urban powder keg.

We’re OUT OF COFFEE…..

I was stood in the coffee isle. It was an empty as my so called football teams trophy cabinet. The only pods they had for my coffee machine was Chocolate and Ovaltine…. Come on the secret is in the product name, it’s a COFFEE MACHINE. George Clooney certainly won’t be happy as well as his brand’s section was was completely empty. I heard one equally desperate shopper ask a manager who reassuringly informed him that there had been no coffee stock in the delivery lorries in over a week now. So even going caffeine old school isn’t looking good as well. A few jars of cheap decaf on the shelves and that was it. Definitely NO ESPRESSO. My Blood Caffeine levels are already dropping dangerously low.

We’re OUT OF COFFEE……

Suddenly the store blasting out the Beach Boys is seriously the last thing I want to hear. The only ‘good vibrations’ here is me rapidly entering cold coffee turkey.

I know coffee isn’t good for me. I felt much healthier when I gave the stuff up for 6 months. But currently it’s helping me keep going on not enough sleep. Let’s get Hawklad through his exams and the stress levels should subside. Maybe then I can come off the caffeine but NOT right now. So until Amazon delivers emergency supplies then it’s plan b. Shed loads of chocolate. Thankfully the store had plenty of Cadbury products to load up the trolley with.

Needs must….

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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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20

Sometimes you need to get out to breathe, take stock, maybe even forget a few things for a while.

In less than 2 months Hawklad’s final school exams begin. I kinda gave one of those Paddington Bear penetrating LOOKS to someone from his school when they referred to Hawklad having an easier exam ride than many other pupils.

Some won’t see a problem with what comes next and what do I know anyway.…

When the exams start, Hawklad will have 20 exams and one video assessment to complete in just under 4 weeks.

TWENTY……

And that’s an EASIER ride. Doesn’t seem very easy to Hawklad.