School issues

In some ways it wouldn't be a back to school week without controversies whither we're talking the concrete issue that goes beyond schools to other public sector buildings, school uniform issues including dealing with heatwaves or what have you.

We've seen bans on knee socks in some high schools including banning anything other than thick tights some saying they have to be between 40 and 70 denier for "safeguarding" reasons and indeed one school specifies 100 denier which is very much past a joke with temperatures above 28 degrees c.

Others banned any kind of not fully covered instep shoe such as ballet style "pumps" apart from such common things as trainers.

Boys faced tailored shorts bans but COULD wear a skirt in some schools while many were forced to keep jumpers and blazers on as they dripped like a tap at their desks as if that was going to aid their learning and attentiveness.

In many businesses adjustments and even a range within uniform today is the norm so is it that some head teachers and governing bodies are power mad that they want to control virtually every aspect of a child's presentation to a military level facing daily inspection drives?

It is one thing to wish to see children in school looking smart and try to keep out competition in dress but just what is up with some of our educators?
 

Time to restore past lessons?

It's been a warm weekend out as I ditched a thicker coat for a thinner jacket which was just waterproof for showers if needed and dropped a layer off in the sun or indoors.

In so far as food goes it doesn't really alter what I eat around midday as that's meat salads unless I'm going out to lunch which don't take a long time to prepare unless you really want to go to town with it, hard boiling eggs by saucepan full and making your own dips.

I do sometimes thing in our quest to both increase employment opportunities for all and avoid gender based biases in children's education we lost track of the importance of Home Economics, learning basic cooking and hygiene or learning how to mend and clean clothes together with how to run a home.

Rather than seeing it something everyone should learn, we seemed to take the view it was a lesser option forced on girls that needed to go.

It shouldn't surprise us the number of people who do not know how to prepare a meal from fresh ingredients and would be lost without a ready meal because we're at least a couple of generations loss from learning and using those skills on a everyday basis.

Equally much clothing is tossed aside that could easily be repaired and given a second life. 

Perhaps it's time to rethink just what we do teach given that for most you don't leave education until you're eighteen today unlike in the past.

Return to Autumn term

As you read this it will be the August bank holiday which tends to mark the return of school over here and as it happens also is being marked by family fun days this weekend in churches and public houses where I live.

 Not unsurprisingly in the local newspapers and some national media too we are seeing the various promotions for such things around uniforms, where in the UK the majority of schools have one, stationery and equipment.

This is a good example of the sort of advertising we have, here for the Matalan discount store with photogenic models and needless to say the cardigans, socks setc are all available from the store too.
Being taken out to the local uniform shop in the last ten day or so of August is a ritual many of us remember well, being told we'll 'grow into' our clothes as you feel a bit like a scarecrow with everything being a bit big and baggy on you.

This lovely Panda Plush pencil case is a good example of the variety a regular stationery store such as W H Smiths over here stocks and yes things like Football one exist for boys too

 A decent geometry set helps for math and science and this is an example from W H Smith although you'd need to add a compass a 2hb pencil and rubber to it plus some decent colouring pencils and ballpoint/fountain pen with ink.
Personally I'm with fountain pens as a good broad nib often improves the flow of the least good handwriting which even if this an age when digital often prevails, still is worth cultivating.

"We interupt this blog with a Newsflash"

Not the why are we waiting  edition but if you hadn't spotted I'm actually away which makes blogging more difficult as I can't go and place five links at various places and many people rely on social media for updates than tried and true systems like RSS and even 'Following'.

There are classes laid on during this period I'll be attending where I'll be doing some work -ones a bit vague but two are arts and crafts based which apart from being fun to do, putting me in a class really takes me into little space, feeling I'm back in school.
One difference from being in school in my day was we didn't have a half of the technology today's schoolboys and girls had not least that you have at hand as it were and some of issues associated with it. We passed notes and made paper airplanes in class.
Do you think I'll whip out my cellphone starting going through texts and missed calls when we're meant to be working?
I rather suspect if I did it would be dealt with cos apart from distracting others, disrespecting those who take time out to take the classes, it doesn't help me to learn to concentrate on the task in hand as I'm easily distracted.
Rules do have a purpose.

Pay attention Jo (yet another study weekend)

This was typed between bit of spare time this weekend where it was bright and sunny although not exactly warm here not that it stops his Gingerness from being out for hours at a time.

"Cheer up, Girls, it can't surely be that bad" is the thought that enters my mind looking at that picture and the desks we sat at one by one until my secondary education were similar for those of us brought up with rote learning and the notion the teacher delivering the lesson to the class.
This weekend I've been studying  with an English practice on an extract from Oscar Wilde's The Picture  of Dorian Gray which was more about how to answer questions long answers where there is not a clue in the question as the what in the extract you need to look at and where necessary quote from.
Not wishing to sound like I'm on repeat, but my reading age is barely in double digits so reading it for the gest of the story was very hard going but I managed 90% in this.
The other part of the study is my favourite subject  -NOT- Math looking at working out Areas, Circumferences, Diameters and Radius using formulas for squares, circles, rectangles and triangles (right angled and others) in addition to learning about Solids and Nets which involves having to use ordinary math.
Although part of the formula wasn't properly explained so I had to work it out for myself, I did actually get 100% on this unit which is pretty amazing.
I'd like to thank Papa Bear for his supporting me, he's a lovely, firm but fair guy who believes in me probably more I've done in the  past to be honest and everyone else who does helping me grow.

May study weekend

I don't actually know where to put myself today as the weekends events have left me feeling very different about me (and some of this will go elsewhere), what I can do and really about my life so far in.
As well all know, the one big difference this year with the exception of days when I am truly too unwell to work or away on meets such as Camp, my weekends  are taken up with something deliberately challenging.
Two days of concentrated study where I pretty much have to work on just that, sat at a desk, in uniform with no distractions working from the study guides with just fixed recess periods with no dawdling, back chat or refusing to start being accepted.

Really.
This weekend has seen me work on my English looking at how people who write stories try to draw you into the character, getting you to think you were involved and learning how to compare and contrast different texts on the same subject by style, language, use of humour and summarize any differences effectively.
I had set questions to answer on it and I managed 90%.
Sunday after breakfast saw me start work on the great Basic Math revision test going over the whole of the unit from addition, subtraction, long multiplication and  long division (makes numbers look more like snakes and ladders!), formulars, factors, square, cubed and prime numbers and ratios.
That's because I now have Area to get to grips with as the next unit in my studying and you need to understanding these more everyday concepts first.
It also involved knowing how to use a calculator correctly and paper/mental arthritic!
Now this has been marked at...92%
I even got the formulas and long division right  it's so unlike the me I knew, who flunked Math spectacularly at high school not that there are not good reasons why I struggle with it but more the leap in the argument that starts by saying "She'll struggle" moves though "Won't achieve" and finishes at "It doesn't matter".
It doesn't say "Is struggling", "Will help her to master it" and "We will put our foot down if she doesn't make a honest attempt at doing it" which is really the difference now in my life.

Weekend studying

Another weekend goes and can you imagine what I've been doing over two days in this cold and snowy time?

 Yes, I had double studying this weekend where I actually had just sit down and work my grey socks off rather than either being distracted by other stuff online or otherwise and actual get started on time as I have from now on...
Is that an offstage Ow you hear? (lol).
So on Saturday in English I was working on backing up points by using quotations and getting to grips with making sense of Shakespeare, being able to read extracts from plays and make out what really is happening to the point of being able to show I understood  what I had read.
Shakespeare isn't like me  just coming out with it even with a bit of diplomatic license, it's often wrapped around long poetic descriptions and anything but direct.
I did manage to get every question right this week as well as drawing neat boxes to make the tables to put some of the answers in.
During the week the Ks 3 Math study and workbook arrived which could mean one thing, that like it or not I had Math to work on  and was required to get myself a Geometry set and traditional exercise book to write my work in on Friday when it had been snowing.
Can you imagine it, a increasing number of exercise books with "Joanne, [Subject] Month/Year and Form: 1EB" written neatly on the front that I am to fill out over the year?
Sunday I had to tackle Math starting on what you'd call basic number work such as how you put numbers in order to express them as Math and in English as well as size before moving on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division featuring patterns, multiplying and dividing  in decimal units which cause my fears to multiply(!) as well how to multiply and divide numbers like 20, 300, 800 which I can't recall being shown not that being truthful I'd of paid that much attention to back in the day.
I'm also working through Multiples, Factors and odd, even, squared and cubed numbers too and it's all starting sink in as although this is hard for me, I did actually manage it, even going back over one calculation three times until I spotted where I was going wrong which was very good for me as I'd of thrown the pencil at you cursing until very recently.
In a way it really underscores where the work on my attitudes and behaviour slots in because it's not that this isn't hard  for me but it is something with support I can grasp but didn't want saying in effect "Too hard, why even try" which is why a very strict line has and is taken with me.
It actually shows that with a no-nonsense approach when it's coupled with support and guidance I am able to do things, that I have abilities I can use and from now on I'm to put a real effort into trying. 

I CAN DO MORE WITH THE RIGHT HELP WHEN I ALLOW OTHERS TO HELP ME
That is what being a responsible disabled adult middle is all about

Also my BFF checked in during the days to see how I was getting on, like actually getting started and I did the same for her which does seem to work well for both of us and she did well too.

At the chalk face

I've written a few bits around my education here before now  and thought I'd write about an important feature of every classroom in those pre IT days.
The chalkboard played a very important part of the education I had (the term "Blackboard" was effectively banned in my schools) being the main point where teachers would write parts of the lesson that was to be taught such as math going through worked examples, setting a written task or teaching handwriting and bugbare of a good number of us, cursive handwriting.
Later on at high school, we had rolling chalkboards  where the notes for a whole lesson were put on for you to copy down or not given I had difficulties in reading, writing and spelling so usually someone else wrote stuff down for me.
When as inevitable someone got in trouble it wasn't unknown for the chalk board to feature in part of the punishment you got by having to write out lines .

That one wasn't uncommon as talking in class when the lesson was in progress at least  was frowned on as was passing notes between desks.

Failure to heed that usually lead to rather strict punishment  as I found out a  few times!

Dedicated to all the Misses and would be Misses, That one one that often came up even though every school I went to had a homework diary where you wrote down the task and when it had to be in and in my last school you even were expected if you were a day late handing any in to find the teacher at recess and hand it in, owning up to being late with it.
"The dog ate it" wasn't considered a good enough reason not to.
As I found out there was a big price to pay for not attempting it at all.

This week I'll get my Homework done (shh)!

Boys!

My education was at co-educational schools which when translated out of the amazing lexication of the world of Education into plain english means schools that accepted boys and girls as pupils.
We were not perish the thought 'students' at the ripe age of six because we we children and students went to college back then!
That's why strangely enough I'm devoting a page on my blog to a strange species that we shared our time with: The Boy.

 Boys had a certain something different about them.
At that time they tended to be rather more forward, leading things having different sorts of adventures and rather prone to dares.
They had a different uniform too as shown on this picture of a 'prep' school although the colours here have more in common.

 I thought when they were good and made sure they were not covered in mud from playing war games and falling off trees they looked really smart although the boy on left would of been told to pull his socks up literally, not just as a metaphor for getting engaged in his life.
Older boys wore long pants (UK trousers) but boys up to their teens didn't although that was starting to change.

 Personally I loved to see them in their shorts being more practical too for when they played usually with each other in groups.

 Proper shorts for boys were actually lined for comfort and were fairly warm worn with just beneath the knee socks usually gray rather than the white ones we had which probably was a good idea as they didn't show puddle stains.

While I'd of rather of gone to an all girls school, I enjoyed sharing space with them hearing of their adventures and feel we ought to be valueing boys as equals for just being themselves.