WORK, WORK, WORK AND A PROFOUND OBSERVATION BY CALLUM

Hello everyone

I said last week that Callum had been energised by his little weekend away and had worked really well! It seems to have continued into this week too (or last week, by the time I blog this and you read it).

We have concentrated on our 'Castles' project and the 'sh' sound in literacy and this is where the extreme conflict in education really notices. One of the activities we are doing for our project is to compare different types of castle; look at different defences and discuss pros and cons, etc. This is actually Key Stage 3 work (11-14yrs old), but the literacy work is infant school. Callum is perfectly capable of doing the Key Stage 3 work and he's even produced a short Powerpoint presentation on it, picking out main points, importing pictures, researching on Google, etc and he has done it all by himself after an initial 'how to' instruction from me. He's also doing Key Stage 3 work in Science and coping really well with only a few stumbles on the scientific names (but most kids would do that at first). However, when it comes to getting this information down he is, as already mentioned, doing infant literacy so can't write things up without a great deal of help. Doing the Powerpoint was easy as he could copy and paste the bits he wanted and then had to do a slight edit to make the information fit the page. As his reading is fine and his general keyboard skills are good(ish) he's capable of doing that. But writing from scratch is impossible and he would tire mentally far too quickly and then get so stressed that nothing would get done.

I've talked about these issues on here many times, so I'm not going to go into it any further, but it's here that the true advantage of home education compared to school education shows because in home education it doesn't matter! At school he would just be finishing Key Stage 2 and he would be struggling desperately! Not because intellectually he couldn't do the work, but because he couldn't 'prove' that he could! This would lead him to have bad grades, probably be treated as if he was stupid and his self esteem would plummet. He would also be bored silly and, therefore, disruptive as they would probably keep him down at Key Stage 1 until he could write fluently!

Because we can work at the pace that suits our children, our children can be on lots of different levels in lots of different subjects and it doesn't matter if they are advanced in some and behind in others. I truly believe that at the end of the day it will all even out! What I think is more important is that Callum has fun and enjoys his education. That way he is more likely to learn, want to learn in the first place and to retain the information. Anyway, that's my little soap box bit done - hehe.

With regard to our project we visited Dover Castle this week. It was a straightforward train journey to Dover Priory (although our train was cancelled so the journey down didn't turn out as straightforward as we'd hoped, but at least Callum got to see a train of two halves become a complete one) and then we took a taxi to the castle itself. I knew it was on the top of a hill and didn't fancy my leg killing me before I'd even got through the gates. The castle was fab and I managed 3 flights of spiral stairs before giving up. Callum, on the other hand, made it all the way to the top!! We also went down into the medieval tunnels which were a bit dark, steep and creepy, but good! Actually we did a lot of walking up and down hills, stairs and over walls and I was quite impressed by myself as well as Callum - go us!!

The weather was lovely and we had a picnic lunch on the grass. This was our first encounter of the french pupils and we kept bumping into them off and on for the rest of the afternoon. It was while outside the shop that Callum made his profound observation. There was an English school group on the grass to the right of us who weren't really doing a lot and were more interested in chasing the pidgeons (they were about Callum's age, 10-11, so not little) and a French group to our left who were either playing games with their goodies that they had bought from the gift shop or waiting patiently on the grass for their turn to go in. Callum looked from one group to the other and then turned to me and said "Mum, the French children are much better behaved than the English ones aren't they? They seem really interested in what they are doing. Our lot are just being naughty!!" Wow!!! How's that for an observation and what does that tell us about our country? Hopefully, our school lot would be better behaved if in France, but something tells me that they probably wouldn't be.

Actually, talking about France, one of the highlights of Callum's day was when we were up on the look out point. As the weather was sunny and pretty clear, you could actually see France on the horizon! I pointed the hills in the distance out to Callum and asked him what he thought they were, he said he thought it was England, but a different bit (like we can see Grain from the Strand or Southend from Allhallows). When I told him it was actually France he was well impressed!! He could actually see a completely different and unconnected land mass and he thought that was pretty cool!!

After visiting the castle we walked down to the beach and we spent some time letting him watch the waves and see the ferries going in and out of the harbour. Then it was a quick walk back to the station and home. Needless to say he was pretty shattered and he collapsed on the sofa for the rest of the evening, even going to bed 1/2hr earlier as he was knackered, bless him.

We are downloading photos next week and finishing off our project.

We didn't go to the Fuse Festival in Rochester, but went to the SOS day at Hillyfields instead. Had a great afternoon, we met up with his mate Callum and his family, spoke to the SOS bus staff and the policemen; had icecream; a bounce on the bouncy castle and then a trip to the play area for a play. Weather was lovely and we had the advantage that it was a 5min walk home rather than a 20 min walk and train journey.

Well, that's it for now. See you all later!