TODAY I'M GRATEFUL THAT WE LIVE IN THE UK

Ice skating today.  Well went to the ice rink.  Callum doesn't skate. He took the laptop with him today and played Roblox.

Just as we were leaving a school group came in.  Don't know which one, but they reinforced why I don't send Callum to school.  Two boys got into a fight, one was so verbally and physically violent that he grabbed the boy, threw him up against a wall, swore in his face repeatedly and then threw him on the floor.  Teacher, a female, was about half his height and tiny.  Had no hope of dealing with him.

Then in the car park there was another group of boys, assuming from same school as they were in and around a mini bus, probably aged about 15/16 smoking!!  No adult supervision from what I could see and all looking rather intimidating.

Really saw the difference today as we have a few teens in our group.  They were upstairs playing pool together AND they asked the receptionist politely for some more chalk for the cues.  None were rude, none were arguing and none were outside smoking!

So grateful that we can lawfully home educate and I feel so sorry for those children that really struggle at school and then have those oiks to deal with on top of it all.

Ok, last week (20th - 24th June):

Monday was busy, busy, busy, attempting to get projects finished. We are concentrating on the Space project at the moment. We are taking one planet a day; finding out some facts and oddities; writing (well typing) up what we’ve found including a picture and adding it to a folder with any other interesting bits we can find. We are also going to try and do the activities that we got in the Stargazing leaflet from the BBC ages ago. We managed to make the juice carton rocket which is rather cool.

Tuesday was hall day in Borstal. It was nice to get out of the house and to see some people. We took along some old sciencey bits that we’ve either done or have doubles of to see if anyone wanted to take them, which people did. Came back with other stuff though which slightly defeated the object, but all good! Was lovely to see everyone, even though Callum wasn’t in the mood to run around so he just sat with me on his DS.

Wednesday was work again, but only after the Virgin Media guy came to fix our set box. He replaced it with a new one and replaced the computer modem with a new one too. Much to Callum’s delight it is a WiFi one, so he spent the next 1/2hr trying to connect his Ds to it – without much success to be honest. Will get Terri round and she can see if she can sort it out hopefully. But on a positive note, it does look as if the system is secure!

Thursday we carried on with our planets, as well as maths and literacy, and then met up with Jackie and Azeem. Off to Minster beach we went in glorious sunshine, however, within 5 mins of us setting ourselves up on the beach it poured hard. We continued to sit it out under coats, blankets and towels! Saw a wicked lightning bolt hit the sea on the horizon and shortly afterwards smoke and a fire (don’t think they were related as the strike wasn’t anywhere near the fire). The boys collected stones and some mussels, which I may attempt to eat tomorrow (they are currently being stored in salt water in my utility room sink – lovely, the mussels not the stones) and generally watched the waves. Came back and they played together on the Wii while Jackie went off and collected Hannah from her friends.

Friday we were off with Lorraine and Amy to delve into the depths of a deserted Secondary School. No, we were not breaking in; we’d been invited! It was very odd walking around such a large deserted building and only occasionally did we bump into other people. It was like a disaster movie where everything is just left lying about and discarded. Very eerie! Anyway, the kids loved it and collected as much as they could of their own interest and Lorraine and I picked up some bits and pieces that may come in handy later; the library taking the biggest hit. We’ll be able to swap them with others when finished with, so nothing will go to waste! Just wished we’d had a bigger car, hehe.

The weekend was hot and a bit more laid back. We did transplant Callum's pumpkin and sunflower plants though and are looking forward to them being able to grow a bit more, although I don't think the sunflowers will get that high as we've left it very late to transplant. Oh well.

UMMMMM SORRY!

Hello (I say rather sheepishly), is there anyone still out there? It's been ages!! Sorry!

Anyway, what have we been up to since last month (can't believe it's been that long)!

Well, as it's now August, we have tried to take time out like the schooled kids, but when you home educate you realise that kids never really take time off! Everything they do and everywhere they go, they are learning. But we are not doing projects, we haven't done any structured lessons and the only stuff we have done has been 'as and when it happens' stuff. So that's time off for us!

The last week or so of July was taking up by finishing off work for the year and gathering everything together into understandable sections - not easy when you start things, go off on tangents and then come back to stuff, but we managed it and were quite surprised by how much we'd actually done! Lots of science stuff surfaced and at least 3 major projects with lots of little ones on the side!

Callum decided he would like to show off his work to some of his friends and family, so we had about a dozen people round (he chose who he wanted, designed invites and printed them off and got them sent) for an 'open day' with Phil doing a very basic BBQ of burgers and sausages! I was rather impressed with Callum actually as he not only took charge of the invites, but he decided what work he wanted out, displayed it and set up a 'science room' in the utility room with work and some experiments. He then proceeded, on the day, to organise a rota of demonstrations of said experiments in approx 15min intervals and went over them again so later arrivals could also join in. He did it all by himself and I was very proud of him!

We also had our yearly home education beach day in July. Weather held, although was very cloudy; only raining later on in the afternoon. Quite a few families turned up and we met some new families - belated thanks to Ann for organising!!! Callum had a wonderful day and spent most of the time down in the water. It was while he was down there that I realised how much he'd grown! I was looking for him from up on the sands where we were sitting and Phil said that he was with the big boys in the water. I said I couldn't see him and then realised that he was one of the big boys!!!! Oops!! There I was looking for a little 'un! Hey ho!

So far during August we have been on a Monk's day at Rochester with Lorraine and Amy; trampolining lessons (last one of the year for the group and a couple of private ones); Ann's house for play; out with a new friend who we met through MAGIC; Callum's been on 3 Activity Days with MAGIC on his own (well, without me, but with Callum D); Trosley Park with our ASD home ed group; Capstone with Linda and Danielle to do water survey (which we never got round to doing with big sis) and to play and we've seen his best mate Callum as much as possible. All in all, our relaxing August has been a very busy, very socialable and very pleasant month!

Still to come is beach day with our, now not so, baby group. It's become an annual event! 3 mums and 4 kids down to Broadstairs. The kids have grown up together and it's like getting together with family, so really nice! We also have a zoo trip planned; more trampolining and a visit to Natural History Museum for The Deep exhibition in London and hopefully more play dates. By then it'll be September and we will need to start thinking (note I said thinking - hehe) about getting back to a routine of 'school'! Well, we will see what happens won't we?

Anyway, you are now filled in! So cya soon.

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!

Hello all

This past couple of weeks has been a bit odd on the home education front! It's been opposite ends of the spectrum if I'm honest!! Callum was keen last week for a start, haha! Which was a complete turn around from the week before which is where I suppose I should begin.

Weather was pretty good that week if I remember correctly and Callum (admittedly I was pretty much the same) just wasn't interested in doing anything remotely workbooky (I know that isn't a word, but it fits). With all this in mind we decided to say "let's have a social week instead" and he agreed! Now a lot of you may think that any kid would prefer a social week to a work week and I'm sure any school kid would love a week at home seeing his mates instead of being stuck in a classroom, but Callum, as we have ascertained on many occasions, is a bit different! Socialising to him can often be as stressful and as awful predicament than sitting in front of a workbook or, heaven forbid, sitting an exam! He doesn't 'enjoy' socialising unless it's on his terms and certainly not more than about once or twice a week, so the fact that he saw his best mate since nursery 3 times and had some children back after trampolining AND went to Gore Farm on the Sunday with my friend's (and his) girls was a bit of a shock!! 5 days out of 7 is a big thing!!! And he coped well and he enjoyed it and he wanted to do it, so all was good!!

I felt a bit guilty not getting anything remotely curriculumy (again I know that isn't a word) done all week, but learning to interact with others is just as important for kids such as Callum. In fact it is the only question/concern that his paediatrician has ever had about him being home educated; it was also the first question the LEA guy asked and that's before he knew about Callum's Asperger Syndrome. This leads me to wonder why all the concern with exams, SATS, school league tables, etc! If, once out of school, their only concern is social interaction, does this means that all those 'wonderful and interesting' opportunities that they get to learn in the said curriculum are a complete waste of time? I often think that they are! I sit there sometimes looking at the books and thinking 'I remember doing this, but I've never used it'! Yes, the ability to read is always useful. Of course it is! We wouldn't be able to read road signs, tell the difference between a can of beans and a can of peaches or understand the 1001 forms that we seem to have to fill in over the course of adulthood (actually I can read well and some of them still stump me). We do not have to have a love of reading to need the ability to read. The same is for writing! We need a certain standard, not so we can write the next bestseller, but so we can fill in those 1001 forms I've already mentioned. The same goes for maths, but honestly it's the ability to add up and take away that's of importance. Even multiplication and division could be argued as just a quicker way of doing the adding and subtracting. When was the last time you used a Cosine for example? Yes, if you want to make a shed, you need dimensions; if you have the desire to buy a new sofa, you need to be able to work out if it'll fit in through your front door (and we have made that mistake in the past believe me), but you don't need a degree in physics to do either, you need to be able to add up and take away! And when on earth have you ever been asked when Henry VIII ruled over England - only in an exam about history!!! My point being is that although I felt totally and utterly guilty about not doing 'schoolwork' I shouldn't have. My adult life has been spent having to interact with lots of different people from different walks of life, different ages, viewpoints, abilities, etc! So the fact that I spent a whole week getting him to interact was probably much much much more important! In fact, I should feel more guilty about this last week as we did 'schoolwork' and had an 'incident'!

Now the reason we did 'schoolwork' was because Callum wanted to, in fact he was very keen to do it! So keen in fact that one day he was filling in a worksheet at 8am by himself without my help!! He didn't do fantastically well at it, but he did it off his own back without prompting which is fantastic (it was a literacy one, hence the not being fantastic bit - literacy being his worst subject)! We don't follow a timetable as such, but we have a little list of things we'd like to achieve each day and last week we achieved and did more! Education City was a godsend and printing off the worksheets to do the following day and looking for similar pages in our various workbook collection helped to make sense of it all. We also baked cakes as I had an old friend come to visit and we rediscovered art!! He did see his best mate on Wednesday, but (as I felt really crap on Thursday) we didn't go trampolining and so he didn't see his usual crowd. But it didn't bother him! So looking back over the past couple of weeks from the sofa of ill on the Thursday afternoon I was feeling pretty smug! We'd socialised when it had suited him and it'd had been successful; we'd done schoolwork when he'd wanted to and that too had been successful. I thought 'I've cracked this Aspi thing'! However, Friday brought me straight back down to earth with a bang!

We were attending a workshop about castles at the Guildhall Museum, Rochester on Friday afternoon. I'd 'checked out' who was going to be there and there wasn't anyone who he didn't like; he'd been before, so no new situation; and most of the people going he knew/liked a lot. Plus the guy who runs the workshops is really good with our kids, so I thought we were safe and all bases had been covered! But no!!!!! Well, I say no; all bases were covered except I'd forgotten that Callum can be a bit of a git at times!! Now I don't mean that in a nasty way, I really really don't! But once Callum has 'one on him', it is incredible difficult to get him out of it! And to be honest he needs to learn how to get out of it himself! Callum had been fine about going for weeks, in fact he'd been quite keen until the day that is! Friday morning he spiralled into a mood of doom and gloom. By Friday afternoon he was the child from hell. I know I should have just not gone, but we all have to face situations sometimes that we don't want to (see previous blog) and I knew that it would be interesting and fun! Had it been London or had I known that there were people there he didn't like I wouldn't have pushed it, but I knew that that wasn't the case, so I did!!

We arrived early and met up with a couple of other families for lunch which he was fine with, then we got to the museum and again he was fine! But as soon as we went into the room he started! He refused, at first, to go in! I explained calmly that he didn't have to sit on the floor with the other children, he could sit with me, but that was good enough! I eventually ordered him in and he sat down with me, his back to the 'tutor' and proceeded to kick the leg of my chair and pinch my hand and arm! I tried to ignore it as I knew he was just after attention, but after 15mins of this I lost it - sorry, but I did!! You see I knew that there was nothing there that should have caused an 'Aspi moment'! I've been his mum for nearly 11years and home educated him for 3 of those! I know his triggers, I know what is going to set him off and I know damn well that there was absolutely nothing there. I avoid those kind of situations like the plague as it'll be me that suffers in the long term (who wouldn't avoid them?)! Sometimes Asperger/Autistic kids are just being pedantic just like neuro typical kids! They are just being naughty! And, I'm sorry, but to continue to kick my chair and pinch me for 15mins was being naughty! The workshop was interesting, it was hands-on and it was fun! If he could have come down off his high horse he would have enjoyed it! I know this because during an experiment which he refused to join in with, we went around the museum and he was fine! After the workshop, we went over to the castle and he was again fine! He was just being a kid who had worked himself into a frenzy of 'I'm not going to enjoy this and I'm going to prove I'm not by being disruptive'! If he truly had been having an Aspi moment he would not have calmed down at all, no matter where we were and what we were doing, I would have had to take him home, but that wasn't the case!

The outcome of me losing it was that I said something I never say "you are going back to school mate"! He looked at me completely aghast, stopped pinching me and turned around! It didn't mean that he joined in, but he stopped hurting me! That night I sat down and explained that I don't do this for fun, I do it because I care about him; because I never ever want to see him in a situation where he can't cope; I don't put him into those situations because I know how much they can confuse and frighten him; but I am not going to be his punchbag everytime he has a sulk! And if he can't respect me as much as I respect him then this will never work! He apologised and I think he understood and, of course, I would never really send him back to school. However, after having such a brilliant two weeks, we have ended on a bit of a sour note. I'm hoping that next week will be better and I'm sure it will be. It also just goes to show that, home educating or not, children will always be children.

xx