Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I am sat eating all the snack food my kids have taken out with them today to the local home-ed social, namely fruit winders and crisps. Must at some point get a sandwich or the health police will be knocking at my door.
Since my last post on schedules a lot has happened and it was only 2 weeks ago!
M didn't want to go back to school after the half term. We discussed it and she seemed convinced she had had enough. I rang the school on the Tuesday and arranged to take in the de-reg letter. The head teacher was lovely and fine about it all. He handed me her books...and she is free again.
A week later I received a letter from Trafford, nicely asking to come and visit me at home with an EWO and the schools improvement officer...I think that is his title. It seems most LA's have a different title for the person in charge of contacting home-edders.
I politely declined the home visit but said I would meet at a local venue if it was deemed necessary, though I was capable of asking for help on anything. The thing is they state the support the LA can offer home-edders, but really what support is there??? What has anyone ever been offered?? Except home-visits and checklists?
He asked if I could send a brief educational report which I have so I am awaiting a reply. He seems a nice guy but not terribly efficient so that may be the last I hear of him.

I would like to contact him to see about home-ed kids having access to this but the funding comes through schools, so ideally I would need a school to put my dd's name on the role but not attend EVER. Not sure I can see that happening. Course I could see about getting a grant from somewhere.......

So once again I am re-jigging our days and routines. We are quite relaxed really. It seems colleges have a blanket MUST HAVE MATHS + ENGLISH statement so if a kid wants to go to college at 16 it would be worth enduring those. Tricky for my eldest though who is dyslexic and possibly dyscalculic...... but I am not sure where she is heading yet.
I do know for me, this journey has been extremely tough, heart wrenching and often lonely. I don't share my worries or fears amongst my home-ed friends. To be honest they mostly seem to be doing well and their kids not particularly struggling and few people share their journeys openly, so I am not sure they would understand, or would possibly judge me somehow. I do enough of that for myself.

Of course as I type that last section, I secretly hope no-one is reading this. I often blog stuff thinking no one is out there but maybe some day someone pops over!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Abuse of Children in Care Settings


Facebook has banned this map so I am posting it on here!

For further info click here.