I do love the sound of the Anglo-Stalinist town hall!
We get to keep all our models etc which adds to the annoyance - they get taken into school for a few days and then home they come. Nothing my kids has made has ever been played with or used once home.
We really should have kept the older kids’ stuff (all chucked during house renovations) to recycle for Child C and his cousin. Which is undoubtedly not the point, but I don’t care.
As a small child I absolutely loved assignments where I had to make something and enjoyed the challenge with minimal parental help (perhaps some suggestions, and of course procuring materials). My sister, who was three years older than me, hated them, and I often wound up making her projects for her (with the encouragement of our parents, oddly enough).
[Homework] has been described as an inefficient, jaded and bankrupt practice. Dylan Wiliam said once that “most homework teachers set is crap.” Alfie Kohn (2006) in ‘The Homework Myth’ thinks schools should set their default policy to ‘no homework’. Why? There is no evidence of any academic benefit supporting the value of homework for primary age children (John Hattie says it “has an effect of zero”) and there are grim uncertainties about whether homework benefits older students.
Even though Hattie says that 5-10 minutes of practising what was taught that day at school has the same effect as 1-2 hours does, an OECD report on data from the PISA survey looked at homework among 15-year-olds and found socio-economically advantaged students and those who attended socio-economically advantaged schools tended to spend more time doing homework than other students which could perpetuate inequalities in education.
I ditched it when I was leading teaching and learning, because I didn't think it was worth the arguments
ISTM that all this nonsense about making cardboard Town Halls or what-have-you is the school equivalent of 'grown up' office meetings etc., i.e. The Practical Alternative To WORK.
The kidz should be concentrating on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
I would ask parents to read with their children and help them learn their times tables. Otherwise I didn't give much homework. Because I had to mark it.
The kidz should be concentrating on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
Absolutely. And the other stuff which helps you learn and generally makes the world go round- music, art, being outdoors, being active, all that. At school.
And at home, pursue all of the above as wished by the kiddo, and within family constraints.
CK, I can well believe all of what you quoted above. (Alfie Kohn was quite the hero among many of my internet mummy friends, esp those who went on to home educate). Trouble is, it’s a bit of an arms race. Or a game of chicken. I don’t want to be the first to refuse. All of our kids have been through this school, the hw issue was raised when child a was there a decade ago, and the school’s response was that parents want it. I am not convinced that we do...
Did they issue the kit required to make the lighthouses? Only the electrical stuff is a bit hard to come by now Maplin has gone, but can easily be ordered by the school. Battery holder, bulb holder, bulb and lengths of wire, with work at school on switches using paper clips and paper fasteners before they go home.
We did that sort of thing in school - I had got hold of a lot of wool cones from a factory in Lechlade which made excellent torches or light houses, depending on which way up they were used.
My father was a primary head-teacher and did not believe in homework. We all came out fine, but when I say this to parents of the here and now they seem shocked. He also didn't believe in giving us lined paper to write on and we all learned quite quickly to write in straight lines across the page.
When I was primary age I could hardly write in straight lines even with lined paper.
I too was the daughter of two teachers, and when in my first year at secondary school I was told to make a collection of seeds, nuts and berries, my first thought was 'oh, sh*t, more blo**dy nature walks'.
I said nary a word at home and handed in a truly awful collection, gaining the only F ever in all my years at school. At the year-end parent-teacher meeting my parents were somewhat surprised to hear that my practical work was 'weak',as they'd no idea I'd ever done any <killingme>
Although we had homework, I don't ever remember having to make anything at home; I had a very traditional Scottish education, which leaned rather more towards the academic than the artistic*. This was just as well, as I was completely rubbish at anything remotely artsy, crafty or creative, and it would have been bound to end badly.
* We did, however, get lots of music, as the director of education at the time (who also happened to be my father) was very keen on it. What I would consign to Hell is modern-day education authorities who think of music as a second-class subject and don't appreciate that it should be available for everyone who wants it.
I would ask parents to read with their children and help them learn their times tables. Otherwise I didn't give much homework. Because I had to mark it.
When we moved overseas my Sainted Aunt T (see posts passim) sent plenty of books to boost my education, such as modern home schooling books and plenty of reading matter. She had the idea that the Air Ministry wasted money on aeroplanes and neglected airmen's families. As an only child I spent a bit of time reading and in the late 'sixties, became very proficient at cash calculations in pounds, shillings and pence, aided by my mum who had been a wages clerk in a factory: she would tot up her shopping as she went round a store and woe betide a shopkeeper or cashier who got a different answer!
My Old Dad had a grocer's shop (think Ronnie Barker, in Open All Hours) back in the 50s. I can still think and calculate in pounds, shillings, pence, halfpence, and farthings.
I don't think he used groats, doubloons, denarii, or dandiprats, though.
I too was the daughter of two teachers, and when in my first year at secondary school I was told to make a collection of seeds, nuts and berries, my first thought was 'oh, sh*t, more blo**dy nature walks'.
Or muesli, as it's more commonly known. If you'd wanted to be really swotty you could even have blended different brands.
We never made things at home - in fact we never made things in class either. We sat - all 40+ of us - in rows of desks and learnt tables or did sums or practised joined-up writing.
Mr F was though once tasked with drawing a moose as homework. He duly came in the next day with a carefully delineated chocolate pudding.
I do not remember constructing things but definitely learning was stressed. My last classroom in primary school was in an old building with high ceilings. Written in chalk on grey chart paper placed high on wall were tables of things to be learnt each week. Some so called historical facts written in one liners, equivalents, percentages, fraction decimals, multiplication tables etc. Tests every Friday morning on thesecharts which we spent every spare moment gazing at. 1938 John Baird invented television is one which was regularly there. This at a time when there was no TV in Australia.
TICTH the miserable sod of a neighbour at Our Place, who is yet again complaining about three small lime trees within our grounds.
She says:
1. They have leaves, which drop sticky sap, or themselves, onto her car, so that she has to keep washing it. Actually, most trees have leaves. They fall off.
2. They have branches which overhang the pavement (these have been recently trimmed). Actually, most trees have branches. They grow.
3. One fell down recently (it was a rotting fir tree, actually, which collapsed about 9 years ago - it was duly cleared). The three lime trees themselves are all in good health. Presumably, she wishes them dead (which might affect the foundations of her house).
4. She has been stung - by a lime tree? Possibly by stinging nettles, protruding through railings, but all cleared away in the past fortnight by our new gardener (she obviously hasn't noticed).
5. She is 'entitled' to park on that side of the road, having a parking permit. So do we, and we pay for our permits, too.
The street is not wide enough for two lines of parked cars, but there are no yellow lines, so people could park immediately outside their houses, rather than on the opposite side of the road, where the church (and the offending trees) are.
The house concerned has large trees behind it, which also (unsurprisingly) possess leaves and branches, but I haven't heard that Mrs. Awkward is bombarding the Council with pleas to fell them.
Some people really need to Get A Life, if their main concern is a tree or two...
I should add, perhaps, that the trees are protected by a Preservation Order, and we would need not only permission from the Council, but also a faculty from the Diocese, to pollard them. This process is under way, but takes time.
A long rant, I know, but I do wish people would appreciate the way we try (with very limited resources) to keep the church and its grounds tidy. If we close, as we may well do soon, they will have to put up with an empty building, possibly subject to vandalism and arson, along with increasingly overgrown grounds. I hope they enjoy it.
The stick dropped by lime trees isn't great for cars - and has caused much law cases (Telegraph report) in the past. I like lime trees. She could have been stung by a bee. Flowering lime trees are magnets for bees.
It's also the case that the trees drop sap etc. ,but we are aware that they can be a nuisance, and we do try to keep them in check. Alas, getting Council and Diocese to grant permission to just trim them is not as simple as one might think!
Mind you, if the Council were to come along and order us to do the job instantly, we would comply - we've got quotes, and it's not going to cost silly money - but we're trying to go through the correct procedures.
I call these folk dendrophobes. It's amazing how many of them buy houses next to other people's trees and then demand their removal. Or in some cases, just climb over and do it themselves.
Summer or, more specifically, the potent mix of discomfort and bleurgh that it brings: hot, sticky nights; it getting light ridiculously early in the morning; and hay fever.
I’m coming to the conclusion that spring is better: pleasantly warm, but not too hot; cool nights; later mornings and, for me at least, low pollen counts. But we seem to have skipped that this year and gone straight from winter to summer.
Summer or, more specifically, the potent mix of discomfort and bleurgh that it brings: hot, sticky nights; it getting light ridiculously early in the morning; and hay fever
Yes yes Mr Smiff, I totally agree. Thankfully our nights are cool, but days are hell. I only go out from 6 to 9 AM and after 6 PM unless I have no choice. I hate summer.
I call these folk dendrophobes. It's amazing how many of them buy houses next to other people's trees and then demand their removal. Or in some cases, just climb over and do it themselves.
They are, I suppose, the counterparts of the rogue planters of C. leylandii.
Summer or, more specifically, the potent mix of discomfort and bleurgh that it brings: hot, sticky nights; it getting light ridiculously early in the morning; and hay fever.
Winter - (and not just to be contrary ). Specifically the sea mist that never seems far away. Dry cold is much easier to deal with than this constantly clammy cold that seeps into my bones. Also the dive in temperature that occurs around 8 am.
On a sort of summer / weather theme....hay fever. Gah. Mine is pretty mild in comparison to many of my friends and family, and still, come this point in the evening I could cheerfully scratch my eyeballs.
Also - “one a day” antihistamines, my arse. 14 hours if I’m really, really lucky.
My eyes sometimes get unpleasantly itchy in the presence of certain flowers and plants. I did take "one-a-day" antihistamines one summer, and I admit they helped, but they're expensive, and I don't know that my (as yet fairly mild) symptoms can really justify them.
I will, however consign Small Bitey Things to the deepest levels of Hell, where they can await the eventual arrival of Trump/Farage/[insert name of political retard of your choice] and spend the rest of eternity feasting on their poison.
Hay Fever deserves the deepest pits of sulphur. The old anti-histamine tablets were next to useless. Judge the time to take them just right and they did lessen the sneezing and itching.
Take them too late and they had no effect at all on the symptoms but you still got the drowsiness side-effects. On the morning we got married (35 years ago this month) the pollen count had soared overnight - and my tablets were safely stored in my work office desk! This called for a trip to the pharmacy as soon as it opened and I sneezed all day.
The current tablets are much better. They are, however, very like painkillers in their pricing. Buy a branded one and you pay through the nose: buy a generic one (the active ingredient of cetirizine hydrochloride is the same) and it can be much cheaper. Not quite such a price differential as ibuprofen, but worth it all the same.
Read a funny book once, sorry cannot remember the name, where a man was trying to refill a anti-histamine prescription in New York city before leaving town over a long week-end when the world was in bloom. Seems his MD was out of town and they would not give him the refill on his pills without doctors ok. He shouted as he left the shop, " I can buy heroin, and cocaine on the next street corner for heavens sake, it is just anti-histamine."
I sometimes get (quite without warning) extremely short-tempered (Keppra Rage - let the reader understand).
Earlier today, at the petrol station, I found great difficulty in getting the pump nozzle into the filling pipe on the car (no, I was not trying to put diesel in by mistake). I managed to spill about 25p worth of fuel onto the car (and my shoes) before slamming the nozzle back onto the pump, and shouting out for all to hear 'YOU CAN SEE I'M HAVING TROUBLE, YOU BAS***DS - WHY DON'T YOU HELP ME???'.
I then drove off incontinent, without paying the five bob I now owe Shell (I await a knock on the palace door at 3am).
So, TICTH the designers of petrol pumps, who make it so hard for someone, struggling to walk with a stick, to stretch the bloody thing around to the wrong side of the car if one can't get to the correct side, IYSWIM.
So sorry Bishop's Finger. I know having to walk with a stick can make life hard at time. My rant is that I have trouble taking the gas cap off the tank in order to put the nozzle in. Thankfully I can usually find someone in a near by car to help on those days that the hand is not working. Graven Image who wishes for days gone by when each gas station was full service and someone did the filling and checked the air in the tires and the fluids as well.
Apart from the Keppra Rage, I think I'm just rather frustrated at being somewhat disabled at the moment. Hopefully, this will change, as my pelvis and muscles untwist themselves, but grrr.....
(BF) I have friends on Keppra and the meltdowns appear far from an occasional side-effect. The stuff I’m on causes hair loss, makes weight loss difficult and give me the shakes - so I’d spill fuel too! At least it has the desired therapeutic effect
Yes, sometimes the side-effects (which, of course, vary widely in their intensity from person to person) are almost worse than the malady they're treating. The Keppra is, in my case, at any rate keeping me free from seizures!
Perhaps I'm fortunate, in that my bouts of rage (which are quite irrational) are infrequent.
I haven’t worked out how to embed links in posts sent from my mobile/cellphone but I call Sir Christopher Chope to Hell for blocking a stack of Private Members Bills including one that would make it illegal to take photographs up skirts. This shit has made a habit, of not a career, of blocking these bills. It will come as no surprise to learn that he is a lawyer.
On medication, I put on 15kg on an anti depressant and I wasn't a stick to begin with. I know it's a small side effect compared to others, but it did impact my self-esteem. When I came off it and lost it all in a month, people thought I was deathly ill. I made vague references to a medication change.
Damn mist/fog or whatever. In the past couple of weeks we have only had a day when I could get some washing dry. It's tempting to just go to bed until spring. Black slugs abound.
I consign my apartment building's front door, and whoever is responsible for keeping it's electronic workings going. There have constantly been problems with it malfunctioning and shutting people out, and today it's doing it again.
Comments
We get to keep all our models etc which adds to the annoyance - they get taken into school for a few days and then home they come. Nothing my kids has made has ever been played with or used once home.
We really should have kept the older kids’ stuff (all chucked during house renovations) to recycle for Child C and his cousin. Which is undoubtedly not the point, but I don’t care.
I ditched it when I was leading teaching and learning, because I didn't think it was worth the arguments
The kidz should be concentrating on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
IJ
Absolutely. And the other stuff which helps you learn and generally makes the world go round- music, art, being outdoors, being active, all that. At school.
And at home, pursue all of the above as wished by the kiddo, and within family constraints.
CK, I can well believe all of what you quoted above. (Alfie Kohn was quite the hero among many of my internet mummy friends, esp those who went on to home educate). Trouble is, it’s a bit of an arms race. Or a game of chicken. I don’t want to be the first to refuse. All of our kids have been through this school, the hw issue was raised when child a was there a decade ago, and the school’s response was that parents want it. I am not convinced that we do...
We did that sort of thing in school - I had got hold of a lot of wool cones from a factory in Lechlade which made excellent torches or light houses, depending on which way up they were used.
When I was primary age I could hardly write in straight lines even with lined paper.
Lots of squeaky noises, though.
I'll get me cap...
IJ
I said nary a word at home and handed in a truly awful collection, gaining the only F ever in all my years at school. At the year-end parent-teacher meeting my parents were somewhat surprised to hear that my practical work was 'weak',as they'd no idea I'd ever done any <killingme>
The (temporarily rebellious) Mrs. S
* We did, however, get lots of music, as the director of education at the time (who also happened to be my father) was very keen on it. What I would consign to Hell is modern-day education authorities who think of music as a second-class subject and don't appreciate that it should be available for everyone who wants it.
When we moved overseas my Sainted Aunt T (see posts passim) sent plenty of books to boost my education, such as modern home schooling books and plenty of reading matter. She had the idea that the Air Ministry wasted money on aeroplanes and neglected airmen's families. As an only child I spent a bit of time reading and in the late 'sixties, became very proficient at cash calculations in pounds, shillings and pence, aided by my mum who had been a wages clerk in a factory: she would tot up her shopping as she went round a store and woe betide a shopkeeper or cashier who got a different answer!
I don't think he used groats, doubloons, denarii, or dandiprats, though.
IJ
Or muesli, as it's more commonly known. If you'd wanted to be really swotty you could even have blended different brands.
Mr F was though once tasked with drawing a moose as homework. He duly came in the next day with a carefully delineated chocolate pudding.
I do not remember constructing things but definitely learning was stressed. My last classroom in primary school was in an old building with high ceilings. Written in chalk on grey chart paper placed high on wall were tables of things to be learnt each week. Some so called historical facts written in one liners, equivalents, percentages, fraction decimals, multiplication tables etc. Tests every Friday morning on thesecharts which we spent every spare moment gazing at. 1938 John Baird invented television is one which was regularly there. This at a time when there was no TV in Australia.
She says:
1. They have leaves, which drop sticky sap, or themselves, onto her car, so that she has to keep washing it. Actually, most trees have leaves. They fall off.
2. They have branches which overhang the pavement (these have been recently trimmed). Actually, most trees have branches. They grow.
3. One fell down recently (it was a rotting fir tree, actually, which collapsed about 9 years ago - it was duly cleared). The three lime trees themselves are all in good health. Presumably, she wishes them dead (which might affect the foundations of her house).
4. She has been stung - by a lime tree? Possibly by stinging nettles, protruding through railings, but all cleared away in the past fortnight by our new gardener (she obviously hasn't noticed).
5. She is 'entitled' to park on that side of the road, having a parking permit. So do we, and we pay for our permits, too.
The street is not wide enough for two lines of parked cars, but there are no yellow lines, so people could park immediately outside their houses, rather than on the opposite side of the road, where the church (and the offending trees) are.
The house concerned has large trees behind it, which also (unsurprisingly) possess leaves and branches, but I haven't heard that Mrs. Awkward is bombarding the Council with pleas to fell them.
Some people really need to Get A Life, if their main concern is a tree or two...
I should add, perhaps, that the trees are protected by a Preservation Order, and we would need not only permission from the Council, but also a faculty from the Diocese, to pollard them. This process is under way, but takes time.
A long rant, I know, but I do wish people would appreciate the way we try (with very limited resources) to keep the church and its grounds tidy. If we close, as we may well do soon, they will have to put up with an empty building, possibly subject to vandalism and arson, along with increasingly overgrown grounds. I hope they enjoy it.
IJ
It's also the case that the trees drop sap etc. ,but we are aware that they can be a nuisance, and we do try to keep them in check. Alas, getting Council and Diocese to grant permission to just trim them is not as simple as one might think!
Mind you, if the Council were to come along and order us to do the job instantly, we would comply - we've got quotes, and it's not going to cost silly money - but we're trying to go through the correct procedures.
IJ
I’m coming to the conclusion that spring is better: pleasantly warm, but not too hot; cool nights; later mornings and, for me at least, low pollen counts. But we seem to have skipped that this year and gone straight from winter to summer.
Yes yes Mr Smiff, I totally agree. Thankfully our nights are cool, but days are hell. I only go out from 6 to 9 AM and after 6 PM unless I have no choice. I hate summer.
They are, I suppose, the counterparts of the rogue planters of C. leylandii.
Winter - (and not just to be contrary
We hates it hobbitses.
O dear - that sounds like a post from the 'Chasing The Black Dog/Slug' thread!
<lots of warm, comforting, votives>
The lime trees will be back. The Queen Bees are sleeping, and will also be back (with their minions) soon...
IJ
Also - “one a day” antihistamines, my arse. 14 hours if I’m really, really lucky.
I will, however consign Small Bitey Things to the deepest levels of Hell, where they can await the eventual arrival of Trump/Farage/[insert name of political retard of your choice] and spend the rest of eternity feasting on their poison.
Take them too late and they had no effect at all on the symptoms but you still got the drowsiness side-effects. On the morning we got married (35 years ago this month) the pollen count had soared overnight - and my tablets were safely stored in my work office desk! This called for a trip to the pharmacy as soon as it opened and I sneezed all day.
The current tablets are much better. They are, however, very like painkillers in their pricing. Buy a branded one and you pay through the nose: buy a generic one (the active ingredient of cetirizine hydrochloride is the same) and it can be much cheaper. Not quite such a price differential as ibuprofen, but worth it all the same.
I sometimes get (quite without warning) extremely short-tempered (Keppra Rage - let the reader understand).
Earlier today, at the petrol station, I found great difficulty in getting the pump nozzle into the filling pipe on the car (no, I was not trying to put diesel in by mistake). I managed to spill about 25p worth of fuel onto the car (and my shoes) before slamming the nozzle back onto the pump, and shouting out for all to hear 'YOU CAN SEE I'M HAVING TROUBLE, YOU BAS***DS - WHY DON'T YOU HELP ME???'.
I then drove off incontinent, without paying the five bob I now owe Shell (I await a knock on the palace door at 3am).
So, TICTH the designers of petrol pumps, who make it so hard for someone, struggling to walk with a stick, to stretch the bloody thing around to the wrong side of the car if one can't get to the correct side, IYSWIM.
IJ
Yes, a Helpful Attendant would be useful!
IJ
Perhaps I'm fortunate, in that my bouts of rage (which are quite irrational) are infrequent.
IJ
On medication, I put on 15kg on an anti depressant and I wasn't a stick to begin with. I know it's a small side effect compared to others, but it did impact my self-esteem. When I came off it and lost it all in a month, people thought I was deathly ill. I made vague references to a medication change.