From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Oh dearest rt how sensible!  The oven will not be going on this arvo 🥵  Thing was, I'd made cheese salad sangers in the picnic that was whisked off to the museum type place, so another leafy type salad would not have gone down well.  But I totally get your thinking!  In an ideal world we would have had new tattie salad or something, but never mind.  Funnily enough, the "we bought these for you Mum" status of the potatoes did seem to see them get munched up with not so much as an inspection for scars, scales or bruises.  Don't get me wrong, LG likes hm wedges, but sometimes their fernickettyness gets the better of them, even for wedges (it's a given response for the slightest hint of a tint of a lump in mash 🙄). 

I spoke to DH at lunchtime, and apparently - other than a small fee for parking - there was no admission fee yesterday.  Apparently the volunteer on the till issued a receipt, but it was for £0.00 - perhaps it doubled as a ticket or something.  

Activity this afternoon.  All the money is set aside.  

Tea will be plant-based balls, tommie sauce and pasta.  I've not put it in the SC as the tommie sauce is cooked, and it won't take that long to cook when we get back.  

Greying X

beanielou

I had pizza too last night. It ended up being burnt. I ate it as I could not bare to waste it. 

Blackcats

Hello GP - I know you are planning ideas for school holiday activities with LG and I thought there might be some useful/interesting ideas here.  

https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/resources/online-courses-and-learning-for-children-and-teens/

Greying_Pilgrim

Heavens to Betsy Blackcats - what a SUPERB resource that is!  Thank you so, so, so much!  I've had a look through the lists, and it's heartening to see just how many of the books LG has already munched - as although I can't remember the last time the teacher did a reading test 🤔 (if at all this year 🙄), LG is definitely reading at a range above their calendar age.  

We have a pile of those books already (picked up in chazzers), and I can construct a list (with room for changes, substitutions and additions) so that we can get some more books munched.  I see that there is certainly some crossover with films (as there ever has been), so we may be able to read the book/see the movie, and compare and contrast 😁  It was also a blast from the past for me reading through various lists (I don't believe that books are rigidly for one or other age group - and very much enjoy children's literature even at my advanced age 🤭) when I spotted books I have read - Lizzie Dripping (pretty sure that was a series on TV when I was a kiddo too), and 'The Clockwork Mouse' - oh how I wanted a tin clockwork mouse with a little baby one too........... sigh.

Wot a fab start to the day 😁

Activity was done last night.  LG focused and tried and achieved most of what was asked for, and they were smiling throughout the session - can't ask for more I don't think 😁 Tea was plant balls in HM tommie veggie sauce with boiled rice in the end (much to LG's disappointment) Yoghurt and fruit for pud.

We did all manage some sleep last night, so that's a bonus 😁

I've a wash on, but I don't know how well it will dry - it's likely to be humid and still today.  

I don't want to mention school further, as it isn't mortgage related, other than I deeply regret buying a 'doer-upper' in this school catchment area......  New class lists are out and LG has got shafted yet again.  The 'right' families get what they want, everyone else gets dumped in a holding pen 🙄  There has been no recognition of LG's good work in school and their achievements outside it, they are not interested in seeing how LG could bloom in anything.  3 weeks away from the end of term and the TA left in charge of class is showing cat videos..... Still, I'm drawing a line under me discussing it, as I find it all too depressing and I'm sounding like a wingeing auld grotbag.

Right, best get snap made and uniform collected up.  School outing today.  More off the shelf external teaching that could easily should have been done in-house, but when you can pressure parents into paying for it, well, why not.......

Greying X

Grumpelstiltskin

OK GP regarding the school let me tell you my story.

I am 81 years old from a poor family living on the wrong side of town. I passed my 11 plus and went to the local girl's grammar school.

Only 1 year before I started had they stopped taking fee paying pupils. Were all the girls treated equally? No

For instance only 1 class out of the 3 in my year were allowed to take O Level Maths ( can you believe that )
Who were in that class the best Maths students? No, the daughters of local business people etc. Even if they had problems adding 2 figures together.

So was I allowed to take O Level Maths ? No

At least when I left school you didn't have to have Maths as long as you had the required number of O Levels you could get a job.

So unfortunately not a lot has changed.

Greying_Pilgrim

Grumpelstiltskin said:

....So unfortunately not a lot has changed.

Regretfully, I have to agree with you 😥

Greying X

themadvix

I'm not really sure I understand about class lists - I assumed (clearly wrongly) that once in a form in primary, children stayed with that form all the way through, but that doesn't sound like what's happening here. Can you not query/challenge/ask for LG to be moved to another class - you're entitled surely to ensure that LG is getting what will suit them best from the school they are at. Kick up a fuss if necessary - you are entitled to do so - LG is only growing up once. My mum made all sorts of fusses when we were growing up and while it might have been awkward (in only one instance, actually, where the student teacher then decided to overcompensate), it definitely benefited me in the long term. On a related note, is there space on the governing board? Could you get involved at a higher level to have your say as a parent governor? If the likelihood is slim that LG will be able to move, then trying to improve what is there would be one way to go?

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey tmv - I get what you're saying.  Due to the numbers on roll in LG's school the school have always had to change class sizes throughout the years to make the numbers in the years fit into a manageable class size.  I went to a primary school with only one class per year, and pretty much you stayed in that class from age 5 - 11 (no reception in them days!). I'm 99% sure that had LG gone to our first choice primary - which has 3 classes per year group - they would have stayed in their class assigned in Reception.  All LG's chums from nursery go to that school, and I'm sure that's what a mum chum told me, because she was amazed at LG's "chopping and changing".

I have made a fuss before - the added difficulty this year, is that whilst LG is unhappy with the class allocated, and had expressed a desire (before the lists were published) to be in the other class, they are now undecided.  Both classes have complications with either not terribly nice teachers/a perceived kindly teacher or not terribly nice kids/perceived kindly kids if you see what I mean.  But the bulk of the "more intelligent" kiddos have been placed in the class LG desires to be in, and LG has been in with those pupils before and 'more than held their own'.  LG's new class contains more disruptive children, and the new teacher has......... a certain way of discipling children that adds to the disruptiveness.  Hairdryer.  LG (I think) risks getting lost in the day-to-day firefighting and will stop trying.  There are only a few of the kids like LG - kind, work hard, try their best, mostly behave, are interesting and have hobbies etc etc and these are scattered between the classes for next year.  So whilst LG might gain one friendly, kind chum in the move, they will leave another behind iyswim.  These kind kids are islands of safety and a lifeline.  There are so few of them..........  I don't know what this new teacher is like regarding 'out of school achievements'.  Increasingly, unless the school can utilise your skills ie gymnastics/football/piano in a competitive/promotions/way, they are uninterested that you landed a 20lb carp on your first fishing trip, walked up Scafell Pike/Snowdon/Ben Nevis or painted a picture and got a bloo Pierre badge.........

We have said to LG that if they really want to change class, then they will have to take the matter forward (to avoid the teacher saying we are pressurizing LG), but we will support them 100%.  I think LG will flip-flop and lose confidence in their own opinion, and come September we will have tears and upset.  

EDIT - sorry, missed to say, there is no governing board - in the traditional sense of school governors/parent governors etc.

Greying X

themadvix

I see the dilemma. How frustrating! 

And that's poor that there's no governing body - presumably it's some sort of academy and they don't need them? I know nothing really about academies as that was all after I left the system and have had no need to learn about them since. It strikes me that that is undemocratic! (But that doesn't help you.) 

Schooling really seems to be a trial these days... 😢

EssexHebridean

I remember from bitter experience that even looing summer holiday's don't feel like much of a "win" when you are already having a stressy time of it at the school you then have to go back to - so that is certainly something to be aware of. If a change of class was going to happen, over the summer might be a good time as at least then LG would be going back to something different, rather than worrying about returning to "more of the same".