Does it snow at your house? I have only seen snow a couple of times in my life - once in New Zealand when I was small and once in France a couple of years ago. I have never been in the snow while it is falling though.

wow - that's another one of my favourite things: standing still and looking up at the sky when great big snowflakes are coming down and there's no wind (to be specific!). the snowflakes all appear at different sizes, dancing around and falling at different speeds. it disorientating and magical.

sadly, it doesn't snow here like i remember it used to when i was a kid. we still get a couple of bouts in winter but the weather's doing funny things (not wanting to get into a climate-change debate!)

i found the french alps stunning, but not as pretty as the mountainous Polish south in winter - VERY pretty.

there are probably more benefits to your climate tho...

waitin', watchin' the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop
tell him, take no more, she practices her speech
as he opens the door, she rolls over...
pretends to sleep as he looks her over

well it's not 4o'clock yet, but it's late/early enough. that's another chapter written (yay).

night night

Ah, Better Man. Brings back memories of living in college in 1995 and a fresher who used to play it repeatedly...very loud...all the time....so we could all hear it....all the time.

Sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky,
A human being that was given to fly. High...flying.

I like your taste in music, insomniac . Sweet Eddie dreams.

roll on saturday...

...but just remembered that wishing my life away is bad.

doh!

largely, i've been talking to either piglet or myself on this thread, so i thought i'd invite you all (again) to comment on something that's been making me think...

i've been too busy to check in much recently (i know - get the violins out...) so when i found a thread where pinkneuron mentioned homeshooling, otto picked up on it and made a general opinion known and then everyone seemed to freak out a bit, i was gutted i'd missed all the action! (if you haven't read it, you might want to)

1. i generally agree with otto. not wanting to put words into his mouth, i think he was suggesting that without a range of interactional opportunities, it can limit young people's ability to understand others (as demonstrated by PN quoting her child at ballet classes) and creates further divisions in society
2. as a mother AND a qualified teacher (8 years experience in state schools), i supplement my children's education and try to influence their moral education and values at home BUT wouldn't want them not to experience school
3. it's interesting to know what others think - it can make us reassess. no need to assume we are being judgemental. as someone said, we try (most of us) to do what we think is right and act to the best of our abilities.

Well, I'm not a parent or a teacher so perhaps it's not my business. But my thoughts are

a) In high school, each teacher will have at the very least a Bachelor's in their specialist subject. No parent, no matter how smart or committed, is the intellectual equal of 20+ teachers.

b) And I totally agree about a child needing "socialization" (if that's a real word). I know kids can be mean to each other but that's no reason to run away and hide at home - what kind of message does that give a child? It also means that the child does not develop the skills to reason with difficult people - a vital part of life, I've found.

And while I'm on my high horse...what's with these parents that actually move house to get into a "good" school? Bonkers!

OK so you both have your points, what about if:

Your child has certain social problems which meant they couldn't interact with other children properly (e.g was disruptive or even more major, hurt other children). This is quite a rare occurence I would say.

However:

What about the local school in your catchment area was a school full of, with no other word to describe it, chavs, who didn't want to be there and were very happy to disrupt learning for the kids that did want to learn. What if your child was bullied simply for wanting to learn. What if the school had teachers who had given up a long time ago and had the attitude, "it's there if you want it". What if the government had the attitude "lets throw are money at wars that don't have much to do with us" and couldn't afford to improve the school.

I know for a fact that you can become a supply teacher without any formal teaching qualifications. How would you feel if your child was always being taught by these supply "teachers"?


This is actually a reality that some school children suffer with, would you let your child go to a school like this or would you do something about it?

Like I said on the other thread, I was also worried about how homeschooled children get social interaction and having since researched the area more, I have found out that parents set up big groups where both parent and child can interact.

I just wanted to point out, that I would prefer my children to go to school and "just in case" I already have a savings account earmarked for "children's school fees".

I think that's all I wanted to comment on.

What you say does happen, but they are extreme cases (except for supply teachers: they are often crap). But the job is to improve schools, rather than allow the middle class to withdraw en masse and leave the crap for everyone else to deal with.

I am sure that most home schoolers work hard to give their kids a good education and social network but some (including ones personally known to me) have pulled their children out and are not replacing that education or social network - it's to guard against this irresponsible minority that I think home-schoolers should be monitored by an OFSTED-like body.

I agree with you about the monitoring homeschooling, I can imagine there being parents out there making it worse.

I don't think what I said is that much of a minority though, there are some awful schools out there and they aren't being made less-awful quicker. That's why people keep cropping up in the news about not sending their child to the school they got into because it's rubbish etc.