MotherSoup

In these days of measurable targets, do schools set aims, objectives, etc for parents’ evenings? What do they hope to achieve?

I imagine - I hope - that they want the parents to leave feeling informed, reassured, possibly even inspired.

I guess they don’t want them to come away from the meeting with the image in their head of running up a down escalator, but that’s what happened to me after the most recent meet-up.

One of the inspirations behind starting this blog was an incident at the equivalent parents’ evening last year. I don’t think I ever anticipated this blog changing the world (maybe just myself) but it felt so frustrating to come away feeling so many negative emotions.

I haven’t posted for a while. Last week, the week before, I was all for jacking this blog in. Things feel futile when you’re down, but I have noticed that my relationship with this blog is directly linked to how I feel about my Offspring’s schooling. When I am that concerned about the education, attention, support, I feel the emotional energy has to go into tackling that, not into this blog. Why - goes the chain of thought at times like that - should I spend my valuable time on a flippin’ Edublog, when they can’t even meet my child’s needs?

Last year we tackled a situation and found some positive ways forward, but a new school year, shifts in staffing and we found ourselves back where we had begun. We also found that some unstated intra-school policy was reluctant to deal with the situation in any depth.

What a range of emotions that creates. You feel you have to give the school a change to work forward on its own proposals, but at the same time, you’re already gearing yourself up for the potential battles you can see before you.

Well we’ve had some progress, although it seems to have been prompted by checks and balances from an entirely different angle. Suddenly it seems that action is possible, and we’re keen to nurture it. And hopefully the system will allow progress within a decent timescale - kids’ needs cannot be expected to wait.

So, little blog, you’ve got a reprieve for now.

Image from: 101 Things to do before you’re Old and Boring