Mumble’s Blog

Well I haven’t been with you for a while. I don’t expect anyone has noticed particularly, other than my mum. I don’t feel like I can say anything, anything at all even slightly bad about school, due to our continuous and intractable lateness. Since whinging is my normal mode of communication….silence. It’s not that we are very late, we are just consistently a little bit late, missing the line-up by a whisker. I know this is hugely inconvenient for the teachers, it is painful, it is massively embarrassing saying hello hello hello to everyone else going in the opposite direction but somehow I seem to be incapable of stopping it happening. Sometimes we are foiled by my younger boy, who doesn’t always necessarily want to go at all, and has to be physically dragged; slow, horrible, and hard to achieve while pushing the tiddler. But as often its my fault. Whatever approach I take, we seem to end up 2 minutes adrift. How is this possible? The stuff is ready the night before. All I’ve got to do is get them up, feed them, get them in it, do the dog, do the teeth, load the lunches, school bags, baby bag; on a good day, we can do this in half an hour. But generally, even if I get everyone up before they’ve actually gone to bed, we’re still somehow 2 minutes late.

On one of these late occasions, Middly Girl was wheeling around the playground on her bike, adding insult to injury. I called her in; ignored. It was a glorious morning, and the playground with no-one in it is a glorious place to cycle; you’re five, you know you can outpace your mother no problem - in that moment, why would you stop cycling and go in? A random woman going into the school called her in too - also ignored. I don’t really want to start chasing her (my lass, not the random woman who is waiting rather than moving) but she’s now not only late but rude…I gibber something to the random about how we’re late so often she knows the procedure by now, and she’ll come in in a minute or two I expect. Which I don’t, actually, since you ask.

Anyway, what has led me to stick my nose out of the burrow again was the consultation on the aims of the school. Apparently the staff had spent some time bending their brains on this one, and were now asking parents what they thought. It’s the sort of thing that must be a nightmare to consult on, as it’s practically impossible to comment on. The aims are all fine things to aspire to. One of these was - I can’t remember the exact words - that children reach their full potential. Oh yes, I thought, very good, yes, we do want that. But later on you start thinking - their full potential what?

Parents night notes (potentially):
Bombo, doing OK. Surreptitiously pinched a chewed up pencil from one of his friends; clearly enjoyed this; excellent forward planning and skillful execution - thieving potential (discussed last time). By the time he’s finished here we intend that he should not just be capable of petty theft but a criminal mastermind.

Blondette: Charming and eager to please, ought to scrub up reasonably by teenage years. If she applies herself she has the potential to marry into the aristocracy.

Bungo: Already half a head above his classmates and with our Healthy School policies should reach 6 foot five if he’s an inch.

Mumble: occasionally late. With focussed effort and application, this one really does have the potential to be absolutely everywhere 2 - or maybe even up to 10 - minutes after she should have arrived. SEE! they don’t mean it, do they?

What bothers me with this encouraging everyone to reach their potential - which obviously you can’t really knock as a concept - is two things. No, three things. What about children that don’t want to be s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out to their full potential? Who decides what that is and which children need stretched and which are doing fine? And also - what happens at the end? If society doesn’t actually need all these people who have reached their full potential? If they are all capable of and expect a decent job being company directors or creatives or whatever, and what there is at the end of all this is mainly jobs that don’t require their full potential? Are we educating them for disappointment?

While I was ruminating on this, and the other aims of the school and what, if anything, could possibly be said about them for the consultation, out pops that random woman again.

“HELLO!” she announces, with brisk enthusiasm “Pleased to meet you. I’m Shirley Swinton, the new Head, and I really would encourage you to respond to this, even if it’s only to say Yes! I agree!”

NOOOO! Back to the burrow!