Mumble’s Blog

We just found out our Head, Mrs Kerr, is resigning, with more or less immediate effect. The letter home said nothing about pastures new, so I’m guessing the post must have really not worked out as she hoped when she took it on. Whatever quibbles I may have had with the school, I know Mrs Kerr has given a large part of her working life to the school and you have to feel sorry it’s ended like this. Mrs Fisher, the acting deputy, is also leaving, to a promoted post in another school.

Recently there hardly seems to have been a time when the management team was all completely in place. First Mrs Kerr was Acting Head filling in for the previous Head on a - 2 year? secondment, then still Acting for a while before getting the substantive post. Meanwhile her post of deputy must have been filled by an acting deputy. Then when she was on long-term sick leave there was Jill Wareham as Acting Head except when she wasn’t there and the Acting Deputy Head Eileen Fisher became Acting Acting Head, and the Acting Principal Teacher became the Acting Acting Deputy Head, and…. Well anyway we’ve now got Freda Ross from Pencaitland Primary, who is Acting Head until the Christmas, when she’ll stop acting though possibly still available for panto. I heard it whispered in hushed tones this morning at the school gate that she runs Pencaitland like clockwork…all ears turned westwards for the sounds of ticking. Clockwork or not, I don’t see any way a new permahead can be recruited to start much before April, so there will presumably be another secondment to cover the spring term. It’s a lot of changes on top of what’s already been an unsettled few years. Does this mean the school will sit still? How much like Heads can acting Heads act?

I feel a certain amount of frustration about this as I was optimistic that the new Parent Council would have another go at reducing the lunch hour (and a quarter), either by ending the day earlier or having an afternoon break. Will an acting Head want to take a decision that rocks the status quo like this, or will any hope of change have to be put off until the new one has settled in?

It’s only a matter of time, I suppose, and here they are again, the visitors. We were warned about this in the newsletter, that it is VITAL that EVERY family must take responsibilty for them. Responsibility in this sense meaning eradication, rather than looking after. It’s all very well to take an interest in the minibeasts as long as they stay in the pond area, but once they start breeding on your head KILL KILL KILL is the order of the day.

I share this attitude, more or less. I have mellowed out a bit since I first saw one on my first child’s head - a medical emergency necesitating a midnight drive around Edinburgh looking for a chemist with shelf loads of chemical weaponry. I’ve had to - in one place we lived the bugs were so rife that if they didn’t have any by the end of the week I worried they’d fallen out with their friends. Familiarity breeds….well it just breeds. But basically, death does seem fair. I mean they eat your head. They have to go.

Unfortunately P3 boy, kind hearted as he is, doesn’t quite see it that way. In P1 I used to get away with removing them and putting them in a match box. But since then, he has spent a lot of time in the Jurassic period, and he now knows he is a habitat. Their only habitat. The dilemma - do I think medical treatment should be based on consent? Yes. Do I think he understands the issues? Yes. Am I too embarrassed to send him into school scratching his head? Absolutely.

Luckily, he still sleeps for longer than I do.

That is, except for nights such as October the 31st. What is special about this date again, remind me. Christmas, you say? Easter? No, silly me, I remember it’s - National Bug Busting Day. An excellent idea, choose a day and get everyone to get rid of the bugs simultaneously. What day shall we choose? October 31. Hello? Oct 31? Is anyone doing anything else then? What? Putting small children into scary costumes and pestering the neighbours? Apple-dooking doughnut biting parkin eating parties? Trick or treating? Oh surely the attractions of bug busting beat that. Whoohooohooo, here I come, this year I’m going as….a Nit Inspector!

I don’t know if anyone remembers last Tuesday, but it was exceedingly cold. However, in the hopes of peeking in on my wee P1 at lunch, I strode out into the brisk northerly, muttering to anyone interested I would only be gone a minute.

Luckily I found a parking space where I could see the playground, as I really wanted to check that everything was OK. It would be difficult to take her out for lunch with work but I would if I feel I have to. I spied on her older brother when he was in P1 - accidentally, as I was round visiting a flat overlooking the school at the time - and it was really upsetting. He was floating round like a feather on the wind, fighting imaginary foes. In the whole time he spent maybe a minute playing what looked like Hat Stretching with a boy he knew, before the other child ran a bit too far and he lost him, looking for him but not able to find him. But the worst thing about it was asking him about the lunch hour when I picked him up. His face lit up, he started laughing, and said, “yeah, it was great, me and my friend played this great game, we pinched each others hats!” I wouldn’t have known, if I hadn’t seen it for myself that what he said was nothing like representative of his lunch ‘play’.

So it was reassuring to watch my wee girl belting round the playground with one of her friends for most of the time. And also that she was actually wearing her jacket, which not many of them were. Some of them only had a pinny and a cardy on (and perhaps vests). Weren’t they cold? Even wearing a jacket and a car it wasn’t exactly warm.

I do think the lunch is too long though. By say, about quarter of an hour from the end it just looked there was more trouble - fights breaking out, minor accidents, and just pure flagging. Some of the children were actually lying down. The playground even sort of sounded different. By the time the bell went there was almost a collective Hurrah! as they all immediately, relieved, ran for the line.

The School Board did a survey on the length of the lunch break a couple of years ago, and most parents wanted lunch to stay as it is (1hr 15 mins). But some of the dissenters were pretty unhappy about it, including me. There are still definite mutterings at the school gates. I wonder if the new Parent Council will tackle it?

At least for the moment, for my little girl, it looks OK. I’m sure it’s not OK for all of them. I went. I saw. I got away without being arrested. Hurrah!

I went to the curriculum talk at the infants last week. We were supposed to see the children in action in their classrooms, but some of them were so upset by the prospect (they didn’t say whether it was the ones who wouldn’t see their parents or the ones who might) that they were removed. We did get to see the marvellous whiteboard as part of the class tour though. Boyo. That thing is pretty good. If they can teach them how not to fight over it, that will be excellent. I got a go (elbowed the other parents out of the way) but sadly was quickly dragged off for the rest of the presentations.

A good turnout, I think, as usual mainly mums and younger children, with a mere smattering of dads. Some of the babies were a bit fractious - it was warm, crowded, and with nothing much of interest to babykind so you can’t really blame them. Efforts were made to remove the worst offenders, though with limited success. One baby sat angelically on her mums lap, though only, as it transpired, as she had something far far worse up her sleeve…

You do feel slightly for the teachers who have to do the talks. There was a bit on active learning, which seems to mean the child has more choice over what they do at any given time. It sounds like a good idea to me. Then the Head did one on reading - reading is all around you, keep doing what your doing, pointing out words where you see them (are we doing this? I did with my first child but er…not quite so much now, no, I don’t think so). The main message was not to panic if your child can’t read at the same time as everyone elses child. Well maybe. My friend whose daughter is dyslexic (not discovered till she still couldn’t read at 11) wishes she had panicked slightly earlier. They may have covered how they pick this up, I missed bits due to placating the tiddler. I’ll try not to panic.

By this time, the angelic baby had had enough, and made her opinion known by throwing up all over herself, her mother, the main route out, and may have just caught the Head. Kept the closing remarks short in any case. So it goes.

The school will have just come out for lunch now, so I’m now going to put my false beard on and have a sneaky peak at the playground to see if my wee girl is OK, I hope she’s OK.. (any burglars reading this, I’ll be back very soon).

Well, we have reached the end of my wee girls first week of full days in P1. The are doing letters with jolly phonics. So far she has done ‘A’, which is for ant, running all around your arm. It comes with a sort of scratching action. And then there is ‘S’, which is for snake, slithery snake, says she, with a wiggle of the hand. And ‘p’ is still for pig, which is how it should be. Later in the week she starts going round the house shaking her head and tut-tutting. Has a view of the wider world caused sudden disapproval of …well just about everything? No. ‘T’ is for tennis, and she is watching the match. What a difference from when I did letters, making shapes in the air with our fingers, writing on slates. I do remember it, but I don’t think it was such fun.

On Thursday when I picked her up I asked her what she did and she immediately threw herself down on the ground, arms outstretched, and went “Nnnnnn…” (oblivious to the 350 other parents and children trying to leave the area, or the totalling of the entire school uniform). Is it PE? Drama? No, it’s a jolly phunny - N is for….aeroplane?

“Yes, and we did ‘i’ too”

And what is ‘i’ for, I ask. ” ‘I’ is for mouse ” says she, stroking her imaginary whiskers, pleased as punch, “Inky mouse!”

“Stinky mouse!” yells her brother, who has by now found us in the melee. Sadly a fight ensues, tiredness taking it’s toll.

Tiredness is really a force to be reckoned with. I’ve started trying to get her to bed at 7 (a good hour earlier than usual) as she’s been so soundly asleep when we have to get up at 7 in the morning. I can’t put her in any earlier than this and still feed her. One of the P1 teachers said when she reads them a story after lunch a fair few of them nod off. She said she was thinking about putting on some soft music to knock the rest of them out and teaching them subliminally!

The newsletter came out this week, among other things the usual ‘reminder’ to the bad people about getting children in on time. Although the school has a policy of moderating behaviour with structured praise and reward, this does not extend to the parents. We do not get praise. We do not get golden time. Just a ‘reminder’ when we fail.

Fail I did this week, and how it happened was this. Firstly, both the middlies were, by Thursday, very tired, and at least one of them didn’t see why he should go at all. So it took slightly longer than the allotted half an hour for them to get dressed (how it can possibly take this long when their clothes are out I don’t know - they must somehow bend spacetime). Made up some ground at breakfast, and things were looking good. Then the tiddler refused to put her shoes on. I insisted. She insisted. General flapping of feathers and asserting of parental authority followed, out of which we emerged with shoes tossed in a bag and any dignity either of us had wedged under the shoerack somewhere. At this point, we were still OK for getting down to the school. Enter stage left, a wasp. I wouldn’t normally have killed it, but there it was crawling around the floor, the tiddler had no shoes on, time was wearing on and - well I killed it. Looked up to see the awful, miserable, accusing face of my dear boy.

“You just took it’s one and only life for no reason! It was defenceless!”

What can you say? In particular what can you say in three minutes to get him out of the door? The wasp was dead, guilty absolutely as charged. But, I try, tiddler, no shoes, must have been getting on a bit, probably about to go anyway if it let me, not defenceless, stingy…We get out on time. We can get there, as long as we go at a moderate pace, we can get there. Phew. And then, just as we turn the corner out of the house, what is there lying right in front of us, in classic cartoon position, four wee legs straight up in the air, but a dead hedgehog.

I tell you, those teachers have got it absolutely right. Teach them it early and teach them it well. Because lying on the ground with your arms outstretched going NNNNNN is a skill not to be underestimated when you have to get your own children to school on time.

Hello, er…anyone out there.

Yikes. Broadcasting is scary! I was aiming for the beginning of term for this but being a bit of techno-woose I had to go for a lie down after seeing the instructions and it’s taken a couple of weeks to get a calm clear space to try to work out how it works. I think this is that space, though the baby might wake up at any moment and snooker it.

This is odd because of not saying who I am, but I’ve got 4 children, 3 at school in Haddington and a tiddler. I called myself Mumble because I had a look at guineapigmums blog and it was really articulate, and I thought, blimey, if I do one it’ll be a bit of a mumble. Then I thought, oh thats OK for a name cos it’s got a hint of the parent thing in it. It was only after I’d set it up I remembered the dancing penguin and the full horror of what i’d done started to sink in…

Anyway, here goes.

We’re back to school again after a good old long lazy break. This year we’ve been reasonably successful in the annual ‘guess the size of your child’ puzzle and all three seem to have uniforms that actually fit. More or less.

Actually it’s back for two of them, and a whole new start for my wee girl, who’s just gone into P1. She was hugely looking forward to it after the taster session at the end of last term. Come the first day though, she didn’t start until 11 o’clock and then went in with 1/3 of her class for an hour, which was a bit of a tough one to explain. I’d got to take her brother up for 8:50 so it’s not like we can just have a very leisurely breakfast and then roll up for 11. As she’s been anticipating this mightily over the summer I thought it might be tough for her to get taken to school, taken away again then finally get taken again just when she’s starting to think about lunch. Luckily one of my friends’ boys was in the same boat, so we spent the morning at theirs trying not to get their uniforms grubby, which helped. I guess the teachers have to sort them out with trays and things and that’s maybe why they don’t want them all in at once.

So far it seems to be going all right. She is massively impressed with the Whiteboard - what does it do? It must be good because it has been the first thing she’s told me every day, whether or not she got a shot of it. I’ve seen jobs advertised recently for Whiteboard Support Officers - the mystery deepens. Do they need holding up? Counselling?

It was hard watching her go in on the first full day, when they have to line up with their whole class. She’s so pleased about it, so full of beans. (Which is remarkable in itself as her little big brother has been doom-mongering all summer…oh yes, he says, nursery is all right but then there’s school and it’s horrible it’s really awful). I hope it will be as good as she thinks. I just wonder…I saw a documentary a few years back about education for her age group in Norway, where they said, well, we’re out with them all of the time when the weather is allright. And they showed the children walking through this huge forest with the rays of sun shining through their hair and … well it just seemed to keep the wonder of it all a bit more. Whatever her education is going to be like, and I hope it is good, and I hope she’s not disappointed, it won’t be like that.

She’s got her first whole day tomorrow, 8:50 - 3:20, with an hour and a quarter for lunch. She’s a friendly thing, and she does know a lot of the other children, but I’m still not sure how it’ll go. The PTA put in some improvements to the playground over the summer, which has given it a bit more badly-needed interest, but still almost an hour of unstructured time at age 4 1/2 is one long time. What must it be like for the shy kids who know nobody? And is anyone going to be awake come 3:20?

Meanwhile my heart sinks when her brother comes home with spellings and sentences to write for homework. I hoped they might give them something else to do in P3. By the time I get back from work and get them fed them it’s usally about half six, which means we’ve got an hour or so before starting to put them to bed. If he sticks his toes in, which he generally does, it can easily take that whole miserable hour to get it done. I feel like all over Scotland there are good parents who manage to jolly their children into doing this. There must be, or we would have rebelled by now surely. I just can’t work out how.

I’m starting to think I probably should have called myself Grumble.