Nearly the end of term

Well, this is it. Just a week to go until the end of the summer term, aka term 6, aka ... the whole of the Reception year. Wow. It's gone extremely quickly. We seem to be breaking up relatively early - I know this because I've been looking up lots of other local authorities' term times to see if we could sneak in a theme park trip while it might not be too busy. We're risking it, and going to Legoland on the 20th - only one of the relatively local LAs is breaking up on the 17th like us. One of the others is continuing until the 31st! I didn't realise there would be so much difference.

We've had quite a few things going on in the last couple of weeks. Summer fayre, for one. I did volunteer to man a stand, but no one ever got back to me, so instead I got to wander around unencumbered. Well, apart from by the Husband and Daughter, obviously. It was a nice event, and no doubt very profitable. Daughter had to have the speed turned down on her go-kart as she was threatening to run someone over, and a very small child named Percy had a rather interesting crash.

Then there was the informal open evening, which consisted entirely of wandering around the school in a fairly aimless manner. We had a chat to Daughter's current teacher, and to her new one for September. After that, I had twenty minutes at home before heading back to school for the staff and governors' social. This entailed me being determined not to talk exclusively to the other governors, but to mingle with the staff, which I did under the influence of increasing amounts of white wine, and not nearly enough food. I left my jacket behind and didn't notice for 36 hours, and did feel a little fragile the following day, but I don't think I otherwise disgraced myself. Probably.

Before that though, we'd had a bit of a milestone. Daughter's first school report. The covering letter included an explanation of the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) achievement letters, so I turned to the next page to see what Daughter had 'scored', and promptly lost the covering letter, missing that it announced who Daughter's new teacher would be. And the time of the open evening. Oops. As well as the numbers, it included some good comments. A friend who's a Reception teacher was surprised that we got the numbers, but the ubiquitous Mumsnet tells me it's not quite as uncommon as she thinks. It does mean, as a parent, you get a bit obsessed with the numbers, and what they mean, and whether your child is average, above or below ... but I'm pretty glad to have them. I was impressed by the comments - a friend's daughter, at a different school, had a report which didn't include the numbers, but you could work them out as the text was copied and pasted straight from the EYFS handbook.

What have I learned about EYFS from this? What is official (ish) is that levels 1-3 are 'working towards early learning goals', 4-8 'working within early learning goals' and level 9 'working at or beyond early learning goals'. Children achieving 4-8 in the 13 areas assessed are doing roughly what that age of child should be doing - although they might be under-achieving compared to what they're actually capable of, of course. Level 9 is supposed to flag up to Year 1 teachers the areas in which a child might be particularly able. Less officially, it seems like an score of 6 to 7 averaged across the categories is about average. I did find one comment where someone claimed that Autumn-born children were expected to score 105, but seeing as that adds up to 12 level 8s and a 9, that seems unlikely.

Anyway, Daughter did pretty well, although not as well as a friend (at another school) who did so well it's frightened the life out of her mother! Her targets for improvement are:

- To continue to use simple punctuation with some consistency.
- To confidently put forward her ideas when working as part of a group, without the encouragement of an adult.

She'll be doing better than me if she can achieve the second one any time before she turns 35.

Stirring it up

Just back from the finance and premises committee, where I have sneezed and sniffled all over everyone. Oops. Highlights included a thrilling and blow-by-blow account of a sewage leak (featuring the title statement above), and an equally thrilling burst pipe (with actual burst pipe, in fact FOUR burst pipes). The caretaker has done his back in, so the head (approaching retirement) has been doing heroic things with manhole covers.

Also discovered that the school dinner provider is changing at the beginning of April, a fact I see is on the council's website and various other places, but hadn't been flagged up to parents.

The (potentially) Good: online payment system planned; much blether about quality local ingredients; doesn't appear to be a monster catering firm like the previous one (I hold this against monster firms, our work catering is done by a GIGANTIC corporation who defend every price raise by whinging that they don't have the purchasing power of Tesco); actual staff remain the same, and apparently the cook is very good.

The (again potentially) Bad: will the online payment system work (it was compared to the one for the milk, which worries me, as they cocked up Daughter's free milk for weeks); they don't have menus online, which is a shame as I always lose the hard copy; the specific menus I've seen for schools in other areas aren't great (one choice every day is salad, which Daughter will not eat).

The (definitely) Bad: price goes up 10p (defended in press release by someone who you'd think was working for the company, rather than being an elected councillor).

We will see. I'm not heartened by them being chosen by the county council, who do not impress in other ways. Things like paying over the odds for utilities, not being able to run their own financial systems, making schools pay for consultants to run tendering processes for them, but accepting no liability if the process fails to deliver what the school needs, or indeed what the council stipulates ...

A new year stumbles into being

Obviously, Daughter is back at school now. Less obviously - not actually today. She was sick in the middle of the night, probably due to scarfing a huge bag of Tesco rip-off Skips while we weren't really paying attention. Oops. Husband took the day off work; I got to work longer than usual to make up for last week's flexitime disaster. The disaster being:

Monday - Get up at 6.30. Roads are so icy anything above 8mph is lethal. Get into work at 8.45.
Tuesday - Get up at 6.30. Faff about. Car needs de-icing. Get into work at 8.45.
Wednesday - Day off to wait for new PC.
Thursday - Get up at 6.45 due to motivational failure. Get into work at 8.45.
Friday - Get up at 7.15 because Daughter has come into bed with me after bad dream, and doesn't need to be woken at 6.30. Get into work at ... 8.45.

What do I DO in the mornings?

I also forgot to make Daughter her packed lunch on Wednesday, I remembered just as Husband was taking her to school, so I'm doing REALLY well so far.

I finally have an idea of the timetable at school - PE Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; literacy Monday and Tuesday, numeracy Wednesday and Thursday, creative stuff and finishing things off on Friday. Oh, and show-and-tell that's now called something else on a Thursday. And library on a Thursday. Despite this when Husband asked Daughter last Thursday if she'd done any numbers, she said 'no' (definitely no, not the usual 'don't know' or 'can't remember'). Mind you a lot of the numeracy stuff they seem to do at this age is about shapes, patterns, sizes etc - not explicitly numbers, so that may explain it.

I will learn more shortly, as I have an appointment with numeracy governor hat on to see the teacher responsible for numeracy ('maths with Miss S', the post-it says) so will find out about new-fangled maths teaching.

Speechless

I'm struggling to express how stupid it is that the local authority can allow an admissions appeal, pushing class size over 30, then with the next breath come down on the school for having an oversize class. And that the suggested solution, should it not be possible to even up classes within the year, is to put a child in a different year group, but continue to teach them as the year they're supposed to be in. As in put a child who will turn 6 within the academic year (ie Year 1 age) into a class of rising 7s (Year 2 age) but continue to teach them to the Year 1 syllabus. *boggle*

Same local authority that has been paying supply teachers working in one school out of another school's budget - endemically, across the region - and is incapable of putting this right.

Well, I guess the former thing is a widespread stupidity of the system, rather than just our local authority, but still. On what planet is it better to take a child out of their peer group and put them in a completely different group, singling them out by teaching a different syllabus to them because they're younger, that to have a class of 31?

Yes, had another governors' meeting. Didn't get to talk numeracy to the relavant teacher as she was going home sick. I asked how to get in touch with her in future, and was told I would need to find her after school. Ho hum. I guess that's the way to do it. But I'm a bit of a control freak; I like to arrange things with people. Plus hanging around after school doesn't go down well with the Daughter. I had to ask her teacher after school today if a letter had made it into school last week (it was sent on the same day as dinner money which apparently *didn't*, hm) and after about 15 seconds' conversation with her was told 'we could have been home by now, mummy'. Monkey.

Anyway, Daughter is coming on leaps and bounds, and is starting to read. Yay! Very exciting. We now have word strips coming home - the first three are duplicates of the first three in the phonics book I've got, but #4 starts with 'pub'. I think it's a ringer. The second word is 'gun' - it's the non-PC word strip.

Money, money, money ...

Title refers to the Finance & Premises Committee, meeting this evening. However, this is the school blog, not the school governor blog, so what has Daughter been up to? She had a proper afterschool playdate, where I picked up both her and her friend. They played, they had tea, friend was collected (and threw a huge paddy because she didn't want to go home - am perversely flattered by this). She had school photos taken - whole school one day, and individual the next. They're very nice. I have a soft copy of the individual one, and need to order a copy of the whole school one. She went on a field trip. To a field. They had to take wellies in, named wellies, pegged together, in a named bag. I guess they have problems with wellie loss. I put her initials on the clothes peg I used to peg the wellies together, just to be on the safe side. And this afternoon she went on a reciprocal playdate, which also went very well, except at the end when her friend had a tantrum which I'm expected to see replicated at home any time soon (according to Husband it involved some new and innovative ways of misbehaving that Daugher won't have previously been aware of).

I wasn't there because I was Financing and Premising instead. We approved spending some money on some fun things (play equipment and books) and some dull things (insulation and checking out what needs doing with the roof). I was handed a FMSiS document in which I have to record my governor competencies. Obviously having got myself through the heavy-handed promotion process at work in May, and now being partway through converting my old-style (experienced-based) professional logbook in the new style (competency based) I am delighted to be doing this. Not. I think I can consider myself competent in 'understands finance and budgeting' and 'has numeric and analysis skills' and that's about it. Most of the rest is quite school-specific. Ah well.

Oh yes, Daughter had a half term as well, obviously. Husband took the whole week off, and I decided on the Tuesday that I could do enough hours Monday to Wednesday, plus the following Monday (when my parents had Daughter overnight) to add to a little flexi credit I already had ... and not work Thursday as well as Friday. So that was pretty good, especially as I wasn't very keen on cycling to work four days in a row (and on the Tuesday he didn't even take the car out, I am so furious!) She seems quite happy to be back at school, so all is well.

Have I broken Amazon?

Was I right about Daughter coming home more dishevelled in winter uniform? Not entirely although she did come home one day with her collar turned inside out, which on closer inspection (erm, when she got changed for trampolining) was because her entire polo shirt was inside out.

Next week she will have to be more hevelled on TWO separate days. Wednesday - whole school photo. Thursday - individual photo. I hope they don't do PE with Reception in the morning and then photograph them in the afternoon. Complicating factor - I will be here on Wednesday morning, albeit in a hurry to get out and go to work, but I won't be here on Thursday as I'm away with work. So Husband is entrusted with getting Daughter to school in a reasonable state on Wednesday (with some oversight from me) and then doing it completely unsupervised on Thursday. I will have to leave instructions. He can't do anything other than put her hair in a ponytail (not that I can do much more) but from the front she won't look any different in a ponytail or a plait. Pigtails would have been nice, but not to be.

Lunch continues to go fairly well. Daughter apparently completely forgot that she had a second compartment in her lunchbag one day last week, despite having had lunch from it at home on most days three weeks in a row, and didn't notice she had a sandwich. She had a school dinner on the other day she was in for lunch, and couldn't finish it because she had to go and play with her imaginary friends. She does appear to be making some real friends, but has a large coterie of the imaginary variety at the moment (originally six, but they keep having babies).

I've had to turn down the chance of some initial governor training because I'm away with work. Meanwhile, I've bought a book on the subject, but have neglected it because the same Amazon order also brought me Battle Royale, which I'm currently reading.

I had hoped that my Amazon recommendations would become an even more peculiar mishmash as a result of this - school governance, manga, children's books and slow cooker recipes. But I think I might have broken their algorithm.

The Guv'nor(s)

First governing body meeting this evening. Husband came home early from work to allow me to go and have tea in the staff room first (the staff room into which we are only allowed by invite; a bit like vampires). Teachers and governors were all introduced to each other, so now I know the first names of just over half the teachers (would be nearly all were it not for my faulty memory) including Daughter's teacher. I promise not to tell her ... especially given that her teacher has the same name as one of her best friends.

We went through the head's report to the governing body, approved a conduct and capability policy we didn't get to read (it's pretty much a three-line-whip from the local authority, hm), amended and approved an arts policy, volunteered for committees, and discussed cycling to school.

I am on the Finance and Premises committee, and also the Appeals and Complaints committee (which has never met).

That's all. Oh, and met the other parent governor who works for my employer, so I will have to have a chat with him at work some time (get the goss, etc).

Daughter wore her winter uniform for the first time today - was going to hold out until October, but it was a bit chilly today, plus I think the novelty got her into it a bit quicker than if she'd worn her summer dress! I do expect her to come back looking a lot more dishevelled after PE though - far more of a faff to get into a polo shirt and pinafore than into a dress.

Not a lot to report

Where did the last nine days go?!

We're now on the cusp of the next stage of school settling in - when the morning sessions start to have lunch appended to them. Exciting! It's also when I start to ease myself back into work, which is less exciting.

Daughter is having a packed lunch on Monday and Wednesday, school dinner on Friday. This is with familiarisation with school dinners in mind, plus her nursery friend is doing the same, and if they have different lunches they'll be at different tables - woe. Friday is also chip day.

I have to send the money in on Monday, not entirely sure how this will work - she'll need to give the money in, having taken it out of her bookbag, but will need to understand that it's not that day that she'll be having the hot meal.

Several of us were up at the school office on Friday, having waited all week to receive a menu for school dinners, and having NOT received a menu. I ended up being tasked by Daughter's teacher to find out what week the school is on, because armed with that knowledge you can find out online what is for dinner next week.

My hour and a half introductory governor session on Thursday turned into the entire morning, which was okay as I had no other plans. We (new foundation governor and I) attended assembly - the first assembly Reception children had attended. I could see Daughter down at the front, was willing her NOT to turn round. It was a very good assembly (actual subject would give away the identity of the school, so not saying anything) but Daughter couldn't remember anything about it when I picked her up.

First governors' meeting on Tuesday - my parents were supposed to be taking Daughter for the time between me going to the meeting, and Husband arriving home, but they're now otherwise occupied. So I'm going to see if our neighbour can fill the gap, otherwise Husband will have to come home early.

No election required

I appear to be a parent governor. There were three people proposed for three posts, so I'm in. One is carrying on from a previous term, so it can't be too bad. Can it? I've been to talk briefly to the head, and spoken to the chair of the governing body on the phone - we are meeting next week.

So, that's quite exciting. Eek!

I've also had sight of the second booklet (because it does exist, it's just a little behind where it should be), having emailed its author. I suggested I could take a look at it, as a fresh pair of eyes. I made a few suggestions, but it's really very good, useful.

What else? Oh, the milk saga. I tried to call the Cool Milk agency, but got no answer, so convinced myself there was no way that the registration had worked (someone else said they'd had an email on registering) and tried again. Still no email, so later I managed to get someone on the phone. Indeed, neither attempt at registering online had done a blinkin' thing, so I did it over the phone. I now have an email, and Daughter IS getting milk next week. It's a good job she's not five until March, if she was a September birthday we'd have missed the limited free milk at this rate!

I'm holding off on volunteering to help in class, for the time being. I don't know yet how much time being a governor will take up, but the first meeting is in a couple of weeks, and is at 4pm, so will either involve Husband coming home early, my parents taking the Daughter for a couple of hours, or perhaps one of the neighbours having her for an hour or so, just to fill the gap between me going to school and Husband coming home. So I may not want to introduce extra complications into life right now.

A foray into the school office

Well, not INTO the office, but valuable time spent poking my head through the hatch. I don't actually know who I spoke to - you see, if I was any good at schmoozing and networking I'd have made sure I knew exactly who it was - but she was enormously helpful and lovely.

The results of my enquiries:
- Daughter is still not on the milk list, but might be for next week, I need to check again after pick-up today (so much for a slick online process; it's over a week since I registered her)
- I have a school timetable, it is identical to the LEA's (fine) but does seem to have only been distributed via the end of term newsletter, which would again be fine if Reception parents without older children had been sent a copy
- the Reception parents' meeting is on the 17th, again this was in the newsletter, and we are supposed to be hearing about it soon - this is pretty short notice for anyone who needs to arrange babysitting cover in order to go (eg single parents or anyone whose partner is away)
- there is no second booklet, despite the note in the first booklet that says there is a second booklet to come!
- apparently we should have been sat down when the children visited last term, and told about various practical things like milk and PE kits, but this didn't happen - this is 'should have been' as in 'this used to happen' rather than 'this should definitely have happened'

It seems that part of the problem is that there are very few parents as utterly clueless as we are, and the induction procedures have maybe got a little slack for that reason. Over half this year's Reception intake are siblings (official siblings, ie siblings of children further up the school) and at least two children are younger siblings of secondary age children, so while they are not siblings in intake terms (ie get preference over non-siblings) their parents HAVE been through the system before.

It sounds like the website is out of date because the woman who does it has been busy doing network stuff instead. I may have inadvertantly not-quite-volunteered to help out. Will see if anything comes of that.

And if I want to help out in class I need to talk to the class teacher (even though it'd be the opposite class, as that's the policy in Reception). It wouldn't be until after half-term, and I need to be CRB checked (I knew that, and I've been 'done' before, so no big deal).

And the biographical note

Brief biography, biographical note, statement - I've sealed the envelope and I can't remember what it says? I've interpreted it to be a personal statement, it's not exactly a manifesto, but a little more than a biography - wasn't too sure that much of my 'biography' would be relevant.

Anyway, here it is:

"I am new to the school, with my daughter [name] having just started in Reception, and am keen to get involved in the life of the school. I am an internal auditor at [employer], where I have worked for twelve years. In this role I have gained knowledge of governance and financial management, along with skills in time management and communicating with a wide range of people. I work part-time, which gives me time to dedicate to helping the school continue to improve, and means I will be visible to other parents at school pick-up time."

I raided the annals of Mumsnet for some tips. I feel a little funny about the last bit, but I thought it was worth making it clear that I'm part-time and will do pick-up, so I'll be around to talk to people, plus I'm not some high-powered long-hours person who will have nothing to do with the school apart from parachuting in for evening meetings! I suppose the fact that Daughter has just started is biographical detail - plus I figured that if I weren't standing and was faced with a load of candidates I knew nothing about, I'd be pretty inclined to vote for a fellow Reception parent, all other things being eequal.

So tomorrow I shall drop it into the office. I also need to ask about a term timetable (still working off default LEA one, but have just seen my friend's daughter's timetable, at a different school, and it's different to the LEA one!), whether Daughter has made it on the milk list, and when the new parents' meeting is.

Today I've also tidied the conservatory and done my evening's volunteer work, so I feel quite virtuous. Daughter has been to see her nursery best friend, a 'playdate' (yuck) which started with tears and ended with tears, but went unusually well in the middle. Oh, and the world failed to end. Good day all round.

I has signatures

I've got a proposer and a seconder (#1 buttonholed at school drop-off after she returned the socks I'd lent her daughter when her wellies leaked last week, #2, my next-door-but-one neighbour called in on on the way home from the school run).

Now I need the personal statement. I don't know how to start it. Still, it's good to have the signatures sorted, now it's just up to me. The deadline is actually 9am on Monday, so I am going to try to get it in before then.

Talking to my neighbour it seems like a few things are wrong admin-wise this year. Her son is in Yr1 and her daughter in Reception, and she's seen a difference between the two years' intakes. Notes to school don't seem to be getting out of bookbags at the moment. Not sure what is going on with Yr1, but I wonder with Reception if the parent helper is just too busy looking after the little ones to do this job? Being optimistic here. The milk seems to have been a problem all round, and still no timetable forthcoming. She did tell me though that the class list was a parent initiative last year, so I'll stop waiting for that to miraculously appear. I'm tempted to organise it, but she's said if no one else does it she will, so I will step back and try to stop being such a control freak.

Anyway, sitting in my neighbour's house drinking coffee after a wet school run is just the ticket, but it wasn't getting MY house tidy, so I've come home. Not that blogging is getting my house tidy either of course.

And now for the masterplan ...

... take over the world. Failing that, become parent governor.

To this end, I have recruited one person to either propose or second me - I need someone else to fulfil the other role, of course. There is nothing explicit that says Husband can't do it ... but given that most people won't have a clue who I am it would probably look much better if people who I'm not married to think I'd be a good governor! I have someone to ask tomorrow.

Also to this end, I have made sure there is nothing terribly embarrassing on my Facebook profile.

There is a fair bit of information online about what governors do - given the rather short notice to get nominations in, I'll scan it, but at a first glance (and this was my understanding) it's not unlike being a non-executive director.

In addition to getting my seconder (or proposer, depending on whose name goes where) I need to submit a 100 word personal statement. So, what will make other parents vote for me*?

I am thinking of:
- my professional background as an auditor (governance, and some finance)
- the fact that I'm a Reception parent, and therefore will serve the full four years (which would be true of Year 1, 2 and 3 parents as well of course)
- proximity to the school?

* this is assuming it's contested, there are three posts vacant so it's possible not