Blog fatigue evidently well set in

Two months, near enough, since my last entry. I actually came here today with the intention of deleting it all, but - to hell with it, I'll carry one for now. It's good practice.

So, in the intervening two months, Daughter has turned five. It's possible that education (NOT school!) is now compulsory, or it may be that it's compulsory from next term; I'm not entirely sure. It's academic anyway. It does mean that having her exclusively in age 5-6 clothes (or, ahem, bigger) no longer means I feel that we are raising a giant. Also that lots of things which are aged 5+ come within scope (although 5+ often means Yr 1 and up, which is often beyond her) ... and then I have to pay for her to go swimming, or on the bus. Boo.

Ongoing Free Milk Saga
This is also supposed to mean that she no longer gets free milk at school. She's indicated that she only drinks the milk because she is made to, and I asked her teacher whether some of the children over five don't have the milk (I was worried she may feel left out) and indeed some don't, so I didn't sign up to pay for the milk. However she says she still gets milk - perhaps they're making up for all the milk she didn't get at the beginning of the year?! I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, as it stops her drinking water, or a good thing, because she wouldn't drink the water anyway.

School Dinners
The new school dinners start next term. Various people (me included) have put some money in the online system already, which has distressed the catering company (or is it the payment company?) who are convinced that we don't understand, and have made the school secretary phone everyone and tell them it doesn't start till next term. I might have to go in one day and have a school dinner. They had better be bloody good, considering they cost more - oh yes, they cost 10p more to parents, but cost only 5p more to make! They also put more responsibility onto the school for processing payments than previously, so the school is looking at actually employing someone to do the administration. Time for my 'local authority is mad' tag, I think. Really, it's such a rubbish situation, you're supposed to be responsible for the finances of your school (head teacher and governing body being 'you') but the local authority gets to make decisions that reverberate through the money. Weird.

SATS
Okay, that's milk and dinners covered. What else? SATS. Still a couple of years off for us, and that's just SATS-lite, the Key Stage 1 ones that are based on teacher assessment. IF they exist by then. The school, meanwhile, has it's Key Stage 2 results. Aggregate percentage of 298 at Level 4 (the expected level) - that's 100% English, 100% maths, 98% science. In a school of 60 per year group, that means every single child achieved what they should have done (or more) in English and maths, and ONE child underachieved in science. This puts the school tenth in the county (which is good, btw, I had to explain this to Husband, there are a LOT of primary schools in the county). TENTH, with ONE child having failed to make the grade in ONE subject. It doesn't quite add up, does it? Meanwhile the top two schools in the country have aggregate scores of 293 at Level 5. Which, depending on the size of the school, could potentially mean one child failing to OVERACHIEVE in one subject. Okay, 'overachieve' is a bad term - failing to excel. Nearly all the children in a school excelling in the basics of education.

Is that realistic?

Does it demonstrate that the school is excellent?

Does it demonstrate that the school's catchment is extraordinarily privileged? That it is selective, either openly or subvertly? Does it actually demonstrate that SATS are complete bollocks?

I incine towards all three. All four in fact (over my two paragraphs). Perhaps not #3, but definitely the others. #1 and #2 so often go together, after all. And are SATS bollocks? Daughter's school believes that two children should NOT have achieved Level 4 in English and maths. They don't even believe their own good press.

Chances of SATS in this form surviving until Daughter is of the relevant age? Negligible.

Secondary Admissions
Onto more horrors of early 21st century education. Secondary school admissions. A little over half of Year 6 (34 children) got into the two nearest state comprehensives. A further eight got into the next three nearest state comps - that's a good result for the two who got into the good one, but a disaster for the remaining six, who got into two schools which have been under special measures in the past, and, well, they're out now, but not exactly in a phoenix-from-the-ashes fashion. Two are going to a co-ed comprehensive faith school (Catholic/CofE, how weird is that?) leaveing sixteen going to grammar schools (one co-ed, two girls' and one boys' school), and just one going independent.

It's a worry. We have yet to get any idea whether Daughter might be grammar school material. The nearest grammar school has a very good reputation and results (not always the case, I believe one grammar school has been put in special measure recently, and elements of Husband's grammar school education left a lot to be desired*) but I don't always hear good things about it. I'm also ideologically opposed to selective education, but hey, I'm ideologically opposed to faith schools as well, so am clearly a big fat hypocrit. So what do we do in a few years? Sit tight, hope for the best, either that the demographics work in our favour (because if Daughter was in Year 6 this year, it'd be the grammar if she qualified, or one of the ex-special measures schools, I know this for a fact)? Move house? Actually we plan to move, but we really didn't want to go far. Cheat?

Most of all though, it makes me sad to think of all the tiny boys and girls in Daughter's year, how in just 6.5 years they'll be off in separate directions, the lucky ones will go with fewer than twenty of their peers to good state comprehensives, or with a handful of peers (not necessarily friends, or children they can even stand, of course) to a grammar school, or on their own to a private school. The unlucky ones will be off, perhaps even on their own, to failing schools. It's very different to when I was a child, when/where pretty much two primary schools fed into one secondary.

And Daughter, how is she?
Oh yes, besides the Big Picture, the little picture, the small blonde picture of contrariness. She is fine. She is sight reading more and more, which is a relief (there is a limit to the number of times a person can hear the word 'and' being sounded out without wanting to scream), and getting a grip on some more rules of the mad English language. Her spelling is somewhat less bonkers, but still rather endearing. Hence 'hape bersday' on a card to her friend (phonetic spelling probably works a lot better when you actually pronounce things correctly, but where's the fun in that?) Socially she seems alright - her teacher is pleased to see her making friends with one little girl, as they are 'a good match'. Not sure what this means. Little girl's mother not sure what it means either. Also not too sure about the flirtatious way in which she addresses the boys. I think we're in for trouble later. Major amounts of psychological energy taken up with wondering when her wobbly teeth will come out - she has two new teeth visible behind them, one VERY visible, and is beginning to look a little like a shark.

* the drunk chemistry teacher for one, and the failure to teach the correct texts for English lit for another

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 ...

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.