Soph's School of the Mad: Final Week

My god, it had BETTER be the final week. I have learned much about myself in the last few months, and the main thing is no, I really do not want to be a teacher. But I've done my best, and I don't feel like the older two have wildly suffered academically, and that is the main thing. Alex is a totally different matter. As things stand, they're going back to school in September. Alex will be in year one, Jack in year five and Jim in year seven.

On Monday, Jim did some work on pollination, mainly sniggering about plants DOING SEX on themselves. Part of the work was doing a quiz, identifying fruit and vegetables by the plant. I incorrectly identified a grape vine as 'WINE'. WINE! IT GROWS ON THE WINE VINE!

We tasted honey, we did some pollination using chalk and this amazing diagram:

And we had a really good look at the anatomy of a poppy. Then we declared that we would never look at plant biology again.

Jack wrote a letter to his new teacher, warning her that he has an extremely short temper but "gets over it quickly". The child speaks the truth.

Then me and Jim had a Teams meeting to meet his new teacher and TA for next year. Jim, nervous as hell, ate nine cookies during this half hour meeting and informed the new teacher than people are God's cookies, so he certainly got to sample the madness of Jim.

Tuesday began with a walk to the chemist. Jack proved HIGHLY reluctant to do any work after this, but managed this acrostic poem:

What a wonderful day it was
Everyone outside, playing and shouting
And then, all of a sudden
Thunder destroying everything in its path
Hail knocking people out
Everyone rushed to their homes
Restless and ruined, everyone went to bed

Goth.

Jim started work on his All About Me powerpoint. Highlights included:

On Wednesday, Jack and Alex (with CONSIDERABLE GUIDANCE AND HELP) made some thank you cards for their teachers. Can't help but feel they should be making ME cards, but fuck it:

Do you remember Jim did his SATs (for NO REASON) a couple of weeks ago? Well, he got the results. He got 95 in maths, which is absolutely standard for year six. He got 111 in English, which is AMAZING. Considering he did no revision at all, and did them at home, I think he did astonishingly well and actually feel quite weepy about it. It's hard to replicate school at home, and it's 100 times harder to replicate a SEN school at home, but this feels like external validation that I haven't done a shit job.

His teacher came over on Wednesday to take his laptop back to school, so we got to say goodbye. She's gone above and beyond throughout this whole thing, and has become an extension of our family. Alex told her he loved her on video chat, and then she brought Jim a fig tree for being a STUDIOUS GOOSE. I have to say, he's been remarkably amenable to home schooling, all things considered. I think he's enjoyed the routine:

On Thursday, I was woken up by Alex dropping onto my abdomen on both knees, and then weeping at my wailing. I survived, and tried to get Jack and Alex to watch Blue Planet so they could LEARN OF THE SEA, but they were not interested in LEARNING OF THE SEA, so they abandoned ship. I do not think any of my children will be mariners, unlike their forebears.

Jim's school issued a sports day challenge, which he did in the most grudging, half-hearted way you can imagine. "I WILL NOT DO PRESS UPS" he screamed. "I CAN'T DO THIS" he howled, after two laps of the garden. "THIS IS TORTURE" he wailed as he flapped through six star jumps. He will never be an Olympian:

Then he finished off his Harry Potter comprehension and I ran out of work to give him.

We went to the primary school to say goodbye to the boys' teachers at lunchtime. This was EMOTIONALLY NECESSARY for all of us. When Alex saw his TA, he ran up to her and sat on her knee and we all tried not to cry. He hasn't seen her since March! She took him to see his new classroom and meet his new teacher. We also said goodbye to Jack's old teacher who's leaving the school and their SENCo.

Today, Friday, the kids have had a day off, as they would have at actual school. Alex insisted on finishing his reading program:

THE PRIDE!
The big two are planning on watching ALL FOUR SHREKS BACK TO BACK, and I have sorted out all the stuff they've done, filing much into the bin, turning my dining room back into something approaching a normal family room rather than a school (albeit, filled with Warhammer). Tom's got some time off work- actual time off, not working from home - and I've got a PhD to prepare for.

The last day of reception, year four and year six. What a fucking weird year:

Thank you to Tracey, Claire and Louise for keeping me sane, and thank you to ALL the teachers at Discovery for being superstars.

And thank you, o general reader, for reading my weekly blog of madness. Lockdown has been weird and lonely, frustrating and endless. Way back in March, I posted on Facebook suggesting that families try and have a routine to teach their kids because 'they might end up being out of school for six months', never dreaming that would end up being the case. SEN schools weren't supposed to close. They did. Alex was supposed to be able to go back to school. He didn't. Jack, the one child desperate to go back, was never given the option. It has been a bizarre juggling act of trying to teach them, trying to teach ME to be a teacher, trying to meet their SEN needs, and trying to still be mum at the end of it while also working myself.

If I have to do it again, I will. But I don't want to.

Enjoy your summer. Stay safe. CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

Soph's School of the Mad: Week Twelve

The boys were at their dad's at the weekend, and rather than do anything productive, I sat around in an immense pre-menstrual piss, watching old Glastonbury. Alex, however, went mad in the garden doing chalk lines everywhere

And planting stuff

Then he sorted his cars out into colours and CRIED BECAUSE I WOULDN'T LET HIM RACE THEM ALL AGAINST EACH OTHER.

It would have taken THE REST OF HIS NATURAL LIFE.

Monday dawned.  Urgh. Nobody wanted to get out of bed, least of all me. I've adjusted Jack's timetable again to take the element of choice out of it because I think it was stressing him out. He likes to know what he's doing and get it done.

Meanwhile, Jim was doing some of the craft stuff we didn't do last week because of BLOODY MATHS. We made Stonehenge out of Bourbon biscuits

Surprisingly difficult, but a good breakfast

Then he designed this Iron Age shield. LOOK AT THE DETAIL! LOOK AT THE BOSS! WHAT A BOSS!

On Monday lunchtime, Jim's teacher brought round a stack of SATs-esque papers. Here's the thing with year six SATs. Mainstream schools start telling kids in year five how important their SATs are, how desperately, critically VITAL they are to a good transition into secondary school, which as any fule kno is bullshit. Jim was in mainstream in year five. He firmly believes that he will SIMPLY NOT BE ALLOWED into secondary phase unless he has done his SATs. So he asked to do some tests. I asked him teacher if she could facilitate this (he would have done his SATs if they hadn't been abandoned) and therefore we have had SATs week over a month late. And to be fair to Jim, there has been very little howling.

Jack was asked to do some work on Tim Peake. Jack is thoroughly unimpressed with astronauts. Going into space is his idea of hell. He does not think going into space was the peak of Peake's career. He would not like to go himself, no thank you madam. Oh, and he wants to join Scouts RIGHT NOW, when no groups are meeting.

On Tuesday, we began the SATs. In Jim's school, exam conditions are not quite the same as mainstream, and Jim's teacher had no issue with using cat videos and sweets to keep him regulated while he did them:

And to his credit, he did the whole maths reasoning paper without screaming once. On Wednesday, he did two of the English papers, again without screaming:

On Thursday, two more English papers. Still no screaming.

In non-SATs news, he also wrote a twisted version of the Three Little Pigs in which the pigs mutilated the wolf, because my children are very like me.

Jack's loathing of astronauts continued throughout the week. God, he hates astronauts. On Wednesday, he sulked because I ASKED HIM TO READ A BOOK. The child who normally has at least four books on the go.

He was also horrified by this video. Look at his face. "MUM, THIS IS CRINGE, he yelled.

Tbf, I made him watch Beyonce at Glastonbury on Monday, so he knows what this song SHOULD BE.

I asked Jack to write about what exactly he hates about the idea of being an astronaut. Some highlights:
"You have to wear a big heavy suit that makes you look like an alien. When you get to space, there is nothing to do until lunch except jump up and down, shouting 'WE MADE IT! WOO HOO!'"

Quite.

Alex hasn't done a lot this week. I keep feeling dreadful about him in particular missing out at school. I'm trying to be reassured that everyone is the same, and the school will help him catch up, but I'm still struggling to reconcile this with my terror of his developmental delays becoming intractable. Anyway, he has discovered that he REALLY LIKES Top Gear, and watches it in rapt silence in the mornings while his brothers are working.

I taught him a bit about money:

Not sure he actually understands the PHILOSOPHY of money, but then who does? He knows the nominal value of coins, which isn't particularly useful when everyone's paying on contactless at the moment. And his letter formation is gradually, so gradually, improving:

Bless his little face. He's FIVE tomorrow. Fucking five. Five years ago, it was one of the hottest days of the year, so I naturally celebrated by spending half the day in hospital, missing Wimbledon, and then having my waters break all over the hallway when I got home. Memories!

On Friday, Jim did his arithmetic paper, truly saving the best for last. He did finish it, although I shouted "WHAT IS THIRTY SIX PLUS SEVEN??" at him so loud that it made Alex cry. Oops. Meanwhile, Jack wrote a space book for Alex:

Apocalyptic, I like it.

We got word from all schools that they expect to re-open in September, so I wept openly with relief. Jim, as usual, summed it up rather succinctly in his Harry Potter comprehension:

Two more weeks.

Soph's School of the Mad: Week Eleven

Father's Day! Look at this card that Alex DEFINITELY MADE ALL BY HIMSELF, HONEST GUV:

I do love these horrible, smelly males that I live with.

So, Monday. Another Monday, another absolute lack of shit to do. I set Jack to writing a recipe for this ice cream sundae we had at the weekend:

(Sauce recipe here) (Try it, you will regret nothing but your waistline).

Then, I settled down with Jim to do his EHCP review. EHCPs replaced Statement of Special Education Need a few years ago. They are supposed to be reviewed every year, and this is Jim's first review since he started at Medeshamstede. It's also the first review where he's been old enough to have some input into the process:

"Jim, what do you need to be happy every day?"
"EVERYONE TO DO AS I SAY"
"Ah, of course"

On Tuesday, it got hot. And as it got hot, my fucks dissolved. Jack had to write a fairytale with a new ending. I think they wanted cheerful endings, like Red Riding Hood and the wolf making friends, but this is Jack, so instead they got an elephant eating Jack the Giant Slayer, his mother AND the giant. I'm just sad he didn't go with my idea to have Rapunzel's head get pulled off by the incessant clambering up her hair.

Alex finished his first workbook and was SO PROUD to get a certificate:

Wednesday was MATHS DAY. Cue endless screaming howls of dismay from us all. Me because I had to teach maths, Jim because he had to do maths, Jack because he felt like joining in and Alex because there is a noise outside and the windows are open. Having a noise-averse child closing all the windows when it's 30 degrees outside is NOT MY FAVOURITE.

So, we were doing data handling, which I can do fairly well (literally the only maths thing I CAN do). We started off with skittles:

Delicious skittles. This graph was produced:

Then Jim had to do some independent work on line graphs, all the time eating the skittles.

There were no skittles by 10:30am. Jack's there in the background completely ignoring the work he's been set to listen to Spotify instead.Then we all went to die in the sun like lizards, hissing at each other and weeping tears of pure salt.

On Thursday, I had Jim's EHCP review meeting, so everything was a nightmarish rush to get done by 11. We had to do PIE CHARTS, which Jim understood and did perfectly in between screaming like a wounded animal. While I was in the meeting, he wrote a diary entry about cannibals in the Iron Age. He's decided that cannibalism was rife in the period, and nothing will dissuade him, which is very 1900s historian of him. Jack did some maths, and then wrote a factfile on a monster called The Fred of the Daktala Forest in Jackland.

A Fred:

Alex's teacher rang up to talk about how he's getting on since he's staying at home til September. I put her on speaker phone so she could talk to him, and he FLED, LITERALLY UPPED AND RAN. It might be a struggle to get him back into school in a few months. Alex had a play with some thermodynamic putty, which he loved:

God only knows why he insisted on wearing jeans on the hottest day of the year. Weird kid is weird.

Friday, thank God, and it's a dad-weekend for the older two. Jimmy has been HAUNTING me all week, eavesdropping on my conversations, inserting himself into my personal space, appearing at his bedroom window to scream "WHY HAS MUMMY GOT HER FEET IN WATER????" He's not going back to school after all, and I have taken to drink.

First thing this morning, he had a go at doing some prehistoric art using flour, sticks and buttercups:

I think it has a slightly sinister vibe. I like it.

Jack designed a book cover for his magnum opus, which he's been working on for weeks:

And Jim wrote a powerpoint about the Amazon rainforest, which wasn't exactly what he was supposed to do, but he used full sentence so who cares?

Three more weeks. I can do this. I CAN do this.

Soph's School of the Mad: Week Ten

Ten weeks, for fuck's sake. Monday was bleak. After two hours of sleep (THANKS ALEX!), I was  not ready for Monday. I was particularly not ready for Tom to go back to work full time, and yet he has and I am somehow still here. As per usual on Monday, no work was forthcoming from the schools so Jack worked on his story which is now on it's fifth chapter and nothing much has happened. Jim did some Harry Potter and then made chocolate fridge cake:

 Isn't it PRETTY?

Me and Alex made a father's day card which is TOP SECRET. Then the boys played on the PS while I worked, because I am a diligent mother.

I had a bit of a meltdown last week, mainly about Alex. I GRIEVE what he is losing out on, not being at school. All those new experiences and opportunities that I cannot replicate at home. If he wasn't autistic, it wouldn't matter, but he will try new things at school that he will not entertain at home. So I spoke to the SENCo and the head of EYFS and they were reassuring and gave me some advice. My cheap Chinese paints turned up two months after being ordered this week, so we did some car painting:

Jim was doing a random sheet of comprehension and came out with this gem:

Autism is DEFINITELY not mundane.

This week was quite stressful. My little niece had her third lot of brain surgery within six months, to replace her shunt. It went well, she's doing great. My kids have no idea what's wrong with Eliza, and thanks to Corona, we haven't had to tell them. It's not that we don't want them to know, or that we're unrealistic about it, it's that they will FREAK THE FUCK OUT and we'll never talk Jim down. But it does meant that me and Tom are trying not to let on how sad or stressed we are MORE than we would if we were merely homeschooling in a pandemic.

Also, I had to speak to a consultant dentist at UCL about What To Do With Jack's Teeth. Jack has a genetic disorder called amelogenesis imperfecta that means his teeth crumble in his mouth. He's had countless patch-up jobs and teeth out in his short life, and although it's very minor in the grand scheme of things, teeth hurt and teeth are cosmetically important. So, because of corona, I had to take pictures of his teeth, email them to the consultant and then talk about The Plan, while Jack whimpered in the background, terrified the dentist was going to dive down the phone and wrench his teeth from his head. He had his xray this morning (Friday) and had to go in all by himself, again because of corona. But he was very brave.

HOWEVER, in between the stress, Jim produced this:

YOU FOOL

And to FOX Alex, I froze one of his beloved cars and challenged him to get it out.

He poked it about a bit, and then abandoned it to melt in the sun. THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. Then he smashed the last bit of ice remaining and screamed "I SMASHED IT" joyfully.

For the first time, we also got him to try dressing up, and he was so utterly delighted by the results:

Did you ever see such a happy child?

Jim had to retell a story. He had a go...

I couldn't get his laptop to transmit sound on teams during our weekly lesson with his teacher, so he spent half an hour miming at her and showing her his foot. SO NORMAL HUN.

Friday is topic day, at least for Jim, and this week we were doing the Bronze Age. Ladies and gentlemen, I present, Bronze Age Fred:


And so to the weekend, which will hopefully be less fraught. Jim had a meltdown of such ground-shaking proportions yesterday that I'm surprised nobody called the police. And why? Because he had to put some things away. Truly, he is the most oppressed.

Finally, my children, but old:

Particularly enjoy that I've given birth to the next Bill Oddie...

Soph's School of the Mad: Week Nine

Monday, Monday, with your face like an unwanted comment. They are working on the railway near our house at the minute, laying new track for a freight line. This is fine. What is not fine is Network's Rail decision to turn the LOUD BANGER track pounding machine on at 11:45pm, and then have it on for fifteen minute intervals until 4am at weekends. I am weary. So weary.

Jim's work didn't get sent through until lunchtime, so he just dicked about on Times Tables Rockstars, shrieking in dismay that he was expected to know both his 8 and 11 times table. Jack, also in a filthy mood, created a family tree. I was BITING MY FISTS trying not to take over and do a family tree stretching back ten generations.

While doing this, Jack remembered my mum was dead, and started to cry. Then he got upset because he has divorced parents. All the time, I sit, wondering why I have to deal with this on a MONDAY MORNING. THIS FELT LIKE A GOOD IDEA ONCE. Eventually, he did a cast list of his family, in which he noted that "everyone in my family is on edge". No shit Sherlock.

Then we had a rave to The Prodigy, and I taught the children to dance like it's 1992 (HISTORY), which led to me showing Jack a lot of Rammstein live videos to explain live music staging.

Alex will do anything for Youtube videos, including sums:

Tom had to work on Tuesday, which I guess is good practice for next week when he has to go back properly. So Jack wrote him a letter about how much he loves him:

And Jimmy attempted to build Stonehenge (using this game) but this happened A LOT:

I wonder if this happened much when they were actually building Stonehenge. Every Solstice, hoping against hope that it would stay up, and then KERAAASH.

Alex had a go at writing again today, and did fairly well until he decided that he could not write anymore because his hands were gone. Earlier, that morning, he bashed me over the head with a broom shouting "I KILL YOU". I've had better days.

On Wednesday, Jack had to learn about Shakespeare. "WHY DO I NEED TO LEARN ABOUT SHAKESPEARE?" he howled, "HOW IS THAT GOING TO HELP ME WHEN I'M GROWN UP?" and to my credit, I didn't start soliloquising him. Anyway, this is his artist's impression of Shakespeare:

True to life!

Jim had to do time assessments, and there was an AWFUL LOT OF SCREAMING and this face:

Hard same. Then I spoke to his teacher on the phone and agreed to make a load of resources for the kids' Bronze age topic, because GOD LOVES A TRIER.

On Thursday, Jim spent the morning doing assessments. He's going into year seven in September, in the same school. He was going to do his SATs, but obviously that didn't happen, so they're assessing his levels through powerpoints. He does them by himself, but regularly RENTS THE AIR with HOWLS OF DISMAY, which keeps you awake if nothing else.

But this meant me and Jack could do a bit more family history work, again with me desperately trying not to dominate the whole thing. Today, we looked at where his family came from. As you can see, we're pretty focused on East Anglia:

He also wrote me some sentences, including "Fred went to jail for illegally flushing a potato down the toilet." Quite.

Alex stole my phone and took photos of his most precious possessions:

Today, everyone feels like shit. Fuck all sleep, I had a breakdown last night because Tom has gone back to work and I am gently going insane, the kids are going to their dad's later which always utterly overexcites them, and Alex is grouchy. I had an email from Jack and Alex's school confirming they are not going to attempt to open up any further this term. Jim's school are very slowly trying to reopen, starting with the kids in upper school.

So Jack did some bar charts about football, and I appreciate the Premier League getting into helping home educate kids but not in a PURPLE AND YELLOW COLOUR SCHEME WHEN I HAVE NO INK. We have no ink, but we do have GRAPH PAPER:

And we reserved today to do Jim's Skara Brae work, because his topic is the Stone Age and Skara Brae is cool af. He wrote this advert, which cracked me up:

And made this advert for holidaying there. It's the wig. The wig!


And that's us done for another week, and perhaps done-in for life. Maybe I'll have cheered up by Monday, let's wait and see.