Visiting schools....

Seems a strange thing to be writing about on a blog that is supposed to be about home education, but we're thinking about the pros and cons of flexi-schooling so thought we had better visit the local schools and see if any of them would be amenable to the idea. Bill took the day off and we had 2 appointments this morning, not in our nearest school which couldn't fit us in today but in adjoining villages.

I have to say, the first was lovely. It is a really small village school - they currently have 33 pupils in total age 4-11!! They have 2 classes, so reception to year 2 is in one class and years 3-6 are in a second class. Class 1 currently has 8 pupils, 1 of which is a reception age child, and usually 3 and sometimes 4 staff on at a time - can't beat that for a staff:pupil ratio!!! They normally have about 6 in reception, plus the Year 1 and 2s, but even so..... In class 2 we saw 4 or 5 children just getting on with their own thing, while 4 kids were in a separate room with a student teacher, doing some reading, and the 4 'brightest' girls were with the head teacher learning Latin, because it was something they all fancied! We had a chat with the headteacher and she is certainly prepared to be flexible in school attendance, as they have had to do with children with 'special needs' in the past, although she did say she would need to be clear which of us would be covering which areas/subjects. But with mixed age groups and mostly teaching in groups of 4-6, it seemed to come quite close to home-ed in some ways! Of course, you still have the issue of 'lessons' which start and finish at pre-determined times, rather than just following the individual child's interest for as long as it lasts.

The second school, although still a village school, was much more 'bog standard' with over 20 children and 1 teacher (and sometimes a learning support worker) in each class. Everything the Headteacher proudly presented to us as examples of the children's work and excellent opportunities just struck me as something we could cover even better at home on our own. Don't think we will be bothering with that one.

The rest of the day has been really good, too. While we were eating lunch Tamsin chose, on her own, all the right letters and spelled out her own name on the magnetic board (first time without help!), and also looked at the globe and identified the UK and also America where her uncle/aunt/cousins live. Then, while I had a quick nap after lunch, she and Bill played with the Letterland flash cards and I came down to lots more words spelled out all over the floor. Then I took Tamsin swimming, where she seemed much more confident than she has done in the past, although she's not swimming on her own yet but she was much happier about being adventurous and going under the water etc. Afterwards, we went to buy her some new shoes, which I was dreading because last time she had a complete hysterical tantrum in the shoe shop, but (with the promise of an ice-cream afterwards) she agreed to have her feet measured and tried on some shoes without any problem whatsoever. She got a nice solid pair of ankle boots for everyday winter use, and now I know what size she is I can look around for some fancier ones.

If only everyday felt as positive and well-balanced as this ..... Unfortunately, during this pregnancy, that has been far from the case as I have mostly been exhausted, very irritable and bad-tempered, as I expect will be evident in the coming few weeks at least, as well!