Major wobbles

*Big brain-drain alert!* This stuff is just going round and round in my head and getting nowhere, so I thought getting it out here might help me sort through it a bit. Also it's kind of my duty to blog it as it is all about flexi-schooling issues and the troubles associated with it!!

So, we had our usual termly review meeting at Jade's school on Wednesday afternoon to have a chat about how she's getting on and if anything needs changing or dealing with. For the benefit of newer readers (if any), Jade goes to school 3 afternoons per week. This was originally envisaged as necessary childcare to cover some of my working hours - I thought she might be able to go one full day and a couple of half days. I also thought it would be nice for her to make some friends that she could see regularly. We wrote to the school setting out what we were thinking about and they asked us in for a meeting to discuss it. They seemed keen, enthusiastic even, and very open to understanding what HE was all about and the benefits of Jade having a little time in a different environment to do PE and group work and stuff. In the end, it seemed to work out best that she go 3 afternoons to avoid getting embroiled in their literacy and numeracy hours and the other more formal stuff that goes on in the mornings. It avoided me having to liaise with them about what work they were doing the rest of the week so that I could replicate it at home, which would have been a bit pointless!

I went to the meeting on Wednesday expecting that all was fine and just to ask them to put a bit more simple intervention in place to help her overcome her anxiety about speaking to adults. She does not speak to the adults, although she did do so once or twice at the beginning. What we got (DH came too) was a full-length exposition of why this is not going to work for very much longer, and how I need to decide whether we are working towards her going in full-time or not.

In brief, part-time school in Year 1 has been fine. They are very informal in the afternoons and she has been able to dip in and out without any trouble. In Year 2, they will all be working towards getting ready for SATs at the end of the year (rolls eyes) and the other children will gradually be spending more time doing papers and getting used to what's required which obviously will be harder to dip into part-time. In Years 3-6 (Key Stage 2), the whole timetable changes, things are no longer so easily split into formal and informal work and there will be no chance of her being there part-time. Now excuse me for being a bit pissed off that this was not clearly explained when we went for our first meeting! Or at least, I don't have a memory of this being said or hinted at, but with the general state of my memory that doesn't mean that nothing was mentioned. Maybe it was, and I just ignored it as being too far in the future.

As it has turned out, only one of her times at school has coincided with my work (now that I have changed my hours on a Thursday), so there's only one half-day that she 'needs' to be at school for my sake. However I have racked my brains to try and find another way of getting some sort of childcare for while I work that time but nothing seems to be available without spending money, which simply isn't possible. I can't afford not to work, I can't afford to pay for any extra childcare. Once Isabelle starts getting nursery vouchers next January, that will ease the budget noticeably and something else may be possible, but not for now.

Anyway, in the hope of leaving her there for at least the coming term and getting some help for her with the selective mutism, I asked whether it wouldn't be possible to get some extra strategies/intervention put into place to give her gradual exposure to speaking situations which she finds difficult so that she can gradually build up her capacity to speak to adults. Then I got this explanation of why that is difficult while she is not at the school full-time because there aren't the staff available to leave the classroom and work with her outside. If she was there full-time, she would be assessed as having special educational needs and the school would get some extra funding to get her some extra help. And the SENCO also asked what would be the point of helping her in the current circumstances if she is not going to stay at the school, i.e. why help her to get used to speaking in a school situation if she is not going to stay there. I was hoping that any progress in speaking in school would be built upon so that we could generalise it to other situations, but I can sort of see his point.

I said I didn't think Jade would thrive full-time in school at the moment, and they asked why not. Well as mentioned in my previous post she has been particularly clingy at the moment and hates leaving me under any circumstances. But I could see them almost thinking that it would be 'good for her' to be made to be apart from me more often, then, to help her get over that feeling. And I'm not absolutely confident of my ground arguing about that one. As DH said, I guess it's similar to people arguing on the "cry-it-out method" of getting little ones to sleep. And I could never do that either. But I suppose it could reasonably be asked, who has the separation anxiety here - the child or the mother?

Anyway the situation has been left that we will think about whether we want to work towards transitioning her to full-time school over the next 12 - 18 months or not. If we do, then they will of course be delighted to work with her to make her more comfortable in speaking to adults. If not, well we might as well take her out straightaway.

The problem is, the idea of sending her to school is not completely unattractive! Especially on a day like today, when I had another appalling night's sleep thanks to Shannon's waking and feeding habits, and I'm absolutely exhausted. I have been grumpy, irritable, lethargic, not wanting to do anything with the girls and really just wishing they weren't there so that I could rest or get on with things quietly. And I have days like that more often than I like to admit. The archaeology thing is the only overtly educational stuff that we have done this week. I seriously wonder whether the work would be more interesting at school, because although I have bursts of enthusiasm and energy for stuff, more often than not I feel uninspired and too tired to do anything very interesting. I wonder whether our relationship wouldn't be better in some ways because if I had space at home to do my thing during the day, when she came home I could really focus on her and be happy to give that time to her completely, rather than wishing I was doing something else. I really, really crave time on my own at home, and am simply not getting any at all. And I've always thought that late primary age is probably a fairly reasonable time for kids to go to school if they're going to. I don't like early primary because I feel they simply start too young and secondary school is too horrendous to contemplate mostly, but late primary seems fairly innocuous. And I also have to take into account that we're not just talking about sending her to 'school' as a general principle, but to this particular school, which has about 4o pupils max., about 6 or 7 children in Jade's current year, a mixed class of Reception, Y1 and Y2 which I like because then they're not all simply the same age; and a staff of 2-3 people in that classroom of about 15-18 children.

Over the past couple of days my thoughts and feelings have veered wildly between, "let's just take her out right now and I can take her to work with me on Thursdays and we'll just manage without any school hassle at all," to "oh it would be really nice not to have to have all this education burden on myself and it would be fantastic to have some quiet me-time at home sometimes (assuming Shannon went to nursery or playschool as well) and let's just send her to school full-time".

And then I wonder what happens if the best interests of the child (to stay at home with her family where she feels safe, loved and confident) conflict with the best interests of the mother (to be able to have some space to get things done, sleep, just be alone as necessary). And then I think I shouldn't be thinking about such things on a day when i'm so tired. And then I think, but that is the reality of many of my days.

So there, let's see if getting that out of my head and onto the blog gives me any more clarity!