From bed to classroom; How do you get to school?

An ode to my car.

After the alarm, the insane rush to get the kids up, dressed and breakfasted. After the packing of the car with too many bags for people and squeezing the kids in to get them to the childcare at 7.30 in the morning. After I get back in the car after settling them at nursery. After all that and before the million miles per hour life that is work, that is my time. Me and my impossibly impractical car. Me and my reliably unreliable car. My vehicle that carries me to work, when it feels like it.

My car has always embodied freedom to me. As a teenager, it was freedom to get away, to explore the world, to give me a chance to see what would become such a central part of my vocation - geography. Now a days, my car is still freedom. It's the only time I get to myself. That 40mins morning and evening between me and work. The only time in my life I am truly alone. My thinking space. I sing in the morning to warm my voice up for the working day but I also sing coz it makes me happy.

My car is unpredictable. It has moods. It has broken down...many times but most notably it broke down both times I had a baby. It got postnatal depression. It also threatened to catch fire just before I had my second baby (I think it knew what was about to happen). I had to call the fire bridge and everything but it's ok. It still works, sometimes.

I plan in my car. I come up with mad cap schemes that end up really pushing forward my department. Sometimes I wish I could catch a train, to get more work done, to actually get to work on time on the odd occasion but, at the end of the day, I think my car has become more a part of the school than I have. Everyone knows my car. When I returned from my second maternity leave one guy didn't say welcome back to me but he said it was nice to see my car back in the car park. My car represents the unpredictability of my profession. It reminds me that it doesn't matter how annoying, unreliable and down right inconvenient some things can be in teaching, everything has its worth. Everything and everyone is worthy of time and effort.

So that is how I get from bed to work, in my annoying, unreliable, scary, glorious and joyful old classic mini.

No Christmas stuff before remembrance day please

My twitter followers will probably recognise my annual Christmas related rant but it really does annoy me.

I know this is a much said thing but Christmas gets earlier and earlier every year. Now I love Christmas More and more each year as I now have children to share it with which makes it extra special but really, as soon as the 'back to school' stuff was out of the shops, in went the Christmas stuff this year.

My birthday is in October and I remember being annoyed if Christmas stuff was around then but being in the shops now is stupid. Where will the Halloween stuff go? but there is an issue more important than that.

As someone who used to play in a marching band in a military area of the country, remembrance day was and still is important. Marching the veterans through the town under Christmas lights was wrong and disrespectful to the memory of those who died fighting for the safety and values of this country.

We have plenty of time to get ready for Christmas after November the eleventh. There's nothing to stop us quietly preparing for Christmas without all the tat in the shops (I have to admit that I have started my Christmas preparations as I'll have very little time closest to Christmas). But I don't need the endless round of commercialism or Christmas Muzak in every public space I enter to make sure I'm ready for the big day.

So ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to join me in my campaign to get Christmas stuff out of the shops until after November 11th. As one person on twitter pointed out; who needs an advent calendar at the beginning of September anyway?

Tests, tests and yet more tests

The uk government have just announced the roll out of tests for 5-6 yr olds to check that they can do phonics properly. The test takes the form of the children being taken out of a class for ten minutes to read a series of real and made up words.

I object to this on a number of levels. Firstly, as a parent I don't want my daughters having to go through tests at five. No matter how you dress it up, if theres a test sooner or later schools will be judged on it and if school are judged on it they will change how they present it to the kids. I trust the teachers I give my daughters to and I know they will tell me if they're doing well or need a bit of a boost.

Secondly, I don't believe this test will help reading standards in the slightest. All this test will do is suggest whether kids and put letter sound together. Being able to read in a functional way is much more than that and so really all this test is doing is forcing schools to teach reading in one particular style. Phonics is good but it's not the god of all reading techniques. My three year old is already learning to read and it's got bog all to do with phonics coz we haven't been 'teaching' her. Phonics is massively flawed in some respects particularly if you have a regional accent.

So what is this really about? Is it about making sure all kids can read (which this test won't do)? is it about a government who fundamentally doesn't trust teachers? Is it a London centric educational establishment trying to undermine regional variations? I don't know but I bet it's got a hell of a lot more to do with political whim than what's best for kids. For goodness sake, the counties with the best educational outcomes don't even start formal education until seven but we're going to be testing our kids two years earlier!

Well, one thing this has done is given me a question to ask the primary schools I'm going to be visiting in the run up to applying for my three year olds place for next year: Dear schools, I don't want my daughter taking that test, or SATs for that matter, do I have the option to opt them out?

How typical!

2 days ago I invested in an iPad app to help me blog. Today I discover the blogger app has been released for free!

So in honour of very randomness, this is a blog with a picture of a steam train. Nice.

Normal blogs will resume shortly ;)

A few lovely iPad Apps

I'm still getting to know my beautiful iPad. If you're wondering whether to get one I would say yes, as soon as you can. I fought the urge for a year but in the end I caved and it was well worth it. I can't compare my iPad 2 to the original but this one is lovely.

I got some good advice app wise from a friend which got me up and going but part of the joy of the whole idevise thing is just browsing the app store. The kind of apps that appeal to you will differ from me but here are a few that I have found joyful.

A quick disclaimer; I'm still getting to grips with the iPad so I've worked out how to attach photos but not how to embed them in the blog nicely, hence all the screen shots are at the bottom of this post. Secondly, these are purely apps that have made me feel happy, calm or just nice. I am not claiming that they are useful in anyway (although if they are, that's a nice bonus).

Living earth HD
Fundamentally this is a global weather app. It tells you current weather, weather forecast for the coming week, sunrise and set times and the time at the location you have searched for, but this app is presented beautifully. It shows the real time cloud cover across the earth and for the areas of the earth that are at night, it shows the inhabited areas as they are lit up with street lights etc. The screen shot below is of the third hurricane in the atlanic that I've seen since having the app for less than a week. Oh, you can also set it as an alarm which is very cool in my opinion.

Music ball
This really is the most gentle little app. Basically the premise is that when you touch the screen a coloured ball appears and starts to fall. When it hits the side, it makes a little sound and then bounces up until it hits the top etc. With each bounce it gets fainter and quieter. This creates the kind of gentle tingly music you'd expect to hear in a health spa. but the best thing about this app is if you own a baby. There are many apps for toddlers but, I suppose understandably, there is not much out there for babies to interact with. This app is perfect. Noises that attract, little coloured balls to try and grab, it really is like nectar to a baby. The only thing I need to do now, is convince my 8 month old to use her hands on the screen instead of her face.

Google earth
Now, as a geographer I got over google earth about 4 or 5 years ago. I can be so precise because the last time I looked at it was to check out a resort we were going to on holiday. At the time, google earth only had a very long range view and it didn't impress me at all. However, I downloaded this app last night and promptly wasted a good three hours scooting round the earth. The usability on iPad is fab and it's so much better than years past. The links to photographs and wiki logs have been particularly absorbing. The satellite images have also been updated although I would say they are still a good few years out, depending on which part of the earth you wish to view. It's just a brilliant way to explore the earth if you can't afford or be bothered to travel.

There are many many more cool and interesting apps with specific uses but these are the ones (so far) that I have found to be truly good for my mental health!

It's been a while!

I've not blogged for a while because I got the feeling that I just didn't have very much to say. It's not that my life has been boring, in fact we've been really busy, it's just that I didn't think it was hugely interesting to the outside world for a while.

We've been busy doing the rounds of baby activities and the over the summer holiday we had a nice holiday in the Isle of Man, which I will chat about at some point. But the biggest news in my world is that I got an iPad last Tuesday. It's lovely and so I shall do a blog about that soon too.

I'm still on maternity leave until October 31st so I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can before I have to face up to having to work through until retirement now.

Thoughts on turning 3

Little i has been 3 for nearly 2 weeks now and it suddenly struck me today just what a leap this society gives to the age of 3.

Two weeks ago, little i was banned from certain toys that were considered too small for 2 year olds to handle without choking themselves. A 2 year old is stupid and must be protected from themselves. I went into classes with her as 2 years olds are unruly and a little bit mental but also easily scared and shy so need one to one assistance from their parents. Little i was never like this really. She never tried to choke herself on toys and had always treated me like a driver coz as soon as we got into the classes, she would clear off!

But all of a sudden, literally over night, little i is 3 and a responsible member of the human race. I am not longer required in tumble tots classes and this morning she started ballet, which is a class I will never get to accompany her in. And typically, she took the hand of the teacher and cleared off into the class for 45mins without even saying good bye! She is now allowed beads and other small articles and I've discovered that she can thread very well.

I know this is all part of growing up but  I had no idea that 3 was as significant a birthday as 17 and suddenly being allowed to drive or 18 and becoming a legal drinker. So parents of 2 year olds, celebrate this milestone and revel in the discovery of just how much your newly 3 year old can do even though they weren't allowed the day before.