Open Letter to Primary School Principals

It will shock you to hear me admit that I am not a patient person especially when it comes to education and doubly especially when it comes to issues with my lovely Grandie. Yeh yeh yeh, I wasn't any more patient with issues around my girl's schooling either, but let's just live in the present shall we?

I am not one of those parents who is intimidated by, or afraid of, or in awe of Head teachers or in deed any teacher, so at the start of the school year when I found out that Zig's school had shoveled him into a composite year 5/6 class, the only composite class in the school, and in defiance of the school ethos about composites, I rang the Head Teacher.

I was not happy.

He began happily discussing things until I asked difficult questions, like, 'How were the kids selected? Did the teacher volunteer?' And then he rather oddly shut down and said that it was not proper that he was speaking to me, he should only be speaking to the parents. Ho very HUM. He couldn't speak to me but it was OK for me to run Drama workshops every week for a year, without ever having to show qualifications or a blue card, just because I was the grandmother.

I have never spoken to a teacher who is happy to teach a composite group.

I have never heard of a composite class where the educational or social needs of the different groups are equally well met.

So here's the update.

The teacher of the composite 5/6 class was away more than he was there for term 1.

The teacher of the composite class seems to be the school's Philosophy expert so is away to attend in-service and to deliver lessons to other classes. I can't help thinking that this was the trade off he negotiated when he was told to take the class. This may be a cynical view.

There are I think, about 25 kids in the class, only 9 of 'em are in year 6 and of those 9, only 3 of 'em are boys, and of those 3 boys, only one of 'em is friendly with Zig, and by that I mean the other boy and Zig, have a 6 year history of animosity that the school is more than aware of. How they both ended up in this group is anyone's guess.

The Head Teacher said that the year 5's are all very bright but he refused, as I said before, to explain how the year 6 kids were selected. One can only surmise that it was because the school predicted that these kid's parents would kick up the least fuss.

I believe, though do not know for certain as I am not in the class,  the 2 year levels do the same work, cover the same topics, spellings, maths, social studies etc, and I just don't know how that works when surely the subject matter and complexity of understanding must be sequential at this age level. If you read the criteria statements for assessment items it certainly implies that year 6s are expected to achieve different skills and levels of understanding and complexity of thought, ah but the year 5s are very bright, so maybe they are working on the year 6 criterias... I wonder what happens to 'em next year when they are all flung back into the main stream, only to be doing the same old things again. Either that or the year 6s are doing the year 5 work, who knows.

I do know that Zig does not do any homework and there is clearly no downside as a result, and neither does he feel he is missing out on any treats for doing well. He just doesn't do it, maybe it is not set. Maybe it's last year's and he's bored, maybe he's a little turd and needs to disciplined.

I do know that in spite of being told a number of times (teachers / head teacher) there are on going problems between Zig and this other boy which are escalating. Zig says the teachers don't notice.

I have been worried about this all year, and have tried to be sanguine about it admitting that everyone has to expect in the public system, that their kids are gonna have one shit year in primary school, and that it is just a shame that it happens to be Zig's last year there.

But there are intricacies that are now really troubling me.

The year 5s do NAPLAN testing and there are practice sessions too and for this the year 6s are farmed out to other classes.

The Year 5s are going on camp next week and so the year 6s are farmed out again. according to Zig,  'The 4 pretty girls go to one teacher, the 2 naughty girls go to someone else and the 3 boys go together.'

The preparation for the year 5 camp has clearly brought back memories of his own sad experience last year where he was always on his own. He sat on the bus on his own, he did not have a bunk buddy and while all the other kids paired up in the canoes he paddled on his own. He was ALONE. The teacher either didn't notice or didn't care. He is a shy kid. He doesn't easily play with other kids. Anyway this memory coupled with the fact that he has only 2 boys ( one of whom pulls his hair and puts shit on him and teases him and encourages all the class to laugh at him) to pal around with on camp cos all the other year 6 kids have already formed firm friendship groups, has now left him feeling very doubtful about going to the year 6 camp later in the year. He imagines he will be on the bus, all the way to Canberra, on his own and that will just be that start of the loneliness.

See I thought that a part of the Primary school experience was to teach kids to be social beings. Yeh they need to spell and add up and know about other stuff, but they should be taught how to interact with their peers, and this can only be done by practice and encouragement. With only one boy in his class to knock around with, how much can we expect Zig has learnt this year?

I realise that Zig can be a little smart arse, and I can just imagine that he has back chatted more than one teacher. He does not always tell the truth and can be sneaky about getting what he wants in the face of being told NO. My vision is not rose tinted.

But he is not certifiable, and he doesn't punch kids or intimidate them. I rather imagine that he is very much like every other shy kid. He needs to be coaxed into joining in. He needs to be fed the actual sentence to say when introducing himself. He needs attention to be paid. He is extremely confident in adult company but with children he needs some hand holding and really a little spoonful of that isn't asking too much during his primary schooling.

I am worried that without these social basics, he is gonna spend a very lonely time at high school, and for a clever kid to shrivel before being given the chance to thrive, that is a shame.

Shame on his school.
Shame on the Head Teacher.
Shame on the system.

Fingers firmly crossed that he will prevail in spite of, or to spite Holland Park SS.

Live Sport

It's THAT time again and the push is on.

Last season we were lucky enough to be at Twickenham for a number of the games and apart from a the dickhead who saw fit to try to intimidate me like he was in the real front row, instead of being some cock with too many beers under his belt, the atmosphere was wonderful. The singing and the good natured banter, and the fact that we could and did walk to and from the stadium all added to a fine experience.

The Poms, under Eddie Jones were out to redeem themselves and the Aussies as ever just wanted to throw the ball around and rub their oppositions' noses in the grime.

We hopped onto a train at Nerang and for no additional cost caught a train all the way into the big smoke. We had a beer with the young fella who stayed with us for a few days a while back and then caught a bus into Suncorp Stadium, where we followed the arrows to our seats even though it meant that we almost circumnavigated the place, Captain Cook would have been so proud. The lift wasn't working so we trooped up a gizillion steps and found our seats.

They were good.

We were amid a little pommie enclave which was fine.

Then all of a sudden there was this dickhead reving up another dickhead who tried and failed to engage the crowd to sing out 'Fe Fi Fo Fum' ...you know from that highbrow fairy tale, 'Jack and the Beanstalk' Blessed be that they left off 'I can smell the blood of an Englishman' and all this played out over the loud speakers and on the large screens, while the players were doing their warm up yoga on the field.

This chant for want of a better description was just such a lame try-on...England fans sing 'Sweet Chariot' and maybe that doesn't make any good sense either, but it does seem to be effective in channeling the fans' energy and the players willpower.

The Giant's cry was even played out on the bottom of the large screen during the game, presumably to get the crowd involved, except that they were WATCHING THE GAME LIVE cos that's why they paid their money.

So the gee up was a fantastic failure.

I suppose some committee had voted to add some music to the proceedings. They elected some masturbatory DJ who dusted off his collection of old CDs and cued up 10 or 12 seconds of some well known but not necessarily well loved tune and then they played it at high volume any fucking chance they got. Line outs, scrums, penalty kicks, kick offs, injuries, any time there was a brief break in play this thunder of shit music blared out. The same tune was not played, the choices were like those at a shit Karaoke night, you know where everyone picks something they think they might know the words to even if they have no chance of getting the high notes. The songs were not inspirational or energy charging, it seemed like they were chosen by committee from a selection which would not require royalties to be paid.

Well what the very fuck is that all about?

The fella next to us said that the music shit had been included in just about all live sport.

You can hear it a little on the tellie, but it is just so very 'in your face'  or ears at the grounds.

It truly gave me the shits.

I'd have liked a chance to discuss the penalty or the try or what ever but there was no chance of speaking over the din.

The Aussies lost and that was a shame. Stevie would say, 'The Poms won, Yippee!'

We walked out along with a 50000 others. Not all the exits were opened - not even close. What is that about?  Wouldn't you think it wise to let folk out as fast as possible? Why would anyone decided that it would be cool to funnel 50000 people out 2 exits when other exits exisited? Perhaps another committee decision.

It was pretty choatic.

We had little choice but to follow the crowd to Milton Rd Station, even though I fancied walking to Roma Street Station.

I managed to avoid a panic attack in the crowds cos Stevie insisted that I keep breathing.

We made the train, and then we ran and made the Goldie train. Yeh I said we RAN. I fucking RAN!

How lucky that we managed to get the express train! It only took us 90 minutes to get back to Nerang. I cannot remember being on a slower train, unless it was the one we caught back from the airport once, which stopped at every fucking station, no, that was not good through the jet lag haze.

I don't understand why the trains go so slowly. Yeh there are level crossings to be wary of, but in between times it just doesn't seem to pick up any speed. The trains seem modern enough and the rails don't seem to be hung together with spit and bobby pins, so why so slow?

Anyway, we arrived home at midnight. 4pm to midnight, now that's a long fucking time for a 80 minutes of rugby.

This morning I made pancakes and strawberries and Stevie got village coffees in and then we watched the game on the tellie.

Much better idea! No fucking music, no stairs, no crowds, no beer down your back, no shitful trains and more than $300 cheaper!

The old Lang Park brings instant smiles to my face, but I will not be back to Suncorp Stadium, at least not until that committee fucks off and someone decides that the punters are capable of entertaining themselves with thoughts of sport during the brief interludes of the game. Seriously someone should mention industrial deafness to that committee....ah maybe that's a good idea. Oh and it'd be cool if someone opened the fucking gates at the end of the game.

Do Overs

I don't know why the floor and the skirting boards look like that, but here is our chosen Girl.

I think I have unfortunately seen some shitting ad on the tellie for some reality 'Do-over' show and, no I do not want to watch it, but I do wonder if I had a magic wand what stuff I might have done differently. Cos god knows I am a gobby bitch and it could be that if just occasionally I had kept my gaping gob shut, life would be better.

I suppose I could have not said, 'You're a fucking liar' to the deputy at the school where I was doing my last ever contract. Yep I could have definitely sucked it up and bent over and taken it up the bum, so that she could have continued to feel all powerful, and so she might have daned to employ and exploit me again. And the upshot would have been that I would have developed an ulcer because of the unfairness and the lies, but the kids would have benefited, though there is no proof that me not being there did them any harm so maybe not.

And I have always been perhaps a little too brave with my fashion choices like the Bay City Roller pants I made to wear on a school excursion when I was 17. They were so much wider in the leg than were the fashionable store bought jobbies and I made them from such heavy fabric, that when I decided to go swimming in the little lake, fully clothed, just to give the teachers the shits, well I very nearly drowned as the pants filled up and sank down. Lucky that A. I was a good swimmer, and B. I didn't have to kick 'em off and climb out bare arsed, cos even at the ripe old age of 17 no-one really needed to see that.

It's true that many of the things I have fashioned tapping away at my sewing machine would not win any awards at the Aussie Designer awards, but I have learnt to stare down the many detractors and scoffers and fall about laughers, and now at 55 for the third time I really just don't give a shit what people think. It just doesn't factor into my choices at all. SO that can't be a bad thing can it? Well not for me anyway, cos apart from fleeting glances into a mirror I don't have to look at myself. That's for others to worry about and possibly agonise over.

I imagine that being forthright about problems with restaurant meals might well have seen a line up of kitchen staff falling about giggling as I chowed into their second attempt at dinner which hit the table with a dollop of their spit or piss for good measure, but as I have not been sick and generally the second go has been an improvement I reckon I must have come out ahead. I do wonder why people are happy to part with good money for bad food when a polite complaint so often sees a big improvement. My interest in yummy is greater than my fear of spit.

We could have chosen NOT to go with our Dog choice at the pound because she was not perfect. In fact she was more than a little flawed. Her back end was oopsie and she had abandonment issues, Now as she is getting on,  her hind bits are becoming more of a concern, but really we would have been far the poorer for not having our gorgeous girl in our lives for the last 7 years. She might have been a dodgy choice but certainly not one we would change with the hindsight chance of a do-over. She has brought us such joy and tears of laughter over her 7 lovely years and we are pretty sure that she has been a happy spoiled dog while she has been part of our family.

Of course stuff goes on that is truly shitful, but that is not through choice or active decision making and so sometimes it is necessary to get out your paddle and wade through the mire. Suck it up and just do it I reckon. And before you spend too much time lamenting your choices, spend time imagining what your losses would be had you not gone down your chosen path.

Jury Duty

The Green Eyed Monster has taken up residence in the Big House this week, cos Stevie is lucky enough to be a player in a John Grisham scenario. This of course does in no way parallel with his opinion of his week which he might best describe as a bloody nuisance and a waste of good golf weather.

But I am jealous. I would love to be called up to have a turn on a jury, especially if it was some murder or anything that involved CSI investigations.

I don't know how the process works. People who don't want to serve on a jury, seem to get called up with monotonous regularity and I have only ever been lucky once.

I was but a girl, living in Brisvegas and got the NOD letter. I sprinted into the court precinct in George Street and sat around waiting for my turn. I got close to those revered seats once but the 12 lucky sods were already in place before my name was called, so I didn't even have to go through the indignity of walking across the prosecution and defence tables for any sort of scrutiny. That was as close as I got. BUGGER.

So every day Stevie has checked at 5.30pm to see if his number was called for the following day and today was the day. Seriously I nearly choked on that green monster, but I got up and drove him to the Court House.

He doesn't do well with being bored. He can read a book quietly for a couple of hours but then he needs to 'DO' something, so I worried that he might end up on the wrong side of the system if he had to sit for too long. Texts went back and forward and finally I got one that said he was, 'On' Bloody lucky sod.

It was a Rape trial.

The jury selection proceeded pretty much as it does on the tellie or in a legal eagle novel, and unfortunately his name was not picked out of the lotto barrel.

He was dismissed for the day and so I went and picked him up.

It was all over bar the shouting before noon.

He was pleased that the trial was carrying on without him, but I would have been so disappointed, close but no cigar.

He isn't expecting to be called again.

I want to know how I can let the courts know that I want to be called up.

I could sit there for weeks at a time waiting my turn.

I would not hassle them with shit excuses about why I should be excused.

I would not argue with them about getting my transport refunded.

I would listen to evidence carefully.

And then I'd find that old shitting man who raped the young girl, GUILTY. Stinking turd! And if I was on the jury for the fucking swimmer in the States who raped the young woman who was out cold, I would shout 'GUILTY' and  look on incredulously as the Judge sentenced a rapist to just 6 months jail. Maybe that Judge has more in common with the swimmer's shitful father, who thinks rape is a euphemisim for '20 minutes action', because he has no daughters.

Yeh maybe that's why I am not called up.

Fuck it.

When is a sale not even a sale?

I have been buying my knicky-noos from Marks and Spencer for what seems like forever, and even though I now live back in Australia, once or twice a year I go online and they kindly deliver me a little package of exactly the same bits of cotton and lace fabric. Well for honest full disclosure, the package is not so little and neither are the bits of fabric mere whisps cos let's face it, it has to stretch over my rather substantial arse. But I have been buying the same stuff for years and have always been pleased with the reliability and sameness of it all.

Except that this last time the noos arrived and the fit wasn't quite as good - my arse and belly not quite as snug and comfortable as in years gone by. Yeh I know I could have piled on a bit, or maybe changed shape, so I persevered, until one day I happened to look down and see a big red ring around my middle and as it went ALL the way around, I knew it was not shingles related, even though it was the shingles that made me look in the first place.

I shimmied out of the noos and had a bit of a look see.

What I noticed was the waist elastic was very narrow, not quite sherring elastic but thinner than it used to be and the discomfort of the red raw rash shingles shit, was making it even more noticeably un-fucking-comfortable. It was as if I had tied a bit of string around my middle and pulled it tight. Ouchie!

I imagine that M&S must have saved a motza by reducing the width of the elastic even by a little smidge. Good luck to 'em I reckon, except that I won't be going back to buy anymore.

So I popped into Target to pick up some knickers that might be kinder on the rash and the felt like slapped bits.

I did not do well, so a couple of weeks ago I went to Myer to hunt out my old - long ago favourites and bugger me they were still there and so much the better, cos they were ON SALE - buy one pair and get the second pair half price!

So I bought 4 pairs. $19 plus 3x$9.50, and even with my rudimentary maths that is I think about $11.80 each. What a bargain! It might have been that the woman made a mistake and that she gave me the sale price on every pair after the first pair, but that was the price I paid. I have only just done this 'working out' as I am sitting here with a piece of paper and a pencil.

So I was at Myer again on the weekend and they are having their big end of financial year sale so I though I'd grab a few more pairs. Never could resist a sale!

The signs had changed.

Now ALL  the knickies were $14.....Big SALE! HUGE!

At the time I wasn't certain that my last week's purchase was cheaper and I didn't have a piece of paper or enough fingers to do the calculations, in the middle of the store, but I was pretty sure that that was more than I had paid a couple of days ago and so it wasn't so much a sale as a big load of signage bullshit.

I pointed out to the sale's woman, that I was pretty sure the noos were cheaper before they went on sale, and she said, 'You don't have to buy them.' Yeh she was right but I could have done without the snark.

My point is that just cos there is a sign saying SALE, doesn't mean that there is one.

This degree of let the buyer beware bullshit is very disappointing. After all, Myer big notes itself as being a world away from the third world markets where everyone is on the hustle. Unfortunately it seems,  the differentiation between souk and the Myer sale is pretty slim. At least at the markets there is good natured banter and a universal awareness that things are not always as they seem, that slight of hand is expected and if you do run out of fingers to do the maths then you are better off walking away.

Do be wary of the SALE signs at Myer.

55 AGAIN

So yesterday I was 55 AGAIN.

Yep in real person numbers I am now 57, so that makes it the third time I have had my 55th birthday. I like this cos you know, it keeps your mind sharp doing all that complex maths as you get older, so I am not gonna get any older than 55 but I will of course keep a track of how many times I make it to that nice fat shaped - looks like me, number. See I reckon if I admit to being 60 when I get to 60, then I will expect to be that shape, and I don't want to be either 6 shaped or 0 shaped.

6 would be all bent over on the head and shoulders and I would have to get around looking like I was looking for spare change on the ground, and 0 shaped would mean that I had put on so much weight that I would have no neck or shoulders, I would just balloon out from the top of my head, and I am not sure I would give a shit about that except that I wouldn't know where to tie my scarf.

So 55 it is: plump bellied and looking straight ahead. The number 5 looks friendly and determined to me. I like it that's why I am sticking here.

For a very rare year it rained on my day. And not just a little pissy English misty rain, it bloody bucketed down. The tellie was calling it a 'Weather Event' and we all know just how much I can't stand that EVENT word, but in all honesty, EVENT perhaps was well used for yesterday's storm, mostly perhaps because it so very rarely rains like that in June.

The predictions were unusually accurate. All too often the authorities make a silly big deal of expected weather and people close up shop and move thousands of kilometres inland to avoid flood damage and the collapse of their roofs, only to find that a dog peeing in the street made more of an impact on the overall water levels, and that they could have more usefully used their umbrellas for sticking up wealthy passers by than keeping themselves dry.

Politicians too often carry on. And it must be good for the ratings cos the tellie covers it like it is the Armageddon.

A couple of tree branches came down in the park and apart from that no damage was done around here. My girl's friend's carport is a casualty but so far as I know that's about the worst of it.

I have been well and truly spoiled with parcels and wishes, and Stevie took me to a 7 course mini meal place for dinner - yeh I know it's called degustation, I just don't know how to spell it and and my spell check is not being helpful.

It was pretty bloody marvellous but the highlight was that I managed to have a couple of drinks and eat and  be merry and we had a little dance when we got home, and I was still vertical after 11pm which almost never happens these days.

I wont mind in the least bit being 55 again next year.

Boys vs Girl, Males vs Females, Culture vs Biology

Tuesday is Brisvegas day, and I love it.

I get to spend time with my girl and her boy and watch 'em play and fight and just generally get on with things.

I don't remember much fighting going on when Belly was a girl and that might be because I am wearing my rose coloured glasses now I am older or it might be that we had 2 girlie brains in the house and so had more compatible ways of doing things and areas of interest and all that stuff, or it could be that I have just forgotten, ho hum, the result of old gal brain.

So yesterday my Lovely Boy said, 'Teachers always give girls an easier time. They listen if the girl has a little scratch but they tell boys to harden up.' And then he said that he and a girl finished a task quickly and the teacher gave them some tables to write out. She got 3 lots and he got all 12.

Now that all sounds like a punishment either way, but the ways of primary teaching are foreign to me.

I asked him why he thought that had happened and firstly he decided it was because she was a girl, and he was a boy.

We talked about whether not there might be other reasons.

She writes more slowly and neatly.
She knows her times tables better than him and so needs less practice.
He knows his better than her so would be faster than her.
He was likely to get up to mischief when he was finished so the teacher wanted to keep him busy.

Who the fuck really knows the reason, maybe the teacher just spat out the first thing he thought of to each of them, unaware that they were keeping score, maybe Zig had given him the shits and he wanted to punish him without putting him on detention, or maybe the kids got it wrong altogether or the girl just told a bitchie lie. It doesn't matter a damn.

What is interesting is the discussion we had about how differently girls and boys are treated.

If you google gender differences, the smarty-pants of the research world have plenty to say.

**The Male and Female brains are the same - Cultural v Biological - we make 'em different cos of the way we treat 'em.

**The brains are physiologically remarkably different and this means that girls are good at words and boys are good at maths.

I am not a scientist.

But I will say that the way I managed an English class of 30 year 9 boys was so far removed from the way I managed the class of 30 year 9 girls.

The furniture was stacked up for the boys. They liked to be on the floor and moving around and when they got rambunctious which they did a lot, they took turns running around outside. Their problem solving happened physically and in a great hurry as the timer counted down. They were competitive particularly against the clock. From the outside it probably looked pretty chaotic, but there was good stuff going on. So long as I didn't expect them to sit on their bums for 90 minutes and keep quiet and write neat little notes and do plans for group work, they did well and I didn't go too nuts. Perhaps because I can easily read a map and still know my times tables, our brains were simpatico.

The girls I had more trouble with. . They happily sat on their bums and chattered and pointed at each other and me and were just bloody mean to each other and ME. They lied and cajoled and did nothing in class, but handed in stuff finished at home, so authenticity was always a worry. They competed for attention, not mine of course, but the meanest coolest girl's. It didn't matter what I tried they just turned on me. They were hideous. Wouldn't you think if the common brain theory is correct that I would have been able to second guess 'em, but I failed, spectacularly and completely. Perhaps my brain is just not female enough for a group of year 9 girls. This possibility does not upset me.

I don't want to spend time chopping up brains or doing phsycho cultural nurture testing to discover the truth, but I do find it interesting.