The opposite to STANDARD.........

I have had many interesting conversations this week about SATs and GCSE's. Child 3 is currently sitting mock SAT exams, she is 9 and in year 4, she will not actually sit her SATs until 2017 and child 1 has just started her GCSEs. Both girls are coping with the exam pressures really well, just the occasional meltdown, the odd slamming door and a few tears.

It's conversations with the parents that has highlighted to me how pressurised some of our children can become. One mum asked me how my child 3 was coping, as her daughter had been collapsing in to tears every afternoon after school saying that she had failed and would be moved down. This little girl is in primary school, surely the sitting of mock SATs is just to prepare them for how exams work. I am sure that the results will be studied, after all Ofsted look at how children perform year on year now, pupils are expected to to make progress through two national curriculum levels between the end of KS1 and the end of KS2, so for example if you child achieved a 2A at KS1 they should achieve 4A at KS2. Child 3's SATs will indicate to her teacher if she is on track to achieve her expected progress or if additional support is required to help her during the interim. This will I am sure be fed back to me via parents evening or school reports. I hope that she is doing as well as expected but not all children learn in the same way and sometimes they just plateau.

As a parent I cannot change the education system, I could home school but do not believe that would be an ideal solution for my children and definitely not for myself. Of course voting during an election means that at least I can vote for a party that I believe have the best interests of my child at the heart of their education manifesto but there is, as the 7th May showed no guarantee that will mean the party I voted for would win.

So, what to do? Child 1 has a plan for her future, she wants to travel, work with children and tread the theatre boards. Her next step is to study Drama, Dance, History of Art and English of Literature at A level to do this she needs 5 GCSEs, maths, English and 3 others, as her love is drama and dance she will no doubt achieve the grades required. She doesn't need A* grades, C grades will ensure her of her place and so my aim is to support her take that place. I want her to just do her best, not to push her to achieve those A* grades that seem to be so sought after in schools today.  Our child 1 has always struggled academically, her strengths lie in the more creative subjects, she has always been streamed in the lower sets and we have not, even when she was achieving top of the class, pushed for an upward move. For her self esteem consistently achieving the top grades in her class was much better than moving up a set and then being middle of the pack or worse bottom of the class.

It seems that our education system is created to fulfil the needs of those academic children aiming for A*, by testing children we are highlighting success and failure - how will children and parents cope with that at 4 years old. Parents can easily be pushed into the adding extra support by using Kumon and tutors, feeling that they are letting their children down if they don't. Especially if teachers are pushing for academic success measured by standardised tests, these tests are how their performance is measured and managed so that is where teachers focus will lie. But how does that enable our children to be happy, after all if you asked the majority of parents what they wanted for their children, I don't believe that their answer would be "to be academically brilliant" I think that most like me want their children to be happy, well rounded, have friends and a partner and to be independent. Obviously passing exams can  help to find a job and working means financial independence, everything else is about who they are not what they have achieved by completing a standardised test.

Perhaps the clue is in the wording standardised - to cause (something)to conform to a standard. To make consistent, make uniform, to make comparable.

In truth I don't want a standardised child, I want an exceptional, unconventional, extraordinary, unorthodox and different child! Don't you??

Together Forever

I have just read a post from Alex Chase's "Beyond the Picket Fence Dream" entitled Better Together and boy did it hit home.

http://www.beyondthepicketfencedream.com/2015/04/better-together.html

Two years ago I wrote a similar blog, which now sits in my draft list as it caused so much upset with a couple of individuals. We too were told by One of them that adoption would lead to the destruction of our family and the ruin of our three older children. Now, nearly two years in I can say that yes adoption did cause issues within our family but not quite what they expected.

For our family unit the addition of another child by means of adoption has changed the fabric of who we are, it is definitely not the easiest way to add a child, a sibling, grandchild or nephew but the saying sometimes the right path is not the easiest is very true and for us adoption is the right path. When I watch my children I see my four children together, a unit, yeah, they argue and fight, but they are also so much better for having to see and experience life as they never would have, but for adoption.

Those of us that live in stable families full of love and security will never experience and therefore not really understand the effects of neglect, poverty and abuse. As a family we have seen some of the fallout and with that comes compassion, understanding and love.

Everyone, who has come into contact with our child 4 has learnt a little about adoption and the need for understanding not only for the children that come from care but how we as a society could probably do more to help prevent children being removed in the first place. After all adoption is the last resort for birth families and it would be better for everyone if there was a safe and healthy way for all children to remain within their birth families.

For us yes adoption did lead to a family division but it has also led to family bonding and a bond so strong that I sometimes have to do a double take. The gains for us far, far outweigh any troubles.

And I like Alex can now accept that there is the odd person out there that sees our adoption as a foolish, selfish endeavour that risks our birth children's happiness, knowing that I see our life so differently.

 I am only sad that they are missing out on everything that we have gained.

Number 4 Den Building

When I was a child my mum was the school lollipop lady, so when she, my then baby brother and her lollipop stick headed out early, my younger sister, our friend Lou and I were left home alone for what I remember as hours but could only have been 20/30 minutes before we headed off to school ourselves. I don't think of this time with any fear, no what I remember was our back room with an old rickety wooden table that we turned upside down and would then sail off to exotic places, fighting pirates and watching out for sharks. It's funny how this memory sticks with me so clearly, another is of my mums friend Joy who lived on the outskirts of London with her two children, we would head off to visit for the day most holidays, I really remember the wet days where she would lay out an indoor picnic, once with indoor fireworks.

I suspect this is where my love of forest school comes. As a child I wasn't allowed to roam the fields that surrounded our village and certainly today we wouldn't let our children head off out at breakfast with a jam sandwich and bottle of juice not expecting to see them until dinner time. But, it didn't mean that I didn't dream of such things. How many of us would entertain imaginings of living in the woods or a cave for a few days like Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog did in my favourite famous five stories. Of course the sun would shine brightly, we could light a fire and would have fat sausages to put on sticks and cook over the embers followed by enormous marshmallows and there would be nothing to scare us when we curled up in our den made of flowers and ferns to sleep for the night.

Forest school somehow bridges a gap, it provides our sometimes cotton wool wrapped children with an opportunity to be out, at one with nature and for our children, I truly believe this is where they thrive and flourish. Our child 4 in particular is at his most content being outside, he doesn't do well caged up. Or maybe it's me that doesn't cope well, there are lots more reasons to avoid the no word indoors, come down from the window sill, play on the carpet, your crayons are for colouring on paper (not the walls), shower gel is for in the shower (not the living room floor and furniture). Can you run in the hall, it's dangerous in the kitchen. Outside he can run, twirl and whirl about, he can climb the apple tree, dig in the vegetable patch hunting for worms to feed the chickens ( child 3 calls him the worm murderer) or jump on the trampoline. He can shout and scream, singing and laughing letting the breeze carry his noise away. So we have cleared a patch at the end of the vegetable patch and covered it with bark, with branches cut from the apple tree we have edged it with a fence and planted sunflower seeds to grow to great heights in the summer and sweet pea seeds to scramble over the fence adding colour and sweet smells. Our neighbour was cutting down a huge bush so we took the branches and have built a den. The local mechanic let us take some old tyres from his workshop and we have filled them with gravel, sand, mud and water. Last week we held on to the baked bean and chopped tomato tins and painted them with red, yellow and blue enamel, strung them up on string so they now hang over the fence, clinking in the wind or being used to make music with a wooden stick. We added a bug house to the shed and, and  There is so much more to do, we are planning to spray a piece of wood with blackboard paint, build a fairy garden, make dream catchers using chicken feathers and other feather finds, paint stones with luminous paint and using old juice and milk bottles add a water wall.

Please sun keep shining, Pinterest fans please keep sharing your den ideas we are planning a year of outdoor imaginings, who wants to come and play????

https://www.50things.org.uk

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/apr/21/outdoor-learning-forest-school-revolution?CMP=share_btn_tw

Waiting for a rainbow

Once upon a time I loved the holidays it was a time to slow down to be together to have family time. There were no lunch boxes to be made, no early mornings and no after school clubs.  Nowadays it's different, I don't exactly dread them, I just don't feel quite the same way. No longer are they a time to slow down and unless the days are organised, family time can be disastrous.

When everything runs smoothly, life here is fantastic, the house is full of noisy laughter, imaginative games are played, computer games are shared and books are read. Outdoors they hunt bugs, build dens or practice acrobatics on the trampoline.

Unfortunately, more often than not the fun and games morph into sibling battles, the sharing becomes vying for attention, and the imaginitive games become bickering, slanging matches. All normal behaviour except that we have a traumatised child in our midst. A traumatised child who when ignored will do what ever it takes to reclaim his place as the centre of attention. This is usually violence of some sort, biting, hair pulling or throwing something.

So not only are we dealing with a baby of the family whose position has been usurped by a new and younger sibling but that new sibling comes with his own set issues. This means that when child 3 goes into melt down because she doesn't get her own way or because she thinks that our attention is taken by her younger brother there is a massive knock on effect with child 4. He just can't cope with temper tantrums, the shouting and screaming, the slamming of doors. He then spirals out of control, he hits out at those nearby, he shouts and screams and then attaches himself to one of us just in case we take him or leave him somewhere.

It is actually quite exhausting, I find that sometimes I have to take life an hour at a time, trying to plan ahead ready with a distraction to prevent the next battle breaking out.

Our Easter break peaks when we celebrate my Aunts 80th birthday, our tribe congregate at my parents, that is my sister and her 3 boys, my brother and his 2 children, our cousins including 2 more children and the 6 of us. After a fortnight of screaming, destruction of property, fighting, biting and bruises caused by flying cars I was to be perfectly honest full of trepidation. 11 children ranging from the traumatised 3 year old to the 21 year old uni student with every possible age in between in 1 house. Do you know what it was a fantastic celebration, the champagne and prosecco flowed, mum had created a treasure hunt, the older kids took all but our child 4 down to the field for a game of football. Everyone had a whale of a time with a few of us making it to the local family run pizzeria that evening. A very noisy crowd of us and yet  Child 4 took all the fun in his stride, maybe because he wasn't the centre of attention, maybe because he is beginning to feel that unconditional love vibe, the one that starts no matter what. Maybe because he feels like he belongs, my mum said the other week when they dropped him home he said "this is where my home is" as they drove up the road. A move forward as up until then he would ask where his home was even when curled up on the sofa in our arms.

None of this is to say we are at the end of our journey, I am sure that we will still stumble along the route but sometimes when we least expect it the sun breaks through the clouds, lifting our hearts. Showing us what life can be like.

Chocolate!

 My most favourite chocolate recipe is a decadent chocolate mousse recipe that was originally stolen from Good Food Magazine many, many years ago and since then has been modified to fit numerous occasions. The base is two ingredients - chocolate and double cream and it can be served sprung from a round springform cake tin easy to be sliced or dished into small individual glasses

I've used it as a filling for birthday cakes adding strawberries or raspberries as a layer too. I've made three flavours layering them for a stunning dessert. Dark chocolate, topped with milk, finished with white chocolate and dusted with grated chocolate and raspberries. You can add your favourite alcohol, brandy, baileys or Tia Maria or a splash of orange juice, a spoonful of coffee granules or peppermint flavouring.

It can be made a couple of days before or freezes beautifully.

This weekend I've baked my mums recipe for chocolate cake doused it with cassis and topped it with billowy spoons of mousse and finished it with mini eggs, blueberries and raspberries.

All you need is
250gms chocolate
568 ml double cream

Soften chocolate in microwave, add 1/4 cream and melt together. Melt Slowly as chocolate burns really easily in the microwave.
Whip up the remaining cream until it looks like a really thick milkshake.
Fold in the chocolate.
Spoon into individual dishes or into a cling film lined spring form cake tin leave for at least a couple of hours to firm.

Perfectly delish chocolate decadence!!!!!

The Feast of St Joseph.

Today is the Feast of St Joseph, for me a perfect patron for adoptive parents. In a time where to marry a young girl carrying a baby that was not yours was a brave if not fool hardy thing to do. That is exactly what he did and I believe that he went onto love Jesus as if he were his own, teaching him to become a carpenter no doubt as his father taught him. I am a woman of faith, I don't shout about, I am not really the evangelising type, I just try to live my faith -of course I keep my expectations low so that I don't fail on a daily basis.  I enjoy being part of our community and all the support it brings. But my faith doesn't define me, any more than me working part time, being a mother of 4 or being a wife.

However my faith must be part of why I wanted to adopt, for many adoption is the only way they can create a family but for some there is an altruistic reason. We can't necessarily explain why adoption is right for us and do we really need to?? On Sunday as part of the Mothers Day celebration Songs of Praise spoke to Home for Good a charity that aims to make adoption and fostering a significant part of the life and ministry of the Church in the UK. This charity is spreading the word through upto 15000 churches hoping that if just one family in each church adopted that would mean that all those in the system waiting for a "forever" family would have one. A fantastic aim. But the message that is often heard from people of faith is the saving of people. I do sometimes wonder that we are attempting to save these children and that is NOT a reason to adopt. What traumatised children need is security, boundaries and unconditional love not saving. I view God like a loving father, someone who unconditionally loves his children. Even on days that he is cross or disappointed love would still permeate everything that he stands for. But how does this work for children who have been taken into care, they have never received this unconditional love from a parent so how could they comprehend that, that is what God is about. It's possible that they see a wrathful or indifferent God so how can they rely on that to support them when they need help. This is really highlighted in the following paragraph from Donal Neary -  A Lenten Journey

Reflection : No Good News

Some young people knew only pain and meaninglessness. ‘God put me in this world to suffer’ one of them used to say to me regularly. That was the only reasonable explanation for his situation that he could come up with. How could I talk to him about God? Many of them didn’t want to believe in God. The message they got all the time from the society in which they lived, was that they were no good, useless, trouble, unwanted. After a while, a very short while, you come to believe it’s true what they say and think you are no good, useless, unwanted. So, if there is a God, then God too sees them as no good, useless, and unlovable. It’s bad enough to have to go through life being made to feel no good and unwanted, but to have to go through eternity being made to feel no good an unwanted was too much to bear. So the Good News for these young people was that there is no God.

When I read this I was shocked, my experience is so different than the children Donal Neary spoke of and understandably so. I have received unconditional love from my parents, how do we explain what unconditional love is to traumatised children, when they have never experienced it. Not only that but how can we expect them to trust us as adoptive parents when their own parents couldn't love them or take care of them. This is another reminder of how we must always think of the child's perspective and experience.

I really want child 4 to have the same positive experience with God as I have, I want him to be able to question his faith but always rely on it to help him when he needs it. I guess time and experience is what will help. We have a lifetime ahead of us and enough love and understanding within our family and our parish community to provide him with the continuity he needs. I guess I just have to trust in God.

Mothering Sunday

A day historically that those "in service" were allowed a day off to return to the church of their youth, this would also mean an opportunity to visit their families and they would often collect wild flowers on their way home to give to their mothers. Today if we are not careful it can be another day led by retailers after a quick financial hit, encouraging us to feel guilty if we do not purchase huge bouquets of flowers, boxes of chocolates or lunches out.

In our house Mother's Day means a lie in, homemade cards and home made gifts. We are off for Dim Sum for lunch and meeting my parents there.  We love this particular Chinese, it's always busy and noisy, full of families, fast noisy talking and lots and lots of fantastic food. The staff take young children ducking around the tables in their stride.

I love this day, it's an excuse to be a little lazy and still enjoy the time with my children, these days though it's always tinged with a little sorrow. Here I sit spending time with my gorgeous child 4, he has made me a card with a cupcake case flower on the front and a gift of a pot with straw flowers that sits on the top of the chest in the hallway. I am the one that receives the cuddle and kisses in the morning.  He is not old enough yet to ask questions of his past or understand that his history is different to that of his older siblings, so shows no behaviours that I need to be concerned about. I know that this may change in the future, that he maybe confused by this history and frustrated or angry when celebrating Mothers Day as I know other adopted children are, can you blame them? But for now our household is pretty much unaffected it's just that......

Not all that far from here, a young woman will be sitting in her kitchen, she will have seen the adverts in the shop windows all shouting about Mother's Day and how wonderful mothers are, how they are worth the flowers, the chocolates and the lunches out, but her baby was taken from her and she doesn't know where he is, she knows or at least hopes that he is safe and happy but she won't be receiving homemade cards or gifts. She will be alone thinking of the what could have been or should have been. It's unlikely that she will be able to accept her responsibility in the removal of her child, or that of her husband but she will wish I am sure that he is home with her today.