It's been about six months since I have written my blog, life just got a bit tricky and mega busy. In fact it was so manic that I started to re-evaluate how I do things. There was an urgent need for me to prioritise the important bits of my life. Sadly, this was really hard as it was the extra stuff that I had to look at. My term as a school governor came to an end on 31st August and I have not re-signed up, I have stepped away from many of my volunteering roles at the church and within school. I had been asked about being involved in a new peer mentoring scheme being set up by the Adoption team in our County but for the moment have had to say no. My priority at the moment has to be my family first, friends second and work third. (Work pays for the extras and with one now at uni the extras are quite important). Hopefully, this means a little bit more "me" time!
In reality it was the governor stuff I was struggling with. Being chair of governors and having a son that was "that child" made for constant conflict. His teacher just didn't get it. She expected him to be compliant and when he wasn't, would shout at him or worse try to man handle him. I was, between January and Easter being called into school at least weekly. The calls to work, became so frequent that I had to ask my boss to ask the school if it was an emergency before he called me away from a customer. Seriously being interrupted at work because my child had called the teacher Stinky, or because he had hit someone because they were picking on someone else was becoming, frankly ridiculous. It felt to me like the teacher, honestly did not know how to manage him. She was very rule and policy driven, which many parents of children in/from care understand just does not work. This meant that he had no respect for her and in fact I think for a time was scared because he didn't know what was expected from him. He would try really hard to do the right thing but when this went wrong, instead of congratulating him for trying to do the right thing he would have to write in the Behaviour book what he had done wrong. Eventually, I managed to have the behaviour book removed. What did work was completing his work in another class if he was not working to his potential or being disruptive. Child 4's teacher saw this as a punishment, he however loved it and would often when returning to his class ask the other teacher if he could come back soon. I think his class teacher was horrified when I said so long as he was happily completing his work I didn't mind which class he was in. In fact some of his favourite times have been sitting in the head teachers office doing his writing whilst she worked. In fact he has an amazing relationship with the Head which was the saving grace for the Spring term.
We are praying that this year will be better, although it's much to early to tell. Child 4 is in a new class with a much more relaxed teacher. She taught in an inner city school for 5 years so should be able to take child 4's worst behaviours in her stride. He loves her already and seems to be making fabulous progress, we will find out more at parents evening later this month.
So hopefully life will allow me to write more now.
Speak soon ........
