Category Archives: Ava Whinge

I’m having a bit of a rant about targets this week.  My beautiful and intelligent 6 year old grandson has been telling me for days that he hopes to meet his literacy target and get a certificate. It has filled his life and caused him irritation. Last Friday he told me he had hit the target twice. Yesterday, he came out of school clutching his certificate, a sticker on his sweatshirt and an ‘outstanding achievement’ bookmark in his hand. He had got his TARGET. Naturally, as a doting grandmother I lavished praise on him. But the teacher within was seething. He is only 6. He should be honing soft skills like problem-solving, risk-taking, socialisation. He should be developing a love of play and learning with pleasure. He will have to meet targets for many adult years but he will never have the chance to be a child again. I don’t blame his school or his teacher. It’s a great school and he has a lovely teacher. But the system is pushing schools into this route and they will be ‘judged’ on these numbers and letters.

I mentioned this to my daughter and she wasn’t happy about it either. Then she dropped a bombshell. His 2 year old little brother will also be allocated a level from his childminder soon too. She has been sent for training to show her how to level him for literacy and numeracy. WHAT????? He is TWO! What on earth are we doing to these children?

Just to add further anger, I also encountered a comment on a school blog recently. The children do creative writing which is then commented on by adults and children from other schools. It is a great idea and works really well. On Sunday I logged in to do my usual allocation of comments and was dismayed to see a child comment on another child’s work ‘Wow….this is a 2a sentence’.  A 2a sentence? What on earth does that mean unless you are a teacher? Why not say it was an interesting sentence or a descriptive sentence?

A twitter friend describes it as ‘teaching by numbers’ – an apt description. The numbers and letters become a label for that child. Speaking of which, the younger grandson went shopping with me last week and I heard him tell me ‘This sticker says I’m a good boy’. When I looked at him, he had peeled a label from a T-shirt and attached it to himself. He was wandering around the area wearing a black sticker with £5 in bold white letters. Naturally, I wouldn’t have accepted £5 for him…..after all, he is already level 1d for literacy and 1e for numeracy.

Absolute twaddle.

Ask anyone who really knows me and I hope they will say I am a very caring person. I would help anyone in trouble. I often put others before myself and was always the teacher with people outside my door wanting a chat, a cry and a cuddle. Ah yes, the good old days, when it was OK to give a child a cuddle that they desperately needed without being accused of child abuse.

This morning I watched the news whilst getting my elderly father’s Sunday breakfast. It didn’t take long before I was transformed into a female Victor Meldrew. There was an item about Silverline (which I think is absolutely brilliant and I have enormous respect and admiration for Esther Rantzen). An elderly guest in the studio was interviewed about loneliness in the elderly. The main theme that ran through this was that people should do more for her. somebody should set something up. Somebody should invite her for dinner etc. I’m assuming that in her case, as she managed to get into the studio this morning, she has reasonable mobility and health. That being the case, why is she not being proactive? Why has she not spoken to someone at her local community centre or school about using a room and setting up a coffee club? Why has she not spoken to elderly neighbours to see if they would be interested in regular get-togethers? Why has she not organised a coffee morning in her own home for a local charity and invited people from her local church? Why has she not made some simple posters and put them up in her neighbourhood to see if anyone might feel the same. Why has SHE not invited someone for Sunday dinner?

I hope that when I an old, I won’t sit around whining about other people not doing things for me. If I do, you all have permission to give me a good smack and tell me to read this blog again. People complain about young people acting as if the world owes them a lot, but older people are guilty of this too.

My philosophy is that life is like a mirror. Whatever happens on one side of the glass, comes back to you. If you look into the mirror with negativity, then negativity is what you will get back. Look into that mirror, brush your hair, put on your biggest smile (even if you don’t feel it inside), put on your coat and get out there. Make things happen!

Every day newspapers can produce a story that provokes a strong reaction. For me, today, it is the story here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418630/Basingstoke-schoolgirl-banned-classroom-hair-short-charity-head-shave.html

Now let me clarify. I am NOT a Daily Mail reader. But someone published this link on Twitter (which is my chosen daily newspaper) and I read it and seethed. This is just my opinion, of course, but how badly did her school handle this?

Look at the bottom of the article to see her with hair. It must have been a huge decision to part with such a beautiful head of hair.

Should we not be praising young people who feel strongly about charity and helping others? Should they not have had a quiet word with her about her shaved head but asked her permission to use the story for Press coverage and great PR about the altruism of their students? Should they not have had an assembly with her on the stage and mentioned to the masses that although school generally does not tolerate extreme hairstyles, in this case the girl had raised £1000 for a cancer charity and as such she should be an excellent role model? Should they not have given her the responsibility of organising a charity event in school to raise even more. Think how good they would have looked to the local community. Think of the reaction of her parents, who must feel justifiably proud of her.

But no. They put her in isolation for having an extreme hairstyle. Consequently, they now have ‘bad Press’ and have alienated community and lost the trust of parents.

Sometimes, playing by the rules in school can be a bad thing.

Does anyone else think it’s a bit odd to put letters after your name on social networks? Maybe it might just feel awkward to me. Maybe I’m just jealous because I don’t have letters after my name – well, not any that really look important. No MA. No PhD. No BSc or BA.

But if I did, would I call myself @E-GranBSc?

Erm…..no.

Many thanks to Victoria Ellis for inspiration.

What is a celebrity?

The dictionary tells us it is:

noun (plural celebrities)

• a famous person, especially in entertainment or sport:he became a sporting celebrity[as modifier]:a celebrity chef
•  [mass noun] the state of being well known:his prestige and celebrity grew

So, we must assume that programmes featuring ‘celebrities’ would feature people that we have all heard of or seen before. But no. Who are they? I’ll have to look them up online to find out.

Disappointing.

And if I don’t know who they are, Mr. Whinge would be even more clueless. He actually asked me who Charlotte Church was tonight. The man lives in a vacuum.

What has the news brought us today then?

• A school refusing to sell a parent’s cupcakes at a cake sale  because she didn’t have a Food Hygiene Certificate.
• Parking on double yellow lines.
• Charging people £1200 to go to a tribunal if they feel they’ve been unfairly dismissed.
• One of my favourite stores banning its employees from joining a union (so I’ll not be shopping there again!)
• A teacher jailed for having pornographic images of children and images of bestiality.
• A ‘Superhead’ accused of deal fixing.
• NHS pulling out of 111 because it is not financially viable.

It is official.

The world really has gone mad.

A world of greed and lies and ridiculous bureaucracy.

A world where compensation is King.

A world where rules can be bent or ignored completely.

A world where ordinary people just don’t matter any more.