Wednesday 19 May – Bicycle Boy Falls Off, Seeing Nat’s Teachers and School Finance Committee (Governors)

Spent most of the day doing very little as I needed to save my energy for later trips around Brockington College and then a meeting at Millfield School. I decided at about 3:15 to walk up toward Millfield and meet Han on her way home. We met and were walking slowly home, in light of my hampered mobility, when Deb pulled up alongside us; Nat had just phoned her to say that he’d had an accident on his bike and could she come and get him. Deb shot off and Han and I continued home. About 20 minutes later Deb returned with Nat’s bike sticking out of the boot and a bruised and somewhat tearful Nat, you know he’s very distressed if he’s in tears because he isn’t the weepy type. It seems he took a shortcut down a country lane opposite Brockington that leads down to the new “Park and Ride” car park opposite Police Headquarters. Unfortunately, he had hit a pot hole and had gone over the bike’s handlebars. Luckily, he was wearing his helmet and rather than ending up with a smashed skull had escaped with cuts and scrapes to his face and sundry bruising. He did say that his arm really hurt and he decided that he wouldn’t be going to Scouts that evening. I phoned Darren and advised Nat didn’t need to be picked up. Subsequently he decided he did want to go and so was out when I finally got home.
After this emergency had been dealt with Deb and I departed for Brockington to meet with his teachers for his termly assessment. This was going to be a tight call as I had a Governors finance committee meeting the same evening at Millfield which was due to start at 5:30. We saw all his main teachers and they said the following:

History - Mr Wilson Room 114 @ 4.40pm
Form Teacher - Miss Wilson Room 120 @ 4.45pm
Geography - Mr Minion Room 110 @ 4.50pm
Science - Mr Jackson Room 111 @ 5.05pm
Maths - Mr Opara Room 108 @ 5.10pm
English - Miss Grant Room 119 @ 5.20pm


First teacher we saw was Mr Wilson - History - he was pleased with Nat's work though he thought that his presentation was letting him down and that he needed to expand his answers with evidence.

Next down to the far end of the corridor to see Miss Lewis his form tutor - just a short wait - she was very happy with him saw him as the 'Peacemaker ' able to go from group to group and get on with everyone.

Then back down the corridor to see Mr Minion for Geography - wow he seemed very impressed with Nat  and gave a glowing report.

A quick pop next door to see Mr Jackson - Science - considering this is Nat's favourite subject I wasn't impressed - he didn't seem to bothered: think he would have rather been somewhere else - when questioned about Nat's presentation he said - well he's a boy!!!

Down to room 108 to see Mr Opara - Maths - he was well behind and there was a massive Q so we went back up to Room 119 to see if Miss Grant - English - was free - result just had a few minutes wait - she was aware that Nat had a problem with presentation and is going to put his name forward for some extra English classes focusing on punctuation ( Which she has now done - 2 sessions a week). Thank god she's not too bothered about his spelling.

Back down to see Mr Opara - still a long Q -  we waited for about 5-10 mins before Nat's name was called - some strange looks from other parents who had been waiting but hey our appointment was at 5.10 and it was now 5.35 - just cos we'd used our initiative and seen other teachers first - Mr Opara happy with Nat's work only advice was to get him to SLOW DOWN and wait for instructions.

The general consensus (in fact every teacher mentioned it)  was that in all subjects Nat was either near or at the top of his class  BUT that all his work suffered from his presentation difficulties and a tendency to jump in and answer the question before he had properly read it…the classic case of giving the perfect answer to the question they didn’t ask! We are working on the writing issue at home by making him keep a blog every day with a minimum of 100 words per entry but somehow he has managed to avoid writing a lot of these. He has been told in no uncertain terms that this is no longer acceptable and if he wants to keep the things we agreed to in our original deal then these must be written up regularly. If he can establish this habit by the time his GCSE’s come around writing won’t be an issue any longer. But, understandably, it’s hard now and few of us like doing hard things.
Things were running late and I had to phone Millfield and advise I would be there ASAP. Finally saw Nat’s maths teacher and made our get away. Deb dropped me off at Millfield at about 5:50 and I made it fro the rest of the meeting. Most of the meeting simply involved us approving the Heads spending plans for the coming year and review the school accounts with Raj the Bursar. The interesting stuff was under AOB when I asked Nick (a local councillor) what the cuts situation was looking like at the sharp end. After much discussion we were all agreed that it was very unlikely that Education would remain ring-fenced long term and that the school would be facing a tough time financially in the coming years, I also arranged with the Deputy Head Steve to meet to discuss the schools ICT plans soon. He will text me a suitable time and day.
I decide to walk home, via the Winstanely Pub, not for a drink but to see what they were doing there. Deb had mentioned that when she passed it the other days it appeared to have been closed and that there seemed to be a lot of building work taking place. Will we be losing the only pub in the area, if so it’s as much my fault as anyone's; I can’t recall the last time I was in there, twenty years ago it was my local and I called a few times every week.  After all the rushing around Brockington the walk home may have been a step to far because I was knackered and in quite a lot of pain when I eventually made it home and collapsed in my chair for the rest of the evening. As I mentioned it turned out that Nat had gone to Scouts so it was just the three of us until just after 9:00. Little else that evening, Nat still seemed to be in quite a lot of pain when he went to bed but we put this down to shock and bruising after all he’s been to Scouts hadn’t he? Once again I fell asleep in my chair and never made it to bed. This has to stop as my leg needs to be rested in bed in a straight position as it is it remains swollen and I appear to have elephantiasis in my left leg. It’s really uncomfortable because my skin feels as if it’s stretched to breaking point. When it subsides will I be left with a wrinkly leg…God forbid? For anyone who doesn’t know what elephantiasis looks like here’s a picture to ruin your supper!!! By the way, this was the least distressing image I could find :-