Too much pressure.

So i have had my first week in my new job. You know what? I love it! It's relaxed, it's not run with a military precision with all the expectations of children achieving because the paper work says they have to. It's FUN. We don't expect, we don't push to achieve..we PLAY, a lot!
So i got to thinking (seriously dangerous for me!) about all the pressure put on child care workers and preschool teachers to make sure these little children achieve set goals before or at a certain age. It infuriates me so much.
Example -

1. A Mother keeps her child at home for the first 5 years of life. No expectations from Ofsted or anyone else. They child is loved, happy and confident and can DO lots of things.

2. A child goes to nursery at 3 years of age, they are assigned a "key worker" who is their primary carer in the setting and who watches said child like a hawk, logging all the things the child can do and encouraging the things that the child is not ready to do, so that they are eventually all done before the child starts school. All ticks in boxes. Ofsted happy.

3. Full day care children are like the nursery children but they are watched from approx 4 months until 5 years. With expectations to achieve everything in the the boxes before they leave. It's the same within the setting of a child minder. All ticks in boxes again Ofsted happy.

Now i have NO problem with any of the settings above, be the children at nursery, full day care or with a child minder but why oh why are we putting so much on these little people to be able to do so much before they begin school.
Surely the joys of being a child are just that? Being a child.

Did it not occur to anyone that each child IS an INDIVIDUAL and WILL progress at an individual pace? They wont all walk at the same time, or talk in sentences or write their names so why are they all being "assessed" from the same criteria?

I really feel that children who stay home, who play with Mummy, bake with and watch Mummy do chores and play with their toys as and how they like probably learn more, are probably happier and from my experience get on better when they begin school.
Sure as parents we like to see how the children are progressing but I'd rather hear the words polite, happy, helpful, fun than be told..has learned to..can now....should now be...

Maybe i am just really old fashioned? What do you guys think?
For the record mine all went to nursery...all 3 of them....but not till they were 31/2 years and I never expected of them. I sent them there to be social and to give them a break from me!!
Is this the same in your country? I think the UK are doing paper work for paper works sake!

(ofsted is our child setting / schools governing body in the UK)

The New Girl

Yes today i was the new girl at work. Yipee! I started my new job and i LOVE it, T, who i work with, is just great, i honestly think we will have a laugh together as well as a great working relationship. Good vibes bouncing round the room!

Went to Bex parent teacher meetings..WOW I am seriously impressed with the girl :) She is above average for everything..needs to slow down a bit with writing in foreign languages..wonderful at Drama and well above average in Music! haha! Science and Religious Education she is starting her GCSE's a year early, so i am a very proud Mum right now. Keep it up kid.

Have a great day all. I am!

2 weeks to go

Yes i have two weeks until i start my new job! Woohoo! I am really looking forward to the challenges it's going to bring and the new people i will be meeting! I will be helping to run a creche at a local health club, obviously there will be perks like not having to pay childcare for David in the holidays as he will join their kids club for free during my working hours. Very cool huh!

On another note i took a pic of Rae today and am soo pleased with it i thought i'd share it with you...I just love how at 13 she still looks like a little girl in this one!

Oh for anyone who missed out on my PAY IT FORWARD feel free to go to my good friend Sparkles who is new to blogging and is also taking part :)
Leave her some love and welcome her to blogland!

I think i'm gonna like it..

at my new place of work! I start on the 11th March and after spending the morning there today i can honestly say i am looking forward to it very much. It is not as fast paced as my current day, meaning the children spend more time being children and less time being shepherded from one thing to the next. There is more time to play with them doing the things they choose to do and not making them do things that you plan or expect them to do. aaaah, listen, that is the sound of me..relaxed!
I have enjoyed my current job, the kids have been great, and i will miss them and the parents greatly but i will not miss all the paperwork or paperwork for paperwork's sake! Where one sheet should do we are using 3 or 4 and it takes us away from time spent being with and education in a fun way. I guess the fun has been sucked out of it and when that happens it is definitely time to move on.
David spent the morning at the kids club today (run at my new place of work) and i was a little worried how he would get on as he is quite shy normally but he was swimming this morning and after that did a dance session and hockey. By the time i collected him he'd made friends and was having a blast! I am really pleased about this as he will be spending his mornings/days there during the holidays. And the wonderful things is that it is at no extra cost to me. WOW i am so lucky.
So that's me all happy and chilled now!
Hope your day goes as well as mine is today.

A good week in the making!

Well i have been slack this week. I wanted to sit here and type. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings. I just didn't. No idea why, every time i sat to type i felt like i really did not want to share what was going on.
So now I'm here. And guess what, I'm going to be offloading!

Where to start really.

Well Monday, A sad day but a good day! Monday should have been the 10th birthday of the baby boy we lost in 1998. Baby "J". So he was on my mind. All the whys coming back, the what ifs and maybes. Some things are out of our control. I guess there really is a bigger plan and it is not always the one we plan for ourselves.
I got a new job though so i guess he was watching over his ol' Mum!

Tuesday: Yup i accepted my new job and handed my notice in at my current job. It was easier to do than i thought so i guess it was the right thing to do. We had really bad weather in the UK. So floods everywhere and icy roads too! Drove the car through a deeper than i thought puddle. Killed it. oops. Told hubby, hubby not impressed. Bigger oops!

Wednesday: Borrowed BFF car to get to work and kids to school. Hubby still cross. Boss giving cold shoulder but to be expected i guess. Ah well. Half way through the week and things are not going my way!

Thursday: Hubby gets new car (second hand, will do for now car.) for me. Mother in car accident, she was rear ended! She's OK though.

Friday: Collected new second hand car, it's nice :) School is out for half term break so have a week off work! Went to dinner with one of my wonderful friends and her new man! He is lovely and it is wonderful to see her so happy with a nice guy. I really liked him, straight away. He is funny, lovely and it's easy to see he adores her.

So now i am here, arrived at Saturday and the week seems to be picking up..shame there is only one day left of it!!

Have a great Valentines Day all. I'm spending mine in peace and quiet with my 3 lovely children :)

Shot myself in the foot and it smarts!

Long story coming up, get a coffee and read on!
In our small unit at work, the one where we deal with the 1 - 2 year olds, we split the group in half(ish) and the staff are equally split to cover ratios of children. Now all of us get on with some of us! I work immediately with C, B, any students and occasionally J.
The other group have E and two others the i affectionately call Dumb and Dumber!(please do not judge me too harshly its my coping strategy!)
For example, I asked one of them to lay the floor cloth down for mealtime. She ignored me. Five minutes later i hear the same person say "shall i lay the floor cloth?", she looks at the children and repeats the question (as if they will answer her!) and keeps muttering it until i say "Yes, lay the floor cloth, good idea" (sarcasm i lost on this person so i get away with it a lot!).The other person is relatively new to us, she came in and tried to re-organise how we do everything, she undermines senior staff members (it's like car crash TV, you don't want to watch but cannot help it!)She micro manages everything. Trying to constantly take over. She is a lot older than all of us, same age as my Mum and doesn't take too kindly to us qualified folks giving advice or handing out jobs!
I have tried so hard to be understanding, give settling in time. To teach our ways of doing things, to allow for initiative, to request things are done without being bossy but now i think time is up. No, now i know time is up!

E has just returned from her holidays, she is finding D and D hard going! I have to agree with her!
One of them could not make a decision if it was life depending, and the other micro manages everything (except messy play!) ALL THE TIME!
I have been watching, and despairing, of the micro managing and lack of anything going on up top with these two for a couple of days now. E is ready to get her shot gun out. So i speak to her. I advise not asking them to do things as this leaves things open to interpretation! I advised short instructions using words of one syllable and giving instructions that are concise! (Really yes this is how it has to be done with these two.) So she tries and still she seems to be ignored by micro manager, the other one seems to be coping with this new strategy!
So i quietly speak to our manager. I tell her i think E is going to snap and when she goes it is NOT going to be pretty (funny but not pretty!).
Well you guessed it..the upshot of all this is that E and my lucky self are swapping rooms. I have the lucky task of working with Dumb and Dumber! Because apparently i can cope with them. (*see me twitch!*) E feels terrible, i told her not to be silly and just pray for me!
Of course part of me wants to run and hide under my duvet until i wake up from this nightmare. Another part of me looks forward to the challenge, (but that is a real small part of me) but mostly my main thoughts were, wow this'll make some great blogging material!! (Do you think it's an obsession? LOL)

Well done if you suffered all that with me! and thanks!

Changes

Well since we have not heard from the visa people "yet".. we are looking at an "instead of" change! Since both girls will be in school in Alton which is 13 miles or so away we decided it might be a better idea to move there if we don't go to Oz! So i rang a school today with a view to putting David in there in Sept. I spoke to a really nice lady who is going to arrange a visit for me and a day there fro David! Very cool!

My eye is currently a bright shade of yellow after the Dr. put a dye in it to see why i keep getting conjunctivitis!! I need to swab it in the morning and stay off work (such a hardship!! haha)

And speaking of work. Well after two weeks without the poisoned dwarf...she sure let us know she is back god dammit!
There are 3 of us that do planning for our 13 kids - two of us share 7 and one has 6 to herself as she is full time and us others job share (with a 2 hour overlap, so we do see each other)!
We planned for this week on Monday as we did not get time out to do it last week.
We decided to give all the kids the same tasks for the week as it was based on something they are all into. So "P.D" decides to question me about why its the same for all of them! I told her why. Then she seperately asks the other two the same thing, probably to see if our stories all match up!!! What is her problem? They will all learn something from it even if they don't learn the same thing! Grrr.
Then to top it off, today during the kids rest time she pops into the room where we have the kids that don't sleep and are chatting to them and playing games, to tell us one of the kids has been awake for 10 minutes and has been waking all the others up! AAAaaaagh why o why did she not tell us sooner or go and collect the child that was awake? No, thats too easy, instead she tells us and gives us a look of disgust that we didn't hear the child!! I could honestly just slap her at times! She sure gives truth to the saying "all brains and no common sense!" So much for being part of a team!

Goings on!

Well been a fairly quiet week this week. The kids are dong well in their respective schools and activities!
Rachel is getting ready to sit her Grade 3 Flute, Grade 4 Saxophone and Stage 1 Singing exams.
Rebecca just got her Trinity exam results and certificate back. She is a level 5 now - 2 years ahead of where she should be! She has her SAT's this week and is not too happy about it!!
And David has moved up another level in his swimming! Wow his face was a picture when he was told!! Bless him, he works so hard at swimming so he really has earned it!

I am having a few issues at work with an overqualified no common sense plonker!! She just lives in this lovely place where all kids under the age of 5 have read and will do everything by the book!! She has no kids of her own and is just soooo clueless! And as far as people skills go...grrrr she has none at all. I am a 30 something adult, and this jumped up little "£$%$£^%^ speaks to and treats me like i am 5 years old! I appreciate she wants things done "her" way. She has stated that. She has issued a "timetable" of how the day is to be run which for the most part i can agree with. However i do not regularly need or appreciate being asked if it is being followed and activities being done. THEY ARE! (unless something better comes up - like a day at the park with the kids!!) Sure she is the Stage leader i can live with that - she has the certificates that warrant her post BUT she does not seem to have ANY faith in her team for carrying out day to day tasks, and that really bothers me.
The really bad thing is that she has had almost 2 weeks off and is back this week. So she will be checking up on everything we have or have not done...and i resent the hell out of that.
Still i have to put up with it till i know for sure whether or not we are moving to Australia!! I do after all want a good reference!! aaagh!