We are considering a move back to the UK within the next year. Nothing's certain, but in an effort to have all our ducks in a row in case we do relocate, Boys #1 and #2 need to get ready for entrance exams to possible new schools.
This presents any number of challenges, but one of the main ones to exercise my mind at present is teaching them how to write.
Yes, of course they can write; let me explain...
Their current school is very keen on IT, to the extent that Boy #1 in Grade 5 should already have access to his own laptop (he doesn't - but only because we haven't got round to sorting that out yet), and every child aged 7 upwards has access to an iPad in class. Developing the children's typing skills is seen as being equally - if not more so - important as their being able to write continuously for 20 minutes or more.
Now, I am all about new technology; you're reading this on a blog, after all. But for some time I've thought that being able to write a side of A4 - definitely for a 10/11 year old - should be a basic skill and one that most children should be able to deliver. I've thought it, yes - but until this summer I didn't do anything about it.
Cut to the end of the summer term this year, when it suddenly became clear that if we want our Boys to have the chance to enter one of three schools in the area we may move to, they are both going to need to sit entrance exams. Separate ones, for each school. And separate papers, for each school.
Which, as I discovered when visiting the schools in June, will not be on a computer. (Well, of course they won't.)
You might not think this would be much of a problem. Surely filling in any holes in their learning from having been taught a different curriculum should be the main thing? Actually, there are fewer holes than you might imagine, but in any case, that's not my prime concern. Because it doesn't matter how much they learn about paragraphs, punctuation, fractions, long division, or creative writing if they can't actually sit and write about these things for more than 5 minutes at a time. And until June of this year - when their school holidays started and Evil Mummy stepped in to make sure that they actually just sat. And. Wrote. for longer and longer periods of time, - my two boys were unable to do that.
Writing for extended periods of time takes muscles, you see; something that we adults, used to doing everything online nowadays, tend to forget. And these muscles are different to the ones we use when tapping away on a keyboard. And as I discovered in June, Boys #1 and #2 were, until recently, physically incapable of just sitting and writing for more than a few minutes of time without developing muscle fatigue.
So, we've been working on it at home. But that's not enough, and today I had to go into school and meet both their teachers and explain exactly why it was that some of the online homework they are being set will be coming back in their notebooks - hand-written - from now on. And I could see, in my separate conversations with them, that the teachers were struggling to understand why this was, so I decided to set it out simply for them.
Here's an abridged version of those two conversations.
Both boys will need to sit entrance exams. Yes, that they understood. Both boys will need to sit different exams for up to 3 schools. Yeeees... That's three different lots of exams. Yeees... Times 3 sets of papers, for each. Okaaaayyy... Each paper lasting between 30 minutes and one hour, depending on the school. Riiiiggght. (The penny was starting to drop). So if, as is possible, they sit the exams all in the same week (to avoid our having to fly backwards and forwards and to minimise the amount of time they were out of their current school), they would need to have the muscle strength to sit and write for up to an hour continuously more than 6 times in the same week.
Cue panic in the teachers' eyes as they both realised how far removed that is from what they are currently teaching their class.
And, more than likely, cue a slight change in how they ask my children to deliver their homework.
Boys #1 and #2 will be SO pleased with me...
This presents any number of challenges, but one of the main ones to exercise my mind at present is teaching them how to write.
Yes, of course they can write; let me explain...
Their current school is very keen on IT, to the extent that Boy #1 in Grade 5 should already have access to his own laptop (he doesn't - but only because we haven't got round to sorting that out yet), and every child aged 7 upwards has access to an iPad in class. Developing the children's typing skills is seen as being equally - if not more so - important as their being able to write continuously for 20 minutes or more.
Now, I am all about new technology; you're reading this on a blog, after all. But for some time I've thought that being able to write a side of A4 - definitely for a 10/11 year old - should be a basic skill and one that most children should be able to deliver. I've thought it, yes - but until this summer I didn't do anything about it.
Cut to the end of the summer term this year, when it suddenly became clear that if we want our Boys to have the chance to enter one of three schools in the area we may move to, they are both going to need to sit entrance exams. Separate ones, for each school. And separate papers, for each school.
Which, as I discovered when visiting the schools in June, will not be on a computer. (Well, of course they won't.)
You might not think this would be much of a problem. Surely filling in any holes in their learning from having been taught a different curriculum should be the main thing? Actually, there are fewer holes than you might imagine, but in any case, that's not my prime concern. Because it doesn't matter how much they learn about paragraphs, punctuation, fractions, long division, or creative writing if they can't actually sit and write about these things for more than 5 minutes at a time. And until June of this year - when their school holidays started and Evil Mummy stepped in to make sure that they actually just sat. And. Wrote. for longer and longer periods of time, - my two boys were unable to do that.
Writing for extended periods of time takes muscles, you see; something that we adults, used to doing everything online nowadays, tend to forget. And these muscles are different to the ones we use when tapping away on a keyboard. And as I discovered in June, Boys #1 and #2 were, until recently, physically incapable of just sitting and writing for more than a few minutes of time without developing muscle fatigue.
So, we've been working on it at home. But that's not enough, and today I had to go into school and meet both their teachers and explain exactly why it was that some of the online homework they are being set will be coming back in their notebooks - hand-written - from now on. And I could see, in my separate conversations with them, that the teachers were struggling to understand why this was, so I decided to set it out simply for them.
Here's an abridged version of those two conversations.
Both boys will need to sit entrance exams. Yes, that they understood. Both boys will need to sit different exams for up to 3 schools. Yeeees... That's three different lots of exams. Yeees... Times 3 sets of papers, for each. Okaaaayyy... Each paper lasting between 30 minutes and one hour, depending on the school. Riiiiggght. (The penny was starting to drop). So if, as is possible, they sit the exams all in the same week (to avoid our having to fly backwards and forwards and to minimise the amount of time they were out of their current school), they would need to have the muscle strength to sit and write for up to an hour continuously more than 6 times in the same week.
Cue panic in the teachers' eyes as they both realised how far removed that is from what they are currently teaching their class.
And, more than likely, cue a slight change in how they ask my children to deliver their homework.
Boys #1 and #2 will be SO pleased with me...
