DCSF Review - LA accountability (Rec. 13, 14, 15 & 16)

Recommendation 13
This comes in section 5, "The Current and Future Role of Local Authorities and Children’s Trusts," after 5.9

That local authority provision in regard to elective home education is brought into the scope of Ofsted’s assessment of children’s services within the Comprehensive Area Assessment through information included in the National Indicator Set (Recommendation 25), the annual LSCB report (Recommendation 21) and any other relevant information available to inspectors.

If the LAs are supposed to be providing services, then yes, they need to be held accountable for it, like every other service they are supposed to provide.

(See my post on Recommendations 21 & 25)

Recommendation 14
This comes in section 6, "The Number of Electively Home Educated Children," after 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3, in which he says "Our own data concurred with the DfES (2007) report, that there are around 20,000 children and young people currently registered with local authorities. We know that to be an underestimate and agree it is likely to be double that figure, if not more, possibly up to 80,000 children."

That the DCSF require all local authorities to make an annual return to the Children’s Trust Board regarding the number of electively home educated children and young people and the number of School Attendance Orders and Education Supervision Orders as defined in the 1996 Education Act, issued to home educated children and young people.

I'd have thought that at least one year's worth of this data - preferably more - would be necessary to conduct this review in the first place. I assume School Attendance Orders are recorded and the reason for issuing them is part of the data somewhere. Why isn't this already in the report? Surely the change between pre-registration-and-support and post-registration-and-support by the state is what's important? Unless the goal is to show how abusive and useless home education is, rather than how valuable the state's assistance is and how much better things are with local authority services?

Recommendation 15
This comes after 6.4

That the DCSF take such action as necessary to prevent schools or local authorities advising parents to consider home education to prevent permanent exclusion or using such a mechanism to deal with educational or behavioural issues.

Well, quite. "We can't cope, so you'll have to home educate" is a bit... handwashy. And it didn't oughter be allowed. Good.

Recommendation 16
This comes after 6.5

That the DCSF bring forward proposals to give local authorities power of direction with regard to school places for children and young people returning to school from home education above planned admission limits in circumstances where it is quite clear that the needs of the child or young person could not be met without this direction.

If a child needs a school place they ought to get one, regardless of what parental error led to the need being inconvenient for the authorities. Good. Though some schools are already more overcrowded than others, so this might be a real hardship in some places.

DCSF Review - ICT and exams (Rec. 12)

Recommendation 12
This comes in section 5, "The Current and Future Role of Local Authorities and Children’s Trusts," after 5.8

BECTA considers the needs of the home educating community in the national roll out of the home access initiative

Becta is "the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning." It used to stand for British Educational Communications and Technology Agency but so many people knew who they were that they dropped the acronym and use the name independently of it. Hm. They say "Our work cuts across a wide range of priority areas and key themes. These include enabling people to have equal opportunity and access to learning resources, creating links between schools and the home, ensuring the safety of all learners, personalising learning to enable learners and practitioners to interact and inspire each other, helping providers to plan effective investment in technology in building or refurbishment work, and using technology to ensure efficiency and value for money."

I don't know what "considers the needs" means.

That local authorities consider what support and access to ICT facilities could be given to home educating children and young people through the existing school networks and the use of school based materials

Does this go beyond people using the internet access in their local library? Perhaps home educators will have access to super sekrit educationalists web resources? That would be good - the easily accessible free public resources are so extensive I can't imagine what might be beyond them, but we haven't really felt the need to look yet.

That the QCA should consider the use of ICT in the testing and exam process with regard to its impact on home educated children and young

Young what? I assume it means young people; another proofreading error, or something. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority should consider (not sure what is meant by consider) that ICT could make things more accessible? Less so, because of homes without computer access? Not sure. In the review itself he says "This could be a report in itself but suffice it to say that the importance of ICT in learning, access to knowledge and information, communication and employment is self evident." which leaves me assuming that the people he's talking to already agree with him, so he doesn't need to provide any real information. Irritating. I can't form an opinion on this because the position stated is too vague to hold an informed opinion on!

DCSF Review - what the LA offers Home Ed (Rec. 9, 10 & 11)

Recommendation 9
Comes after 5.6

That all local authority officers and others engaged in the monitoring and support of elective home education must be suitably trained. This training must include awareness of safeguarding issues and a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice, as compared to schools. Wherever possible and appropriate, representatives of the home educating community should be involved in the development and/or provision of such training. It is recommended that all officers be trained in the use of the Common Assessment Framework.

The Common Assessment Framework appears to be a fairly recent thing, too, but for all I know it's very good. At least they want people trained - at the moment the people interacting with home educators on behalf of the local authority might be experts or complete novices, almost at random, it seems.

I like the sound of "a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice, as compared to schools" except that a lot of the base assumptions evident throughout the document make it clear that autonomous education is not considered at all. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if academic achievement was the main consideration, in fact.

Recommendation 10
This comes after 5.7, which says, among other things, "it seems to me perverse to articulate concern about thousands of young people yet cut them off from services that would be rightfully theirs if they attended school."

That all local authorities should offer a menu of support to home educating families in accord with the requirements placed upon them by the power of wellbeing, extended schools and community engagement and other legislation. To that end local authorities must provide support for home educating children and young people to find appropriate examination centres and provide entries free to all home educated candidates who have demonstrated sufficiently their preparedness through routine monitoring, for aII DCSF funded qualifications.

That all sounds fine - provide and access and menu are not the same as enforce and uptake and instructions.

(I kind of wish they'd used lower case l for the word "all" instead of aII, unless aII is some educational jargon with which neither I nor Google are familiar - am I being ignorant or pedantic here?)

Recommendation 11
This comes immediately after Recommendation 10 in section 5.

That in addition to Recommendation 10 above, local authorities should, in collaboration with schools and colleges:

Extend and make available the opportunities of flexi-schooling.

Extend access to school libraries, sports facilities, school visits, specialist facilities and key stage assessment.

Provide access to specialist music tuition on the same cost basis.

Provide access to work experience.

Provide access to post 14 vocational opportunities.

Signpost to third sector support where they have specialist experience and knowledge, for example, provision for bullied children.

All of 11 sounds lovely. If all that stuff was available (not compulsory) it would really benefit children and their families. If it wasn't for some of the other stuff in the recommendations, I'd probably be sitting here clapping my hands in glee. Though I can't see us actually availing of any of it except perhaps the music and post-14 vocational opportunities if the children turn out so inclined. Perhaps labs would be involved? I can see access to labs being helpful for some things.

DCSF Review - authorities' access to the home and child (Rec. 7 & 8)

Recommendation 7
This comes in section 5, "The Current and Future Role of Local Authorities and Children’s Trusts," after 5.4, and is mentioned in the Conclusion - "To that end, I urge the DCSF to respond to recommendations 1, 7, 23 and 24 as summarised in the next chapter, at the next available opportunity."

The DCSF should bring forward proposals to change the current regulatory and statutory basis to ensure that in monitoring the efficiency and suitability of elective home education:

That designated local authority officers should:
– have the right of access to the home;
– have the right to speak with each child alone if deemed appropriate or, if a child is particularly vulnerable or has particular communication needs, in the company of a trusted person who is not the home educator or the parent/carer.

On what planet will a child tell the truth to strangers introduced to them by their abusers, even if they're left alone with the strangers? Maybe if the child is suicidal. But often not even then. How will they get abused children to speak up under such circumstances? What will they do if they do? I'm reminded of my school medical in fifth class. Hah. Or the custody case. How can a child tell the truth when they know the adults are listening?

And then, there are all the people who have happy, cheerful, viciously untidy homes, who may or may not have the confidence to have their children assessed for signs of abuse without stressing for days cleaning up and so on.

In so doing, officers will be able to satisfy themselves that the child is safe and well.

I hope to goodness vulnerable children are being dealt with by more specialist experts than any of this implies. And let's not go into the idea that "well" implies "safe" or vice versa.

That a requirement is placed upon local authorities to secure the monitoring of the effectiveness of elective home education as determined in Recommendation 1.

This seems sensible, again. If the whole thing happens, the LAs have to be required to do it, and to do it properly.

That parents be required to allow the child through exhibition or other means to demonstrate both attainment and progress in accord with the statement of intent lodged at the time of registration.

Setting aside what I think of the statement at the time of registration, I have no idea how anyone can set guidelines for this. My children may or may not choose, at any given time, to demonstrate kindness, emotional maturity, a thorough and inventive knowledge of the various forms of "sudden pinch with the fingernails," some or all of the alphabet, and a dislike of being tested.

Or they might want to show off.

Recommendation 8
This comes in section 5, after 5.5, which says "Such new powers will still depend upon, and be more effective, where there are good relationships and mutual trust, respect and open communication between the home educating family and the local authority. The home may well become the place of education but it is first and foremost a home [...]"

That reasonable warning of intended visit and invitation to exhibit should be given to home educators, parents and carers, not less than two weeks in advance. A written report of each visit must be filed within 21 days and copied to the home educating parent and child. A suitable process for factual correction and challenge to the content must be in place and made known to all parties.

That part is sound. If they have to come to the educating home at all (and I don't see why they do, honestly) then it's in the child's best interests for no-one to be completely surprised by it.

But I do not believe that this will protect children who are at risk. I don't see how. Abusers and abused children alike are very skilled, very early on, at hiding abuse. Annual visits from relative strangers won't help.

DCSF Review - Quis custodiet custodiens? (Rec. 3, 4, 5 & 6)

Recommendation 3
This comes in the middle of section 4, "Elective Home Education in Context – the Views of Home Educators and Others."

That all local authorities analyse the reasons why parents or carers chose elective home education and report those findings to the Children’s Trust Board, ensuring that this analysis contributes to the debate that determines the Children and Young People’s Plan.

I think this could be really good and might significantly improve schools if it's done by people with open minds and moderate intelligence. Which it might well be.

Recommendation 4
This comes at the end of section 4.

That the local authority should establish a Consultative Forum for home educating parents to secure their views and representative opinion. Such a body could be constituted as a sub-group of the Children’s Trust with a role in supporting the development of the Children’s Trust, and the intentions of the local authority with regard to elective home education.

If any of this - the broader "The Review" recommendations - is going to happen, this part is completely essential.

Recommendation 5
This comes in section 5, "The Current and Future Role of Local Authorities and Children’s Trusts," after 5.2

That the DCSF should bring forward proposals requiring all local authorities to report to the Children’s Trust Board making clear how it intends to monitor and support children and young people being educated at home, in accord with Recommendation 1.

Wait, what have the Children's Trust Board got to do with this? (Not to be confused with The Children's Trust - the CTB was announced as An Initiative (see this BBC article with photos of Baby P) though many local councils seem to have had their own branches or versions of it since 2006 or earlier, according to the results of a quick google).

The part before this, in the main body of the review, had some examples of Lovely Things Certain LAs Do To Make Friends With Home Educators, including offering support, making advice available, facilitating meeting other home educators, all of which incidentally makes it easy to keep an unintrusive eye on the families and the children. I rather approve. I mean, I might not go to such groups, because we have a lot on, but if I lived in an area with less going on all the time, they might be brilliant.

But what the Children's Trust Board are doing in here I do not know.

Recommendation 6
This comes in section 5, after 5.3

That local authorities should where appropriate commission the monitoring and support of home education through the local Children’s Trust Board, thereby securing a multidisciplinary approach and the likely use of expertise from other agencies and organisations including the voluntary sector.

... ah, money. Voluntary Sector. Yay. OK, that makes a certain amount of sense. I can't find a clear and consistent explanation of what a CTB is or does, anywhere, but since they were only announced in a few months ago that's not surprising; the wheels grind exceeding slow, after all. They seem to involve an awful lot of branches, so I do hope they've got their interdepartmental communications sorted out.

DCSF Review - defining education (Rec. 2)

Recommendation 2
This also comes at the end of section 3, "Current Legislation and Regulation."

That the DCSF review the current statutory definition of what constitutes a “suitable” and “efficient” education in the light of the Rose review of the primary curriculum, and other changes to curriculum assessment and definition throughout statutory school age.

Well, if they're going to demand plans and curricula and specific goals and targets, re-evaluating what constitutes suitable and efficient education is something they really, really need to do - and they also need to make sure they're not asking parents to do better than they ask schools to do. But if they're going to demand curricula they are ignoring the educational and emotional needs and philosophical principles of lots of people anyway. People he claims to have taken into account, if you read the body of the review as well as the summary of recommendations.

Such a review should take account of the five Every Child Matters outcomes determined by the 2004 Children Act, should not be overly prescriptive but be sufficiently defined to secure a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum that would allow children and young people educated at home to have sufficient information to enable them to expand their talents and make choices about likely careers.

I can't even tell whether they are talking about the needs of three-year-olds or sixteen-year-olds. They're talking about people who have a likely expectation of a career, though, rather than people who just do jobs to earn a living and change what they do to suit themselves. The current economic climate seems to be an odd place to talk about careers, to me.

Though it does perhaps mean that [an eleven-year-old I know] can cease educating himself forthwith since he has sufficient qualifications to teach in his area of expertise, without further training, in several countries. He could be earning his living now but it seems to be illegal for him to do so where he lives.

The outcome of this review should further inform guidance on registration.

Home educators should be engaged in this process.

No kidding.

DCSF Review - registration (Rec. 1)

Recommendation 1

This comes at the end of section 3, "Current Legislation and Regulation," and is mentioned in the Conclusion - "To that end, I urge the DCSF to respond to recommendations 1, 7, 23 and 24 as summarised in the next chapter, at the next available opportunity."

That the DCSF establishes a compulsory national registration scheme, locally administered, for all children of statutory school age, who are, or become, electively home educated.

That sounds fine so far.

This scheme should be common to all local authorities.

That makes sense and would do away with the "it's ok in Anytown but constant authoritarian hassle in Otherplace" thing that happens now, if properly administered.

Registration should be renewed annually.

I have no idea why but presumably this would be automated somehow.

Those who are registering for the first time should be visited by the appropriate local authority officer within one month of registration.

To prove what? that the child is still alive? The reason for and format of this visit needs to be made explicit (must try to read main document again). I'm thinking of a family with young children who were repeatedly hassled in the fortnight after the mother died of cancer, here - it turned out to be a bureaucratic mistake and the authorities were very sorry, but it doesn't do much to give one faith in their ability to do these things sensitively and carefully.

Local authorities should ensure that all home educated children and young people already known to them are registered on the new scheme within one month of its inception and visited over the following twelve months, following the commencement of any new legislation.

Register within a month of its inception, and then visit within a month as per previous line or within twelve months, presumably because of staffing issues. I wonder how they'll decide whom to visit when?

Provision should be made to allow registration at a local school, children’s centre or other public building as determined by the local authority.

Allow? Or require? Will families be required to traipse along to some central building and queue up to register? It's later made clear that the information about registration should be available online as well as at specific venues but not whether registration itself can be done otherwise.

When parents are thinking of deregistering their child/children from school to home educate, schools should retain such pupils on roll for a period of 20 school days so that should there be a change in circumstances, the child could be readmitted to the school.

When parents, having considered the matter and decided to deregister their child/children from school, actually formally do so, the school should disregard this for twenty days, making the children legally truant and the parents criminals, in case the parents change their mind. I am not loving this idea.

This period would also allow for the resolution of such difficulties that may have prompted the decision to remove the child from school.

Then there needs to be another list - like "The Not on the roll, but on the Definitely Got A Place Until Such-A-Date List." I mean, the period of reflection is not a bad idea, but if the child is on the roll and is not at school and is not ill and has not been granted special leave of absence by the head teacher, the parents are criminals.

National guidance should be issued on the requirements of registration and be made available online and at appropriate public buildings. Such guidance must include a clear statement of the statutory basis of elective home education and the rights and responsibilities of parents.

This guidance (information) should be available online or by post, surely? I understand that this might mean a print-and-postage cost but parents could be required to pay it. I can phone up and ask for information about my child benefits to be posted to me for nothing, and that's often a fairly hefty booklet.

At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes for the child over the following twelve months.

This is ridiculous. It's not possible for anyone practicing autonomous education, for a start, and it's also inappropriate for a huge number of traumatised, bullied children who are being taken out of school for their emotional and mental wellbeing as well as because of the educational deficiency of the school. Lots of families need six to twelve months to get over the laziness and coasting, self-doubt and refusal, or other manifestations of trauma which even bright children develop. They've ignored deschooling and de-institutionalising entirely, here.

Guidance should be issued to support parents in this task with an opportunity to meet local authority officers to discuss the planned approach to home education and develop the plan before it is finalised. The plan should be finalised within eight weeks of first registration.

Ridiculous. Meeting, fine - or phonecalls; it would be good to get something like "Hi, this is Alex from the LA again, just checking you and little Sam are still ok - have you thought of any questions or anything you need from us since we last spoke?". Plans and structures, no, wholly inappropriate to vast numbers of children and should not be a legal requirement, especially in the very early stages.

As well as written guidance, support should encompass advice from a range of advisers and organisations, including schools. Schools should regard this support as a part of their commitment to extended schooling.

It would be nice to be able to get advice and support from lots of people, yes.

Where a child is removed from a school roll to be home educated, the school must provide to the appropriate officer of the local authority a record of the child’s achievement to date and expected achievement, within 20 school days of the registration, together with any other school records.

Presumably copies of this will go to the parents, too. I don't see how it helps anyone, though, since people removing children from the school system aren't usually doing it because the school system has worked so well for them that they believe the basic assumptions behind it to be invaluable.

Local authorities must ensure that there are mechanisms/systems in place to record and review registrations annually.

That makes sense, if it's going to happen at all.

DCSF Review on Home Education (Prequel)

The Department for Children, Schools and Families recently published a Review containing 28 Recommendations. The full thing in PDF form is available for download from their website; I'm going to go through the recommendations and jot down my thoughts on them. The quotes I'm responding to are taken from Section 12, Summary of Recommendations.

My response is broken into ten posts, but they refer to each other a little, which is why I'm posting them all at once.

---

Overview
In general, I found the review internally consistent (the points followed each other logically, without direct internal contradictions), but vague and full of unsupported assumptions - some of which I agreed with, but that's not the point. In particular, I don't see how even one child would be made safer by the proposed registration and monitoring. I can think of several ways which might work better, though I don't see why they are necessary.

It is a cause of concern that although approximately 20,000 home educated children and young people are known to local authorities, estimates vary as to the real number which could be in excess of 80,000. [Section 1.3]

Our own data concurred with the DfES (2007) report, that there
are around 20,000 children and young people currently registered with local authorities. We know that to be an underestimate and agree it is likely to be double that figure, if not more, possibly up to 80,000 children.[Section 6.1]

That is, in a country of about 60 million people, there might be 60 thousand children wholly unknown to the authorities. Hidden. Given that these children are not registered for child benefit, NHS services, family tax credit, passports, or anything else, how on earth will a register of home educators help? And how did the authorities lose track of 60,000 children between their birth and their reaching age 5 (school age)? This seems to me like tabloid scaremongering.

6.2 ContactPoint will record the place where a child is being educated, where that is known, including where a child is being educated at home.

6.3 Registration proposed within this report should complete the picture and offer further evidence of their wellbeing and educational progress.

Why is Contact Point so inadequate? Can't they cross-reference anything? and if they can't, why are they proposing so many different committees, departments, boards and bodies to deal with this? Either inter-departmental communication is something they are good at, in which case most of this new stuff isn't necessary, or it isn't, in which case most of this new stuff will have the same problems the old stuff has.

I find it very hard to believe that the most effective way of spending whatever money is allocated to education, or ensuring children are not being abused at home, or both, is to create an entirely new system based on unavailable evidence, assumptions, unsupported conclusions, and carefully making sure to link home educators and child abusers together in the minds of the general public.

Badman's Review

I'm working on a series of posts about it - mainly just what I think of the recommendations - but it looks like it's going to be eleven posts, so it will be a while.

I'm also really worried about the feedback I'm likely to get on my posts, but I suppose that's something one has to deal with. Anyone I actually know in person will be polite, at least, and assume I am not personally advocating child abuse.

Le sigh.

(The children continue charming).

Please stop, you're making your brain too tired

On Thursday Linnea played with the Cuisenaire rods for an hour and then spotted the Nrich website over my shoulder, usurped my place at the computer, and spent two hours doing puzzles, sometimes with the Cuisenaire rods to help her.

She wouldn't stop. When we made her stop she played her chocolate game instead, which isn't much different, really. In total, she spent about three and a half hours doing sums and logic puzzles with shapes and patterns.

Afterwards she was tired and cranky, but she's also getting her six-year molars, so that's not proof of anything.

On Friday she didn't start until closer to four, so she stopped naturally when her daddy came home at five.

Criminy.

Comparison of Learnings

The above link is offered without comment.

(But I may comment later - talk among yourselves).

Answers to questions

But what if you miss stuff?

Every system of education misses stuff. I'll miss stuff. I don't think I'll miss much important, though.

What about the things they teach in school that you can't teach at home?

I've never worked out what these are. What is impossible to teach at home? And why?

What about learning to socialise with large age-sorted groups?

I can't say this is something I think is useful or necessary. In fact, for a lot of people, it's actively harmful, as far as I can see. Learning to socialise within large groups of any kind is a useful skill, and there are lots of places where people can learn to do that. I learned to do it fairly well aged about 25, myself, after unlearning a lot of what school situations taught me was "normal behaviour".

Doesn't anyone check?

Not as much as I do, no, but there are circumstances under which various state-sanctioned individuals or bodies can and do check up on whether one is fulfilling one's legal obligation to provide a child with an education. One could wish they were as rigorous in schools but obviously the sheer numbers make that impossible.

How will you know whether you're covering the whole curriculum?

Whose curriculum, and why would I want to cover it? Many curriculums(a?) are available for free or for sale, so I could just look it up, if I decided that a curriculum was the best thing for my children, or that that was a useful way to guide my own work.

What if you don't want to teach her long division because she'll never use it in real life?

Basic practical skills which are used in real life are kind of automatic. Things which are no useful in real life might be learned for sheer joy of them, and if not, does it really matter?

Are you really allowed?

It's legal, if that's what you mean.

How will you know you're doing it right?

How does anyone? How do teachers, schools, examining boards, anyone?

What if she's not normal?

What's normal?

Representational art

This morning before breakfast Emer drew a BIG bider with eyes which had pupils. She has now made the change to deciding what to draw first and then representing it in ever-increasing detail on paper.

When other people say "But what about...?" with genuine concern

But what if you miss stuff?

What about the things they teach in school that you can't teach at home?

What about learning to socialise with large age-sorted groups?

Doesn't anyone check?

How will you know whether you're covering the whole curriculum?

What if you don't want to teach her long division because she'll never use it in real life?

Are you really allowed?

How will you know you're doing it right?

What if she's not normal?

Games

Linnea will be five soon, and Emer is two and a half. So today's trip to Eclectic Games was more interesting than they were when both children were much younger.

Linnea played with Chocolate Fix and did the first six puzzles quickly enough to surprise the properietor, and Emer played with a Rattlesnake game involving magnets. Magnets are marvellous toys.

I was interested enough by Linnea's concentration on Chocolate Fix that I really want to buy it for her, now. But will I wait and give it as a birthday present, or just get it right now for her immediate gratification?!

They also had a go at learning to use a vending machine, and Linnea condescended to write some letters on a card for me, though they didn't make much sense to me. (AXIA, if anyone is wondering. She really likes an X).

New Year!

Linnea is four years eight months old now, apparently. I find it hard to believe, myself. And
what is she doing?

She's definitely learning to be more conciliating in her interpersonal relationships - children who cry or shout at her are very likely to get their way unless she's totally confident that they will still be her friend tomorrow. She clearly offers compromises and gets upset when they aren't listened to.

Her favourite protest at home is "You are a Gnoring me!" and her favourite insult is "Now you are nuis-less," (also "Don't be so nuis-less.") She's toying with "You're a stinky poo," too, but that's for fun rather than to express unhappiness or frustration.

She's more and more interested in learning to read and write but still not interested in being Taught. Similar with maths - she's adding, subtracting and multiplying single-digit numbers all the time, but doesn't like us initiating a session of it, though we're expected to drop everything and answer "what is seven nines?" at her lightest whim.

I gave her window crayons recently and she drew some lovely stuff on the bay window. I must brave the cold without my gloves and photograph it. It's very bold and confident; there's a house and a snail and a sun and some waves.

She'd like to learn to knit but doesn't like how fiddly and difficult it is. She has short needles and lovely mixed-colours yarn, thanks to Nana, but hasn't stuck it out as far as knitting a whole stitch yet.

Her grasp of anatomy surprises us sometimes - she told us over Christmas that her ribs are the bones which protect her heart and lungs because her heart and lungs are soft and squashy and bones are hard. Presumably that was in a book or on telly but I didn't know she knew it.

I said "I like spending time with you, Linnea," today, and she responded, thoughtfully, "But not when you're cross."

True enough. Don't like much when I'm cross.

Testing times

Linnea is four-and-a-half now and we met the woman who used to be our local librarian, before the library closed for refurbishments. We met her at the rehomed Singalong session in the church next door to the library, and she was delighted to see us. She sat down to chat to Linnea and very quickly she asked "How old are you?" and "How high can you count? Can you count up to twenty?"

Linnea, brilliantly, said "No, I don't have twenty fingers. I only have ten."

Some discussion of toes ensued.

Then the librarian asked "Are you going to teach her her times tables?" to which I said "I'm sure she'll learn them when she sees they're useful." "Oh, because I learned mine and I can still remember instantly - instantly! - any of them."

All I could come up with in response to that was "I can't."

Oh, and I showed her how to do the nine times tables on her fingers.

And then Linnea borrowed her fingers to make more sets of three and did some multiplying.

(Linnea is very focussed on three times four and four times three at the moment.)

I was struck by academic-testing-as-conversation, indeed.

Gory Stories

I just realised I left the bit about reading scary, gory sections (to Linnea, 4y6m) from books hanging. The pig-butchering and headcheese-making scene in Little House in the Big Woods went down well, but the book got incredibly boring at the sugaring-off dance, so we've left it for now. We'll come back to it again, later, I think - she likes to flick through it and look at the illustrations of the parts we've read and "read" them to Emer (2y3m).

When my naughty little sister was good has no scary bits.

We are now in another phase of no-no-don't-read-to-me-mummy. She has also decided that she can't write her name - and has never been able to write her name - this has always been so, this will always be so - perhaps we'll read 1984 next.

Along with not being able to read again comes a leap in personal hygiene and grooming. And more begging for a bruvva.

To market, to market

We help out at a local travelling cooperative market (local, organic and/or fair trade foods) from time to time. This morning we went to help them set up in their town centre location; Rob and Emer went first and Linnea and I came along later.
Emer helped face the goods forwards on the shelves, largely off her own bat (no, we don't ask much of a two-year-old, but she tends to offer a great deal) and Linnea put out scoops for the dry goods, set paper bags out by the various sets of weighing scales, and even priced things with the price-gun, very carefully and effectively.

Usually when we shop Linnea selects foods and brings them to me to weigh, or counts eggs into half-dozen boxes for me to put in the bag. Emer carries things around.

I don't know what they are learning from this, but it's valuable, useful work, so they must be learning something. And they like doing it.

Sums

After buying shoes, and arguing about snacks, while walking through the centre of town, Linnea to me: "Two and five is seven, Mum."

Me: Yes.
Linnea: And three and four is seven.
Me: Yes.
Linnea: And six and one, that's seven too.
Me: Yes, it is. Six and one is seven.

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Much later, I realised that this adding up to a number in lots of different ways is something I've seen mentioned in books and magazines as a stage in learning maths. Which is fine.

I'm not sure which stage it is.

But at least now I know she's learning something I can call maths when people ask.