Parents Evening

Last night I had the daunting prospect of seeing 14 different teachers at parents evening.  Naturally my twins do not share any of the same teachers and so this is always a very long evening.  My husband was trying to get to school to help but rather unusually an accident on the M25 had delayed him.

For those of you without children in secondary school the process is not as easy or relaxed as when they are at primary.  When the boys were younger I would see the teacher and would be told how they were getting on with English, maths and possibly science.  If I pushed I sometimes managed to get some information on history, geography and any other subjects they were doing.  After the 45 minutes wait (as they always run late) it was usually pretty relaxed.  I had read the boys' books and seen their work before I went in and it felt quite small and communal as I chatted to other parents whilst waiting for my turn.

For secondary school forget everything you knew.  You walk into the school hall where there are rows and rows of desks.  Each has a teacher sitting with a name plate in front of them. It is noisy and stuffy, and all you want to do is walk straight back out, but as the boys are in year 10 (which is first year of GCSE) this was not an option. 

The boys had made appointments to see teachers from all their subjects which I was pleased about, but I could feel the stress levels starting to rise as soon as we got there as some meetings were double booked.  It felt like we were running late before we had even started.  I spent the whole evening apologising as we missed nearly every time slot.  On the plus side though, when a teacher had finished with a student he or she would look at their list and as we were so late we were always the next one to be seen, so we did queue jump a lot. I apologise to any parents who had already been waiting for 15 minutes thinking they were next in line.

Having finally sat down in front of someone you have to wait whilst they consult their sheets of paper. I have spent the last three years totally confused whilst I have been told they are a level 6A or 7B as I never understand what that means.  Why should you be at a higher level in maths than geography and why is it harder to get a decent level in history?  Anyway this is now behind us as we are talking predicted grades.  This I understand, or so I thought.  Although the grades are A* to C because there are so many elements it is hard to judge exactly where they are, however I won't talk details now as this is another issue on it's own.  Suffice it to say that at every teacher I had my son's name, the subject and written details of what the main points were as I knew that by the end of the evening my brain would not have remembered half of what had been said.

I always find interesting when the teacher asks the boys how they think they are doing or what they think will be said about them.  Amazingly they are always far more honest than when they are talking to me! It is also good to see those teachers that they do not regard quite so highly to see if their comments are justified and to be fair they usually are.

We did all manage to see everyone and two hours later we were finished.  I cannot lie and say everything was exactly as I had hoped but at least I am aware of how everything stands and what areas need to be worked on.  I have now seen everyone and the boys have nothing to hide behind when we discuss work as we both heard what the teacher had to say.  They now have to act on it and I can relax a little knowing I have another year before I have to do it all again.

The Fight For The TV Remote

People will probably wonder why I am even writing about this as the only female in a household of six, but for those who are fortunate not to have the same problems in their home I wanted to air the difficulties that are suffered when different members of the family want to watch TV.  Whilst we are fortunate to have Sky and to also have more than one television in our home this does not help with the scheduling and watching dilemmas which seem to occur relentlessly and regularly!

When Duvet Boy is awake he likes to watch football.  No-one has a problem when it is his team on the television but he does not understand why no-one else is interested in the different divisions, Spanish football, Champions League with no British interest, a re-run of all of the 1999/2000 season or a programme on the worst red card tackles in the world ever.  As my youngest was not even born during the 1999/2000 season I do think he has a valid point!

My other teenager likes comedies and is happy to watch the same programme continuously.  The Simpsons may have been going for twenty years but I am sure that by now he has seen nearly every episode and he is currently working his way through Two and a Half Men.  

The oldest two also give us a different dilemma which is based on what programmes are suitable for them.  Back in the good old days when there was no internet or You Tube, if a programme was deemed unsuitable then children were not allowed to watch it and that was the end.  Now it is not so easy.  Programmes can be seen on-line and even if you stop them at home it is impossible to stop them viewing if they are at someone else's house. We decided (rightly or wrongly) that it would be better to watch with them so now my husband sees The Inbetweeners and I think he is getting as much of an education as my boys!

Of course my middle one is literally stuck in the middle.  He cannot watch the older and more adult themed programmes but does not want to watch the same as the youngest.  If the TV is on late afternoon then usually the youngest will choose as his time is limited before bed. Quite often the middle one does not get time later as it will be too close to his bedtime and not long enough for a programme that he wants, so he does, quite rightly get miffed.  As yet I have not found a solution to this. so any suggestions will be greatly received.

As for me, well I am just glad we have Sky Planner.  Anything and everything I want to see is recorded.  This is done as I know I will never be able to sit down and watch anything when it it actually live on the TV, and even if I could, I guarantee that there would be at least half a dozen interruptions.  A one hour show always needs at least an hour and twenty minutes and that is with me fast forwarding during the ad breaks.  I am sure they know it is my time to hold the remote so it is at this point there are queries on homework, school uniform, Food Tech ingredients which are suddenly needed the following morning, or social arrangements, staying after school for sports and anything else that may suddenly spring into their minds.  I can't even wait until they have all gone to bed to watch in peace as they now go to bed as late as me.

To make things a little bit better for everyone we have managed to find a few programmes which everyone will watch together.  Dr Who, Top Gear and Outnumbered are acceptable and I know this evening will be fine as we are all big fans of Hustle.  The only argument now is how loud we need the volume to be......