Tag Archives: school

Do I have it?

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Potential – Having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future.

Do I have potential? I would certainly like to think so. I’m certainly trying to better myself; I’m currently studying Maths and English at college; I’m developing my skills as a photographer; I have the need and want to learn more, to do more. Does this qualify me as having potential?

I currently feel that I’m stuck in a rut with my job. I feel that I have the potential to do more; to earn more; to further my career. I believe a job change, to something that has more hours, is a start in the right direction. I have taken steps to try and sort my “dead end job” issue; I have applied for several jobs. Sadly I have not had the pleasure of a single response from any of the employers that I applied to. I will however, keep applying. In the interim, I will apply my time and effort to schooling and developing my skills as a photographer.

Have a photo of a Meerkat.

The school nativities

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This time every year the kids get to perform their schools version of the nativity. Both Ryan and Chloé were in the chior. i took some photos, but as I have never taken pictures in low level lighting, it was quite hard for me to get a decent image with out a lot of noise, so they haven’t turned out quite as well as I had expected.

While waiting for Ryan to finish getting ready after his play, I grabbed this picture of Chloé, she looks so cute!

Transparency and truth

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The truth is a funny thing when you’re dealing with kids. What should you be telling them and at what age is seen as a major factor. A while back I wrote a similar post about Ryan asking Katie and myself questions about sex. We eventually settled on answering any questions he had about the subject. Should the same be applied to everything else in life?

I believe so! I believe in a world where information about any subject, be it sex, religion, drugs or things such as Santa Claus, the Easter bunny or the Tooth Fairy should be free and distributed to anyone who has any questions about any of them.

If we live in a world where we keep things from people because “of their own good” all we will achieve is making a generation of people completely ignorant to the way things really are and should be. This is NOT a good idea! My main issues at the moment centre on religion and such things as Santa Claus.

I’ll start with religion. Each week, Ryan’s school has an assembly with some people from the local church to talk to the kids. As atheists, we have decided to pull Ryan out of these assemblies, as they simply do not have any other people from other religions in to talk to the kids, which would go against our beliefs of giving them as much information as possible to make their own decisions regarding this subject.

We would rather there be an assembly or multiple assemblies with different people from different religions talking to the kids about various religious subjects, which will help the kids to make their own decisions about religion.

If you were in my shoes, would you handle my situation differently? What would you do?

Santa Claus, ugh, I hate this subject because it’s even more controversial than my views on religion. We all know that Santa is not real and the idea of Santa is constantly being commercialised by companies to dupe parents around the world into spending billions on their kids and not even getting the credit for it.

When I finally found out about Santa not being real when I was a kid, I started to respect what my Mum bought me. She was a single parent on a low income and providing for two children. At Christmas time this was a hard feat, and looking back upon it, I wonder why she did not tell me sooner.

At any other time of the year, when you might buy a present for someone, would you like to say that the present that you have possibly spent a couple of hundred of pounds on is not from you but from someone else? I certainly wouldn’t, why is this the case for Christmas?

We have told Ryan about Santa as we have with everything else in life, and we have let him make his own decision. The problem that I face today is that we have had a complaint, of sorts, from his school. He has been going around and telling the other children that Santa is not real. This may be the truth, but obviously each parent is entitled raise their kids how they want, but should be discipline Ryan for speaking the truth, if the other parents / teachers do not agree? I certainly will not! I will how ever inform him that he needs to respect other people’s beliefs and he should be careful what he says around others as it may upset them. Should it really be done this way though? Am I alone in thinking this way? I am at a loss.

How would you deal with the issues I have raised here?

A new beginning

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Both Ryan, and Chloé started school today. Chloé for the first time, and Ryan going into year 1. Chloé has been looking forward to playschool so much since she had her first taster session back in March. She enjoyed it so much, that she didn’t want to leave!

Unfortunately I’m not the one taking Chloé to school, but I got Kate to grab some photos of her this morning and I will be taking photos of Ryan on his return to school!

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Ryan’s sports day 2011

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This morning was Ryan’s first sports day at his primary school. Kate took some time off of work so we could all be there and support him. Unfortunately we got there 10 minutes after it started and we missed the race he was in, which has really annoyed me. I suppose it will teach me for relying on others.

The good thing though, is that he looked like he had loads of fun and really enjoyed himself.

Ryan jumping the hurdles!

Ryan using a paddle to get the ball to the cone

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Stop shouting your propaganda my way!

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I recently got into a debate on Twitter over a tweet that I sent when I received some unsolicited mail hand delivered by whom I can only guess was a preacher for the religion. It was a leaflet inviting me to a mass that a local Jehovah witness church will be holding on Easter Sunday.

Being outraged by this, I lashed out on Twitter with the following tweet.

http://twitpic.com/4kaqu0 Um…. get lost you Jesus lovers! How dare they knock on my door and hand me this bullshit.

This brought some attention to myself regarding free speech which then continued into a debate about how religions continue to push their faith on to the “non believers” and others of different faiths.

One of my main arguing points is that I continually see preachers and the like in city centres preaching their beliefs on a megaphone to the public walking by. This angers me. If someone from a not too known, or “socially unacceptable” religion done this, then it would raise all types of trouble.

For instance, if a preacher of Satanism wanted to stand in the city centre preaching about how the devil and the satanic practices they follow are just and that everyone would die in misery if it’s not followed ( I don’t know specifics ), then I can almost guarantee that within minutes of starting, the local authorities would intervene and remove the subject from the ears of the public.

The illusion that we live in a free society is coming to light more and more these days. One person is not allowed to do this or that, but it’s perfectly fine or acceptable for another to do the exact same. A good example of this is “racism”. Which I will leave there as that’s an entirely different post.

Schools such as the one my son goes to, have people from a local church come in now and then for a Friday assembly loosely based around religion. This religion is what? I hear you ask. Christianity. I spoke to Ryan’s teacher and the schools receptionist about this and they could offer no explanation as to why it was only this certain religion. Why was there no assembly involving Buddhism, Islam and Atheism or others?

This is the problem I have. The children of my son’s school have no choice in the matter but to sit there and be forced to listen to what the preachers have to say. Sure, the parents have the right to take their children out of the assembly, but this is not a solution. If one religion is involved, then all should be involved. Make it more about learning about the various cultures and religious practices rather than pedal one such religion just because its socially acceptable to class it as the standard faith in the country.

There is a way to promote religion and other things and it’s certainly not by shoving it in someone’s face as they walk down the street or sit happily at home watching television. Another thing that really has annoyed me is the amount of shit I get from my local political “representatives” when coming near to election time.

If I want to learn about politics or religion I should be the one going to find out what it is, what it’s about and how to get involved. This type of crap should definitely not be shoved down my throat. It’s a waste of resources, time and energy. At the end of the day, not one single person will get interested if this constantly happens. It will all turn to white noise. The first thing that I do as soon as I get some “spam” through my door is throw it into the recycle bin. Until I need a service or information, stop bombarding me with the needless crap that comes through the door or gets handed out the damn streets of the city I live in please!

If you read this and think of me as a person who is against religion, then you are wrong. I have no problem with religion existing, my problem is with the way it’s promoted to the young of society. With babies, they have no choice in the matter if they are baptised, thus setting their faith and setting them apart from the rest of the world as they grow up.

A child baptised as a Protestant certainly cannot, in no way shape or form, get married in a Catholic church. This is then the fault of the parents for pushing their religion on to the child. The same could also be said about political families. An MP has a child, as the child grows up it will inevitably believe the propaganda that their parent is spitting at them thus becoming a bigot of society pedaling their beliefs.

As I see it, if you believe something, that’s fine. There should be no reason for you to “make others believe”. If you feel the need to do so, then surely your faith in what you believe is not that strong, and you need to ask yourself, do you really believe? The best way to get someone to believe, is to allow them access to the information they seek in a clear simple way that everyone can understand. Do not hold anything back from them and do not force anything upon them!

Ryan is amazing!

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I have never before been in the position where I have been the one helping Ryan to do his homework. For the first time today I sat down with him while he read his book to me.

I was so shocked by his level of reading. He read an entire book in around five minutes. Each and every word was correct and pronounced properly. I could only sit there stunned with amazement. I’m so proud of him right now.

Not only is he doing well educationally, but his social life is growing rapidly. He’s starting to become friends with the other children who live around this area and at school and wanting to bring them back here or go over theirs. He really is starting to come into his own.

I quickly grabbed a photo of him while hes playing Lego Starwars on the PS3

Chloe’s playschool visit

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Thursday was Chloe’s first visit to playschool. She has been very excited for about a week when we first told her. On our way there on the bus she kept saying she is going to do paintings and drawings and that she is very excited. David and I have been very excited for her as we feel she is completely ready for playschool.

When we arrived she took her coat off straight away and went right to the painting easel and started painting. After finishing her painting she didn’t know what to do as there was so much there for her to play with.

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Ryans School – What do I do?

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As I mentioned on January 9th, Ryan’s school messed up when they sent out an email to their students parents containing all of the schools students information.

They seem to keep messing up and I got annoyed with it. They send me emails with attachments that I cannot open, missing attachments and sometimes simply just the wrong attachments.

I finally got fed up and emailed them on the 26th of January.

Can something be done about the way we are contacted via email please. Over the last few weeks we have had numerous failed attempts to email us correctly.

On the 7th January we were emailed with details of students and parents, then our children were presented with a letter to say that it the email was not safe to open.

Why was this covered up? Why was the mistake not admitted and then rectified, or would this cause too much of an embarrassment? Could you have your head teacher and the head of your IT department to contact me regarding this matter please.

After sending that email, I expected to receive an email reply. To the contrary, I received my reply via paper! Ryan arrived home on the 28th with a letter in his bag addressed to myself.

Names have been blanked out for privacy reasons.

Unfortunately I am still not satisfied with their response. Something should be done about the way that they handle our children’s information. As I had previously stated, I can understand that it was a genuine mistake, but more should be done. Instead of letting an outside source handle this, perhaps it could be done internally?

There are plenty of ways to create a mail list ( one where the recipient can’t see each others email addresses ) and use an internal mail server to send it. That way, they can use their own email client and mail server, and send a test email before hand to make sure it correct!

I’m not quite sure if I have the courage to go into the school yet and propose this to them, as I don’t want to cause trouble. What do I do?

My Kids Primary School – What a fail!

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I got an email from Ryans primary school yesterday via Parent Mail flagged as urgent. I opened it up with a message saying that I should delete their first email as there was an error and that the current email has the schools news letter attached.

I thought it a bit odd because I didn’t even have the “first email”. Later that day I got another email from his school, again, via Parent Mail. I thought to myself, oh no, they have made another error. This email turned out to be the one from earlier that they were on about. I now see the error that they made!

The email contained almost 500 lines of personal information about their students. An example of the information shared was as follows;

“Last Name”,”First Name”,Sequence of numbers and letters here,”Some more numbers”,”What year the child is in”,”The name of the class”,Sequence of numbers and letters here,”What Parent This refers to”,”Mothers / Fathers First name”,”Mothers / Fathers Last Name”,”Parents Title”

Now, obviously, this was unintentional and was not done on purpose. Perhaps a more stringent security process should be in place to stop these type of simple clerical errors of attaching the wrong documents to the emails before they go out to hundreds of parents!

Now, I’m sure there are people out there, who will take this matter seriously and report it to some official, who will then get in touch with the school, but at the end of the day, it seems to be a simple mistake limited to the parents who have subscribed to Parent Mail for Ryans school, which is approximately 250 families by the looks of things.