Family Christmas and a new member

** Delay in posting this that I wrote back in January as I have only just received the photos! **

For the first time in a year, we had all our children around us at the same time.  It was marvellous! Everyone seems to act younger when they get together and the house was filled with silly voices and random hair-ruffling!

We have also gained another member of the family but he is a feline - Izaak.  I had forgotten just how much a cat adds to the household and how charming they are.  He is only young (20 weeks) and I hope to train him up so that he can accompany us off on our travels in the motorhome.

We didn't do much home education though we normally do something every day.  The time together was precious and it seemed wrong to engage in battles over maths when a game of Rummikub was at hand.

The older generation arrives today as they couldn't make Christmas due to illness.  I can't wait to visit all those museums together and play card games with them for the next week.

However, the home-education starts today...

Thoughts on home education from my 22 year old son

You may wonder what happens to children once they finish home education.  My two eldest went on to Sixth form college, university then employment.  I still have four children at home, aged 10-16 years old and we work towards IGCSEs.  At 16, we consider the options available according to each child's interests and needs.

I asked my 22 year old son if he would shoot from the hip and write a post on home education.  Whatever take he wanted would be fine - I would publish it unedited.  He has trained as an actor but he is currently working in a call centre in London and going for auditions in between times.

I hope I may be able to tease more posts out of him in the coming months but here is the first...

So I went to school until I was 10 years old.  When I was a kid, I certainly seemed to have a bit of an Alpha-Male complex!  For some reason, from the age of 4 until 9, I had it in my head that I was just amazing when I was with my classmates.  However,  my family moved house to a different town so I had to start fresh in a new school.  I went into that school with the same complex, and to be honest I kind of got what I deserved.  I wasn’t popular at all in the new school and I definitely became quite unhappy.  My big sister, for other reasons, wasn’t fitting in at her new school either. 

I think after several weeks of me coming home complaining about school eventually pushed my Mum to start looking at alternatives for me.  We looked at other schools in the area, slightly smaller ones where I may fit in a little more and be a bit happier.  However, nothing seemed to really fit. 

Then my mum and step-dad started looking into home-ed.  I had no idea what it meant, other than the fact I would never have to go to school again!  Seriously, ask any 10 year old boy if he never wants to go to school again, and probably 8 times out of 10, they will shout “hell yeah!”  

My home-ed experience certainly made me who I am today.  I was very lucky to have essentially four parents, my step-parents included, who are all very intelligent, in different fields!  My Dad is an accountant, so he is fantastic with numbers, my Mum’s versatility and ability to turn her hand to anything is invaluable, my step-dad has a huge creative flair and a brilliant ability with drama and creative writing (as well as having a biology degree), and my step-mum has a fantastic business mind.  So in this respect, I was incredibly lucky, even though now I am 22 I can still just about retain a little of all the stuff we covered in those years!  

Something else that benefitted me hugely in the 6 years I was home-taught, is the fact that we used to go travelling all around Europe in a motorhome.  I must admit, after the first couple of tours around France and Spain, the novelty did begin to wear off.  When I hit the age of 14, I began yearning to be able to have the opportunity to socialise with people my own age.  Because of all the travelling, it limited my chances to become more involved in the social clubs that I wanted to be a part of more, the football teams and the drama clubs.  Both of these were huge passions of mine, and I became ever more frustrated with our frequent excursions out of the country.  

However, looking back at that period of my life, I don’t regret any of it.  At the time I was going through a tough age and I guess my natural instinct to was rebel against my parents.  Truth is, travelling in a motorhome, meeting so many different people along the way really did broaden my mind.  Forgive me if this does sound a little pretentious, but I now have the ability to see a wider picture and I put that down hugely to being so close to my family whilst experiencing so many adventures on our travels.  Yes, because I barely saw people my own age when growing up, it did perhaps hinder my social skills (especially with women!) when I began college, however I think I have finally learnt now…although I am still a little useless with women ha.

In summary, home education is not just about what grades you want your child to get.  Grades come with natural intelligence I believe.  If you are thinking about teaching your children at home, just to get them better grades and GCSEs, then I firmly believe you are doing it for the wrong reasons.  However if you want to do it to broaden your child’s horizons as a person, and you feel like you can offer them the outlets and those experiences that they wouldn’t get if they were at school, you should certainly, certainly consider it.

HE Parents:Education for yourself...perhaps family history?

At this time when there is a large elephant in the room all the time with a certain tattoo...

Original image by Leah Saulnier

I find that I am thinking about the example I may be setting to my children.  I LOVE learning - I can't stop myself from getting enthusiastic and excited about subjects that interest me.  I hope that they also pick up on the fact that I try to engage with subjects that don't interest me as much.  For example, some aspects of Maths are wonderful (geometry, algebra) and others just leave me cold (nth term).

So, leaving the last week of IGCSE Geography and Paper 1 of IGCSE Physics behind, I have hurled myself into a project of my own.  Dave and the children can certainly see I am dedicating a whole heap of time to it and that I am using many resources.

So, what can this project be?  A family history project!

Yes - I have discovered the allure of Ancestry.co.uk.  It is free at local libraries and they have the full version. Last night I succumbed to a 14 day free trial of the home premium version but I don't think I will continue with it as the library is always there.

It was the mention of a couple of family mysteries on the Mason side that led me to start.  So much is known about my side (my parents having spent a lot of time on it) and personally I think it is very important to know about your forebears.

The big dark secret on the Mason side is the true identity of Dave's grandfather on his mother's side.  The tale goes (and it could well be a tale based on some truth) that grandfather Frank Maidment was actually born in India to an English army officer and a local Indian woman.  He was brought back to the UK and educated in an orphanage, sponsored by an officer called Maidment.

There appears to be some truth in it but many unanswered questions (why are exam papers creeping back into my head...BE GONE!)

So far, I have discovered the name listed on his birth certificate for his mother is Annie Maidment, domestic servant (I ordered a copy of the original).  No father is listed.  The birth date and registration date are months apart and the area he was registered is far from where she grew up (in Tisbury Union Workhouse in 1871) and from where she had been living in 1881(Islington as a domestic servant). They then both disappear from all records until 1901 when George Francis Bailey Maidment (Frank) turns up in the census of an orphanage/children's home in Shefford, Bedfordshire.

When the home burns down in 1908 he joins the army.  Fascinating physical description of him that matches the photo we have of him at about that age.  He was only 5'4" with black hair and "sallow".  He is then deployed to South Africa and Hong Kong by way of Bodmin (Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry).

Frank in 1908, possibly
Dave and Rory bear a strong resemblance

Is that Frank extreme left in the back row?
Picture is of his regiment in Hong Kong 1913

1915 - buys his way out of the army and seems to have gone to Hong Kong where he became a police officer.  He returned to the UK in 1917 and then I lose him again until he marries in Peterborough in 1924 to a girl from Shefford.  He moved to Norwich at some point and used to drive the local children around in his car (presumably in the 1930s) - he was always known as "The Indian".

There is more but that would be boring.  Suffice it to say that it has taken me days and days to find out all the pieces of the jigsaw that is the Mason-Maidment side of the family.

No sign of any Indian connections on the face of it - the facts are as they appear but then the fun bit is what the imagination does with them!  Was he brought back and Annie paid handsomely by a high ranking officer to register as his mother?  Who is the mysterious lodger Henry Quinn, commission agent, who lives in Islington at the house where she works?  What happened to Annie that meant Frank went to an orphanage?  Is that him in the second picture?  Your opinions, please!

I feel a novel coming on....!