Little Miracles

After two weeks missing, presumed gone forever - Whiskers the hamster returned!

He was found in a box in the garage, which we presume he fell into from the rafters having crawled through the floor space above.  Dehydrated, dusty, considerably slimmer and looking as shocked as we were - but otherwise alive!

Not much else to say except : wow.

He might be just a rodent but in our house he's now a legend.

Pompeii

By no means the only Vesuvian town Pompeii is iconic, giving us an extraordinary link to a natural disaster occurring 1900 years ago. The site gives a snapshot of human civilisation and highlights how family, status, art, religion, business and community have remained relatively unchanged over the intervening centuries.

Archaeologically interesting, we looked briefly at artefacts online but the human aspect is where we were focussed. We touched on causes of volcanic eruptions from our Weather topic last year, disaster response, beliefs and looked for similarities in our own town (despite our notable lack of a volcano, much to the boys' disappointment).

We read extracts from Pliny the Younger who wrote to his uncle about what he'd seen at Pompeii, watched a fantastic CGI animation of the timeline of the eruption and finished up with a virtual tour of Pompeii thanks to Google Streetview.

Resources

"You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore." Pliny the Younger

A computer animation showing a timeline of the volcanic eruption:
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/watch-the-destruction-of-pompeii-by-mount-vesuvius-re-created-with-computer-animation-79-ad.html

Google street view, explore the ruins from the comfort of home:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7489468,14.4848331,3a,75y,209.48h,82.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1e-bu_kis-dL1BnVGZhDdw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Pompeii in images (good for quick reference):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9557356/Pompeii-in-pictures.html

Pliny the Younger:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/pliny_the_younger.shtml
Plus an extended version of his letter:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pompeii.htm

Full, detailed information on the various buildings etc found:
https://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/

Sunrise Colours

One morning last month we had the most beautiful sunrise. The boys spotted it over breakfast and so I took a quick snap, hoping to catch the layers of colours in the sky.

Inspired, we set about having an art lesson (over 3 days) with tree techniques, paint washes, blending and drawing with various pens.

W (landscape minimalist) interpreted the image with typical focus on a single tree and had to be encouraged to add any further detail. A house was born of imagination.

K (still life perfectionist) got stressed that there were too many trees to recreate so needed encouragement that we were using the image as inspiration not to produce an exact copy.

Both boys were really proud of their work.

What nature supplied:

Creating a wash and blending:

Planning & drafting:

The finished artwork:

 

Shaping Up

We've been playing with shapes lately; we've looked at how things are made up of shapes, revised 2D shape names (I can never remember what a trapezoid is) and talked tessellation.

One activity was to see what animals we could draw from common shapes. I'd have gone for a slug or starfish but the boys were more ambitious and made some beautiful creatures. We made tracks, spirals and walls with jenga blocks with a side note on strength and stability.

For tessellation we played with the fab website at http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/tess/tess.htm and created patterns inspired by Victorian tiling. To finish off, we looked at tessellation in nature, with a google image search bringing up wonderful examples in flowers, honeycombs and snakes.

A note on shapes - we had to look up the difference between a rhombus and a diamond :
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-rhombus-and-a-diamond

Sorry Whiskers

Whiskers, W's beloved hamster and all round awesome rodent, has been missing for a week and we have concluded that he's probably now in hamster heaven.

He went missing and (ever helpful when hamsters are involved) Stevie the cat suggested Whiskers may have taken refuge in the bathroom. Out came the cupboard contents to reveal a very unhelpful hole in the wall giving access to the wall cavity and entire upstairs floor space. My heart sank.

We emptied rooms, lifted carpets, used angle mirrors, left inventoried food piles in every room with closed doors for days. S set up a motion detecting Ham Cam in the bathroom to monitor the hole. I stayed up late 3 nights running to lie on the landing and listen out for scratching or scuffling.

Nothing.

We agreed as a family that we're not giving up on Whiskers, but we are ready to accept that he isn't coming back.

Last night, W cried and cried until eventually he fell asleep. It was a heart breaking display of deep grief combined with guilt - he had left the cage open.

Loss is always hard but W has had it quite tough for an 8 year old. He's lost 2 cats, 2 grandads, 2 great grandparents and his hamster in under 2 years. I'm not being flippant when I list them together - as an adult I'm sad about the pets but devastated about the humans. As a child, they all hurt equally.

He's familiar with my speech about how lucky we were to have <Grandad / Lily / Great Nana / Whiskers etc etc etc > in our life and how many happy memories we have to hold on to. He glazes over when I say I know it hurts and it's okay to be sad. He's heard it too many times.

Some things can't be fixed - they just have to be carried.

Applied Cake

I wanted to do some applied maths with the boys - weights, measures, ratios - so they could demonstrate they understood what we covered last week. We halved a cake recipe, weighed out the dry ingredients, measured the liquids....

Or perhaps I just fancied cake.

Creative Boost

In 1999 a detailed report into culture and creativity in education was written by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education headed by Sir Ken Robinson.

Well over a decade later, the world has changed but most of the points raised in the report have not:
https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2010/10/rsa-animate---changing-paradigms/

The impact of creativity on learning and engagement cannot be underestimated.

Pick any 30 adults born in roughly the same year as you. Go and sit in a room. Someone arrives and tells you what you're going to do today. It's a task to build a tower of newspaper as high as you can. You've been given a blueprint showing a base with tubes of paper stuck together and so you get to work. Every adult will build a tall tower, but what was the point?

Rewind a step and imagine you're not given any instructions. How many inventive and interesting adaptations would 30 adults come up with? How much more challenging and engaging would the session be? How much more would you learn from the people around you?

Was the purpose to build a tall tower, or to work out a way to build a tall tower?
Which approach would produce skills that were useful in other contexts?

In essence, creativity is about unlocking potential : your own potential and the potential of those around you. Being surrounded by different ideas and viewpoints inspires and expands your own.

We are so worried about ensuring children meet targets that we demonstrate a lack of faith in them. Rather than risk missing a target we stay safe and guide them to a solution, give the instructions and lay out the blueprint. At the outcome - they built the tower, they got the grade - we reassure ourselves, pat ourselves on the back and feel we did the right thing.

A short term win; a long term loss.

If you still need convincing, put the kettle on and have a look at this article which gives a broad and well researched view on the vital skill of creativity in children and adults :
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/resourcesandcpd/research/summaries/rsfosteringcreativity.asp

In the words of Albert Einstein : 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.'


Further reading : 

The full All Our Futures report is here : http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/all-our-futures-creativity-culture-and-education

The BBC reviewed it in 2009 and pulled together further research into the benefits of creativity in teaching, specifically its impact on results : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8064306.stm

Sir Ken Robinson reviewed his report in 2011, providing a brief assessment of whether the content was still relevant : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjQ6iMGYKk

The 11+ and Other Horrors

The title is a lie, there are no other horrors as fearsome as the 11+ which incidentally had a friendly re-brand and is now called the 'Transfer Test'.

So instead of failing the 11+ kids can now proudly say that they failed to get a STTS (Standardised Transfer Test Score) or 121 or above. Much better for self esteem.

When it comes to the 11+ the fear, loathing and responsibility is overwhelming.

Let's dive in with the cohort statistics. Out of about 10,000 children, 3,000 will be selected for grammar. The magical score children have to achieve is 121, sat on a scale of 0 - 200. Those pass numbers are skewed though because out of area applications have a much higher pass rate: perhaps if you don't live in county you only bother to take the test if you think you've got a good chance of passing. Within county, there's a pass rate of roughly 23%, so let's call it 1 in 4 children from the primaries in our area who get selected for grammar.

Looking ahead, children at grammar schools get better grades at GCSE level because only the most academically able are there. If you go to a grammar school, you have a 99% or so chance of getting A*-C in your GCSEs. In a comp, it's nearer 65% and the intake is the start point for the difference.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that unless your offspring get into a grammar then they are doomed to a life of mediocrity and low grades, which is as stupid as it is untrue. The problem is that the frenzy that parents whip up around the test can't fail to make children, and other parents, scared. Tutoring needs a blog all of its own. So does pushy parenting. But this blog is just about me and my kids so to hell with everyone else.

In order to retain some sense of sanity and order, I am repeating the following mantras:
They take the same exams whichever school they're in.
Kids with a good attitude will succeed regardless of the school they attend.

The headline is that 75% of children in our area go to comprehensives and while we have some excellent grammar schools, we have some excellent comps in our area too. Lucky us!

K is a smart kid. He works hard, questions everything and has a great memory. K is a process thinker; he likes to do one thing at time and get it perfect. He doesn't like to guess, still thinks short cuts are cheating (despite my protestations) and won't give up on a problem until he has the answer. These admirable personality traits will cost him dearly in the 11+ which relies on fast analysis, quick decisions and an ability to give rapid fire answers to rapid fire questions. Despite ability in non-verbal reasoning and literacy, K's maths is average and so the upshot is that he's a borderline case at best. It would be easier if he was a definite no or definite yes. Even if he did pass, would grammar be right for him anyway?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10328580/Weakest-pupils-suffer-crisis-of-confidence-in-top-schools.html

It's a divisive, unnecessary system I have come to hate on every level, but no one forced us to live in this county and so we have to concede that our son will end up in the school that is right for him.

The tricky thing is that K cares, A lot. He understands that this is a test that you pass or fail, however they play with the words. What child wants to fail? So as a parent even if you trust the system and allow the chips to fall as they will, you can't sit back and do nothing. You have to give them the best shot, so whatever number appears next to their name, be it 80 or 180, they can feel good about it and know they did well. I wouldn't go to an interview or test unprepared and I don't expect K to do so either but this is one single test with a score that proves only the narrowest of skill sets.

It doesn't test athletic or musical ability, kindness, science, ICT, real life problem solving, resilience, teamwork.

It's tests of character, not maths or verbal reasoning, that define success in life.