June 6th

Our container arrived this Thursday.

Container PICS…

It was fantastic to sleep in our bed. We hadn’t slept in a proper bed for 3 months. My back is much better sleeping on a proper bed. The MAF inspection went well with only one decoration being taken for destruction. The tent passed and I am now planning where to spend Christmas. I would dearly love a day by the Sea on Christmas day. But we will see. The house is now more of a home with our belongings in the right places. It is good fun opening boxes to see what we packed and brought with us. The amount of clothes we have brought is astounding – you just don’t realise what you have until you see it crammed in to boxes. DVDs are a brilliant find as we have only one TV channel at the moment, which is not a very good signal. Perhaps I need to find the TV aerial amplifiers. I know we will need to buy a digi-box at the very least to get free digital TV. SKY TV seems the way to go though. The dish is already set up for that. The girls all now have a bed to sleep on. Amelia is sleeping on the steel framed bed from Petra (thank you Petra) – we all miss you, Dave, Rhiannon, Lorna and Elle and of course Chilli. Hopefully we will see you soon. 

More container photos

This weekend has been a mixture of weather. It is a long weekend for the Queen’s (official) birthday. I really don’t understand why she needs two birthdays! But since I get an extra day off from school I am happy!

School Next week is assessment week – all year groups have exams or assessments. What a good idea I think. Assessment Week. You can have your class for a practical assessment or they can practise an examination. Teachers revolve around this assessment. It is not a bitty system it is all geared to the assessments. So assessments mean something. I still love the matrix idea of the NZ curriculum for Technology. Choose from the matrix what you want them to learn BRILLIANT! No more being tied up by a GCSE in DRAWING and COLOURING IN but you can concentrate on TECHNOLOGY instead, or other areas of the curriculum to make up the credits you require. Much more flexible much more appropriate for the cohort of the kids

The girls are loving school. Amelia cycled to her school yesterday to see who was about. It is about a mile and half away and she cycled! I was very pleased. The rest of us went to the pool. Ellen’s throwing of the ball was good. Ellen has received her first certificate in school and is reading every day at the moment. She is reading everything. It is like she is self taught! This week the school had an open morning for parents to come to the classes and see what is going on so parents can support the teaching at home. The school is following a Thinking skills programme from Singapore which the children all participate in, then there were music lessons. Jo went and thoroughly enjoyed ‘little thinkers’ a little like P4C by the sound of it except children are encouraged to think outside the box. To see the same thing in new ways.