Archives for September 2012

When I did year 12 the exam results came out in January – about two-three months after exams finished. I was down at the beach doing vacation swimming lessons when I found out my results. They weren’t online back then and the school must have heard about them before we students did.

Mum actually found out my results before I did via the deputy principal and she came and told me. They weren’t brilliant results but enough to eventually get me into university. I also heard that my deputy principal had thought that I wouldn’t pass. I showed him didn’t I? I think I was more pissed off that he would actually say that to someone than the fact that he didn’t think I’d pass at all.

For some reason out of the 15 people in my year 12 class, only nine of us passed. I was surprised at those results and it probably didn’t do the school’s reputation that much good.

Fast forward some years, and then a few and we’ve got NAPLAN for year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students. NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy). My son has finished his second NAPLAN year. It passed without much of a blip on our radar two years ago but this year there seemed to be more of a focus.

The thing with NAPLAN is that the school gets assessed too and obviously schools want to do well compared to other schools. It must have been mentioned quite a bit in the classroom and this meant that my son got fairly anxious about it.

While I think it’s important to try and do your best I don’t think things like this are the be all and end all for an individual and tried to let my son know this. I  hope this will be enough if he sticks out high school and goes down the year 12 exam route. I suppose one way of looking at him having to do this is that it’s a bit of a training ground for sitting through exams. Don’t get me started on having to do exams.

Because they thought he might have problems with the assessment he was allowed an extra five minutes for each one.

As it turns out he did really really well in the reading and numeracy aspects of the assessment. His spelling and grammar need some serious work, but I’m hoping that his reading and his new found love of writing will help in those areas.

He said his teacher complimented him on his results. They were probably surprised at his results. He showed them didn’t he?

A few months ago I shared my story about the golden age of parenting then it turned to crap.

Last night was a bit of a mixture of both.

I had to go out for a little while and he had a couple of minor jobs to do. The understanding is that once he’s done these jobs then he can watch television.

I got home inbetween appointments and he immediately jumped into the shower which he should have already had, and he also hadn’t fed the dog. And I needed to use the shower.

I had to pop out again for a committee meeting and this is what greeted me when I got home.

A lovely note on the lounge room door: “I love you mum, with all my hart.”

The glitter lamp was providing some mood lighting in the lounge and the heater was on. He’d even put a Deep Forest CD on the stereo.

I was absolutely stoked that he’d done this so imagine how much my mummy pride lifted when he told me he’d done the dishes.

Yes, he’d done the dishes. Without asking!!!!!

Not only that. He’d washed out Monty’s dog food container and put it in the esky ready for the dog food delivery today.

He’d provided me with a drink of water – thought he’d better not pour me a wine.

He would have lit the candles but also thought he’d better not do that.

He would have got some dinner ready for me but wasn’t quite sure what I’d like.

But, he washed the dishes. Without me asking.

He was so proud of himself and I was so damn proud of him and he didn’t even have an ulterior motive. Not one.

I gave him lots of hugs and thanks and kissed him goodnight, made myself some cheese on toast and sat down to watch Big Brother.

I reckon I must be doing something right.

The lad was away on the weekend at a Scout camp and as I had Saturday free I thought I’d tackle tidying up his room while he wasn’t there. It’s very hard to throw out stuff if he knows it’s going as he’ll want to keep it.

I really wanted to go and see a movie but every time I walked past his messy bedroom I cringed and knew I could put it off no longer.

Another incentive I had was that the school were taking items for the upcoming fete and had a drop-off couple of hours on Saturday morning so not only could I sneak stuff into the rubbish bin, I could get rid of the non-throwaway items.

It took me three hours all up but every time I walk past his room now I smile. I was a bit embarrassed at how much dust I vacuumed up but I did actually move some things I don’t normally move.

I came across these paintings and drawings he’s done over the last couple of years that he’d put aside to keep but I don’t have that much storage space so I decided to take photos of them instead.

He doesn’t know it yet and probably won’t even ask me about it but here they are for posterity. They’re also on Flickr in their full form for him to look back on one day.

For the record, I do have a folder with some things he’s created that I’ve kept the hard copy of but I can’t possibly do that for everything so I think this is a good compromise.

What do you do with your child’s creations?