Life Update!
Nov. 18th, 2015 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauren3210Okay, so I'm meant to be writing, but I'm just so wound up that I feel like I could explode at any moment, so instead I'm coming on here to vent my frustrations. Um, sorry in advance?
Do you ever get so angry that you literally start shaking, and you can't work out if that lump in your stomach means you're going to start bawling your eyes out or projectile vomiting? Because that's where I am right now.
My daughter doesn't go to a very good school, okay. We know this, but our options are limited (by societal design, because they make damn sure that any good schools are well beyond the possible financial scope of anyone not included in the top 1% of the country), and we do our best with what we've got. We're fairly lucky, really, because our collective families have a lot of advanced education: she can come to me for any English questions; her dad for science stuff, my stepdad for maths, my mum for history - between us all, we've got it covered for if she needs support that the school can't give. Not everyone has that, especially where we are currently living, so yeah, all things considered, she's pretty damn fortunate. What we can't do, however, is affect what they teach her while she's actually there.
So first of all, two weeks ago, my daughter was told that all of her Spanish GCSE coursework that she has been doing over the 15 MONTHS cannot be sent to the governing body, because her teacher gave them all the wrong syllabus. We complained, as did many other parents, but there really wasn't anything that could be done to rectify the situation, except for Eryn to rewrite everything according to the correct syllabus so that it could be submitted. Which she had to do within 2 DAYS. Yep, she had to write the equivalent of 15 months worth of work in just 48 hours. My daughter, being the trooper she is, managed to get it in just under the deadline, although many of her classmates have had to settle for half a grade drop.
Then, as if that wasn't enough of a fuck-up for them, today she had a History mock exam. These exams are important, because if she wants to carry on to do A levels (which she does), she has to submit her mock exam results into the schools and colleges she's applying to. These results are supposed to reflect what she is likely to get in her actual GCSE exams, which are coming up in 6 months' time. But when she got into the exam, she found out that everything her teacher has been teaching her and everything she's been told to revise was the WRONG FUCKING THING. She was taught all about the Treaty of Versailles and the war, and the exam was all about the League of Nations - not a fucking treaty to be seen. Which means that she's going to get a failing mock grade, and she will have no choice but to submit that to her chosen colleges.
I mean, what the actual fuck? Do these teachers even have degrees? Have they just been dragged in off the street and given a job? It just boggles the mind, really, because there are like a dozen different people who would have had to sign off on these lesson plans, so it's not just one person fucking up, but a whole host of them. Seriously, I am so angry I just want to rip their faces off. I just... I don't know what to do, with either this situation OR the amount of rage I have currently running through my veins.
On a slightly happier note, let me tell you something that Ben did over the weekend. He's a bit of a weirdo, okay, and there are times when I wonder who thought it was a good idea to give this overgrown child an actual medical licence. But anyway, on Sunday he decided to play a prank on our two youngest, by filling the water filter jug with weak lemon squash and insisting that it was in fact his own pee and then drinking it in front of them. Cue screams of disgust from everyone close by, followed by my 5y/o running off to find me, where she says, "Mama! Quick, take your [engagement] ring off, he's a very weird man!" Like, she was SO CONCERNED for me that I might actually marry a man who drinks his own pee, and desperately wanted to save me from the 'weird man'. I think I cracked a rib laughing.
Okay, venting over, and back to your usual viewing schedule.
Do you ever get so angry that you literally start shaking, and you can't work out if that lump in your stomach means you're going to start bawling your eyes out or projectile vomiting? Because that's where I am right now.
My daughter doesn't go to a very good school, okay. We know this, but our options are limited (by societal design, because they make damn sure that any good schools are well beyond the possible financial scope of anyone not included in the top 1% of the country), and we do our best with what we've got. We're fairly lucky, really, because our collective families have a lot of advanced education: she can come to me for any English questions; her dad for science stuff, my stepdad for maths, my mum for history - between us all, we've got it covered for if she needs support that the school can't give. Not everyone has that, especially where we are currently living, so yeah, all things considered, she's pretty damn fortunate. What we can't do, however, is affect what they teach her while she's actually there.
So first of all, two weeks ago, my daughter was told that all of her Spanish GCSE coursework that she has been doing over the 15 MONTHS cannot be sent to the governing body, because her teacher gave them all the wrong syllabus. We complained, as did many other parents, but there really wasn't anything that could be done to rectify the situation, except for Eryn to rewrite everything according to the correct syllabus so that it could be submitted. Which she had to do within 2 DAYS. Yep, she had to write the equivalent of 15 months worth of work in just 48 hours. My daughter, being the trooper she is, managed to get it in just under the deadline, although many of her classmates have had to settle for half a grade drop.
Then, as if that wasn't enough of a fuck-up for them, today she had a History mock exam. These exams are important, because if she wants to carry on to do A levels (which she does), she has to submit her mock exam results into the schools and colleges she's applying to. These results are supposed to reflect what she is likely to get in her actual GCSE exams, which are coming up in 6 months' time. But when she got into the exam, she found out that everything her teacher has been teaching her and everything she's been told to revise was the WRONG FUCKING THING. She was taught all about the Treaty of Versailles and the war, and the exam was all about the League of Nations - not a fucking treaty to be seen. Which means that she's going to get a failing mock grade, and she will have no choice but to submit that to her chosen colleges.
I mean, what the actual fuck? Do these teachers even have degrees? Have they just been dragged in off the street and given a job? It just boggles the mind, really, because there are like a dozen different people who would have had to sign off on these lesson plans, so it's not just one person fucking up, but a whole host of them. Seriously, I am so angry I just want to rip their faces off. I just... I don't know what to do, with either this situation OR the amount of rage I have currently running through my veins.
On a slightly happier note, let me tell you something that Ben did over the weekend. He's a bit of a weirdo, okay, and there are times when I wonder who thought it was a good idea to give this overgrown child an actual medical licence. But anyway, on Sunday he decided to play a prank on our two youngest, by filling the water filter jug with weak lemon squash and insisting that it was in fact his own pee and then drinking it in front of them. Cue screams of disgust from everyone close by, followed by my 5y/o running off to find me, where she says, "Mama! Quick, take your [engagement] ring off, he's a very weird man!" Like, she was SO CONCERNED for me that I might actually marry a man who drinks his own pee, and desperately wanted to save me from the 'weird man'. I think I cracked a rib laughing.
Okay, venting over, and back to your usual viewing schedule.
