WorkingMummy

On the basis of ElisaSmith?s recommendation I used James today for a removal job. (Shifting a sofa from a friend?s house to mine.) He was great. Punctual, very friendly (we had fun and he was very considerate to me as his assistant on the job) and the whole thing was done very efficiently. V good price too.

I had my eldest two in private school for their first 7 and 4 terms of primary school life respectively. Looking back, I was silly to fall for the hype. I moved them to our local primary for non-financial reasons. We were coming up to 7+ Prep school exams for my eldest and the talk in the playground amongst parents (and from the staff, trying to guide me as to where my SIX year old?s academic talents were) made me want to run for the hills. When I realised parents at this private school (which was actually lovely in some ways, and not major league) were ALSO paying for additional tutoring outside of school to get their six year olds through the 7+, I was out of there. The pressure, competition and expectation on children in the private is sector is, IMO, unhealthy. When I moved the children to state, I have to say, the quality of their education improved. The curriculum was the same. State schools often have better class sizes. (Classes can be too small as well as too big.) We found a better mix of friendly, diverse families. And: we found better teaching; a broader, more creative approach to learning topics. As for secondary state schools, the ?outstanding? ED state schools are so oversubscribed and the catchment areas/chances in ballot so tiny, that my eldest now commutes to a ?needs improvement? school in Lewisham. She loves it. She?s doing very well. She has, for example, completely fallen under the spell of her dynamic English teacher (whose hair cut, never mind her politics, would probably exclude her from ever being considered for a post at a private school), and is now talking (aged 12) of wanting to do a degree in the subject. I would say, as long as a secondary school streams (not all do), you are most likely wasting your money going private. Don?t be fooled by exam results as so much of that depends on the ?standard? of intake, not the quality of the teaching or what your child, with their abilities, will achieve. If there are extra activities (music theory, oil painting, Ancient Greek) your kids are up for, it?s way cheaper (and possibly more inspiring to them) to pay for these outside of school. Clubs abound around here. And. Lockdown and zoom has made the prospect of top-up tuition even more affordable as many out of London tutors now advertise for London pupils from as little as ?20 per hour.) In my view, the whole private system is a wheeze: they ruthlessly select not only the kids that will do ?well? - but the kids you can already be sure will do ?well? by 11 - which is a tiny subset of kids. And then they cash in on the achievement of those ?dead-cert? children to sell themselves to incoming parents. My kids are bright, and quite demanding in terms of what they themselves want from school. I came to the conclusion I would not put them through the ringer of ruthless selection processes, just for the ?privilege? of paying a school to take the credit for (bright, interested) children?s results at 16 and 18. I?d also say, if you do go private your children will miss out on the absolutely priceless experience of learning and growing in an environment that truly reflects the society/country they are actually living in. It?s a very narrow strata at selective and fee paying schools.

I went to state school in the 80s. My three are now all at state. The quality of pastoral care at our local community primary school is outstanding. Far surpasses anything I had. The teachers are all very creative, clever people and their approach to mental health is well informed and sensitive. I personally would not opt into private education. I put my eldest child into a small friendly pre-prep. All very lovely. Until the run up to 7+ (which I never even knew existed) started and then I found that the chat at the school gates (between parents, about tutors and outcomes and hopes for university etc) became bad for my mental health. I believe children at a decent state school can find their own natural level - where they perform academically. I think the pressure of expectation and the ever earlier process of selection is...not fun for kids.

You too! Thanks Monkey!

School allocations are out today. Is anyone able to tell me quickly, if I need to do anything to get onto the waiting list for our first choice school? (We?ve been allocated our sixth choice.) Many thanks. WM

Thanks Bumpkin. Pretty sure I couldn?t forget about all this myself .... Agh.

Hi. Can any one tell me why the ED Charter recommends parents to submit their Southwark LA applications before this Friday? When the deadline is 31st?

Try Malcolm Tierney. Expert joiner and carpenter. He has done loads in my house including some very tricky things that other joiners told me were not possible. He restored a Georgian sash window for me which could not be taken out of the wall without removing later Victorian features on the inside, (or expensive scaffolding plus remove Banham security features on the outside). He painstakingly cut out rot and spliced in perfectly fitting new pieces without taking the window out. It was like watching someone build a ship in a bottle. He also designed and made some very clever, invisible ventilation inside a Georgian wooden window rail to save the front of my house from an ugly air vent - to meet building regs when I had a new wood stove installed. He is very precise and very clever. Malcolm Tierney 07775 657371.

A huge shout out for Malcolm Tierney, a joiner and craftsman of the highest caliber, whose painstaking work on the three, enormous (3 meters high) sash windows on the first floor of my Georgian terrace, has been outstanding. Taking each window in turn, Malcolm stripped the wood right down, replaced the badly rotten casings and aprons where necessary, and on the sashes themselves, cut out rotten bits and replaced them with like-for-like made-to-measure new parts, like an evolving jigsaw puzzle. He built up the window frames appropriately to fill gaps (caused where the house settled, a couple of centuries ago!) so that the windows now actually fit their frames. He also re-weighted the leads for me. Malcolm has transformed my crumbling, stuck and rotten windows into draught-free beauties that glide up and down with a flick of my hand. Malcolm?s knowledge of his craft is amazing and you really know your house is in good hands with him. He is meticulously polite, punctual, works a full day for you (8am to 6pm frequently) and is always very considerate about the inevitable disruption to your home. He is very reasonable in his pricing. I have used him now for ten years as I have slowly tackled the windows on each floor of my house and he has never let me down. I recommend him very highly. His number is 07775 657371.

Wanted to put in a very good word for Stefano of Urban Wood Rhymes. He is a carpenter and wood restorer whom I found him through a recommendation posted on this site last year. He did such an excellent job for me that I thought I would renew his EDF good rep. Stefano designed, made and installed a wall mounted bench, with shoe shelves and bespoke coat racks, for the hall way of my family's home. Superb quality and looks really great. He also removed an existing fitted bookcase to reveal some of the period features of my reception room, and alongside that he restored the original, double folding doors that divide that room. Stefano's work is top notch. He is also a lovely person and a pleasure to have coming in and out of the house. His website is: www.urbanwoodrhymes.co.uk

I have a mezzanine platform in a new room. I have some carpet left over from carpeting the floor of the main, lower section of the room and I would like to have this cut up to fit the mezzanine. Ideally you would be able to supply basic underlay and also an odd bit of remnant carpet of any kind to fill in any gap left if necessary. The area of the mezzanine is about 1.5 and 3.0 meters. WM

Does anyone know if the water is on at Myatts today?

Picking holes in BLM, saying it suits America more than the UK, or critiquing the agenda - to me, it just 100% misses the point. Speaking as a privileged white woman, I consider myself to have zero right, zero place, to tell any minority group, or person, how to express their identity, or to vocalise their sense of injustice and oppression. Which is real. White people already dictate everything about the prevailing culture. We are represented by all the norms. We do not get to tell minorities how to express their own reaction to that. And as a woman - I have a lot to say about women's lives mattering. And just because women are a bit better represented in positions of influence and power, less likely to be raped, less likely to be forced into marriage, less likely to suffer FGM in this country than say....Saudi Arabia, I'll be damned if I'm going to speak out less whenever I confront sexism or male domination here at home. Which is daily. And if I started a movement here called - I don't know - female sexuality matters - and people criticised me for aping Saudi women's plight, I'd tell them, hell, to ....

Not bashing anyone. But I totally understand the BLM slogan and would not change it for a moment. White lives already matter. That is a given. The way the murder, mistreatment of white lives is reported in the media - already comes from a place where white lives matter. There is not huge institutional racism against white people, as there is against black. The context of the slogan is that white people are in the majority, and are the biggest influencer over cultural norms and standards of acceptability. (A woman's hour piece about black women who seriously have to debate with themselves - should I straighten/relax my hair, should I try to change my voice - ahead of a job interview, to look/sound more conventional - more white - spoke so loudly of this.) That is the context of the slogan. And if you are white (like me - I 100% include myself in this) you spend your time completely unaware of this. Because it doesn't shove itself in your face the whole time. It is not your immediate problem (or mine). Black lives matter. Black lives matter. We should all be saying it, with no fear at all that it diminishes the value of white lives. It doesn't!

The irony, when a thread about joy becomes an argument about petty theft. So, what Louisa describes is theft. No question. There's case law on it. First offence, you'd probably be let off with a fine. If you pleaded guilty.

When your dog can't find his ball in the long grass, and he springs up and down for it, tail wagging like mad.

Jonathan Sumption's new biography of Edward III is manageably small and great for taking the long view of the tension between England v Scotland v continental Europe.

Yes, PennyDreadful posted this link near the beginning of this thread. You can report anonymously, if you feel better that way. http://www.report-it.org.uk/report_a_hate_crime

she is awful. I bet the Tory party membership love her

Don't be daft. Democracy is no excuse for lunacy or abrogation of responsibility. Democracy would bring back hanging if given the choice. Democracy is mob rule, at its most extreme. And the Tories had way less than 50% of the actual vote at the last GE. They have a mandate to leave. They have no mandate at all as to what leave means.

I signed the petition last week, and I have not been pestered with emails or post. I take your point about ?really petitions. But I believe that grass roots led action is long overdue and it's not like time spent in chat rooms is going to solve anything.

Seabag, you make really important points, with a lot of insight. There is some progressive political commentary in the US which echoes your thoughts (in far less personal or careful terms probably). You may have to grit your way though the first 60 seconds of the woman on the right from LA saying that she just "doesn't get it". But I think this footage has some value in explaining where Brexit comes from, and why it is so self-sabotaging.

Done. Thanks Jenny1.

In the name of humanity, please sign. https://action.greenparty.org.uk

100%. I joined a political party for the first time in my life this week. Was torn between green and lib dem. Went with lib dem, but long for a new progressive alliance between those parties, the SNP and any labour MPs who still have their credibility. There is also a petition out there written by the greens which you can sign. https://action.greenparty.org.uk