Oh what a horrible start to the year we've had

Imagine this.
Your child is being bullied at school; it has had a devastating impact on his or her ability to learn and on their psychological and emotional health. You are very unhappy with the way in which the school has handled or failed to handle this. The situation is worsening. You seek to withdraw your child from school and make alternative arrangements for his or her education. But there is a new law that states you must apply for permission to de-register;you apply as instructed. You are refused.
How would you feel?
What would you do?

Currently, British law recognises parents as their child's primary educators whether or not the child is currently at school; the adults who best love and understand their child are those in law who have ultimate responsibility for their education and welfare and it is your judgement as a parent which counts; you decide what kind of education best suits your child; if it isn't working , you have the right and power to seek an alternative.
A new government review seeks to overturn this time-honouredprinciple of British law and to replace the judgement and authority of the parents with that of the State.If it is passed, it will radically change the relationship of all parents to the State and seriously undermine the integrityof families.It will also replace the judgement of those who best love and understand the child with that of faceless bureaucrats whose focus is on delivering a standard policy and imposing a government agenda rather than on the well being of the child.You can read about the review here; and remember, regardlesss of its title , the proposals would affect all parents.

http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/8318-DCSF-HomeEdReviewBMK.PDF

and petition for it's agenda to be dropped here;

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EHEreview/

A birthday, a Christmas and a New Year

I have a question going round in my head I need an answer for and I don't know how I will feel once I know the answer. I'm a little nervous now ... I don't want to tell you quite yet what this question is but I will soon...

I havent updated my blog in a long time and there are so many things I want to share!

Christmas has come and gone, and so has another year. My mum is in England with us at the moment and she came just before my birthday (5th December). Mike and I went out for a nice meal to Skidby Mill which was nice. My mum looked after William for us while we were out. We don't get much chance to go out, so it is nice to take my mum up on her offers to baby sit for William.
With my birthday money I ordered some (MORE) books from Amazon, 3 on unschooling / home schooling and a copy of Sandra Thursfields Medieval Tailor Assistant. Since joining our 13th and 15th century reenactment group we've been busy sewing and making shields and belts and other "stuff". Mike needed some persuading about the whole reenactment thing but now he is as excited as I am about getting dressed up and swordfighting and all the rest of it! And I'm sure once the new season starts I'll have lots of things to tell about our reenactment adventures ;)

For Christmas we had Mikes parents for dinner on Christmas eve and we celebrated the Austrian way where we opened presents and lit the tree with real candles - GOT to have real candles for me!
On Christmas Day we went to Mikes mum who cooked a Christmas Dinner for us all which was delicious.
On Boxing Day all my family came for a buffet and more food (my sister and her son, my brother and their mum and partner - my dad was married before meeting my mum)

We had a lovely time and as soon as I possibly can I will upload some photos. I know how much I like looking at photos of other peoples blogs so in case anyone is reading this I don't want to let you down ;)

William obviously got lots of presents although I had planned on keeping them down... we were going to get him a highbed for his room to maximise space as the two childrens rooms are very small. I then realized that there's no need to purchase one as I found a way to use the bunkbed we had without the bottom bed in it. Mike will need to adjust the height eventually and raise it up so that William can have a sofa or a desk or something underneath it if he wants to. But at the moment it's perfect for him - he's got the space to play and we've got an extra bed for guests (William still shares our bed)
So instead he got a play sink which you can actually put water in and squirt it out of the tap, some play food and a play till - he loves playing with the money in it! He also got a scooter, a rag doll, some clothes and a few cars - his all time favourite!!! He is a typical boy i guess. I asked for arts and crafts stuff and he got a table top easel and a book with ideas on what to make with kids. His birthday is in February so it won't be long before he gets even more!

Last night, New Years Eve Mike, William and I stayed in and popped some party poppers, blew some noisy blow outs, put some paper strings on Mikes haid and pretended it was his hair and watched the few fireworks we could see from our bedroom window, then we went to bed. William slept until lunchtime today and then we went to have a meal at Home Farm where William was able to play in the softplay area there. He made friends with a gorgeous girl, about 3 times his age who looked after him. She was very sweet and William followed her everywhere!