handwriting

Today is Monday. Well actually it probably isn’t anymore as I never post entries on a Monday as they do spectacularly badly. But anyway when I was writing this it was Monday.

Monday is a particularly bad day.

For many reasons. The usual ones. Husband back to work. Kids back to school. Bag packing. Early, dark morning. Scrambling not to be late. All the usual stuff families have to work through.

Anyway after the husband and kids have safely left for work and school I spend a few depressing hours getting on top of the detritus left by two days of not dealing with it. And the admin which still seems to pile up even on ‘non’ work days.

Usually I meet up with some friends and we stave off the Monday blues with tea and biscuits and chat. A good couple of hours in an otherwise dismal day.

And then after school we have to deal with the return of homework.

I have mixed feelings about homework. In theory I believe in homework. Which is a good job as mine get quite a lot of it. It is our own fault. We chose the school. And knew the homework policy before we did so. Although like a pregnant lady facing parenthood I was in denial somewhat. I should have listened.

Eldest gets about an hour a day. Middlest gets 40 minutes a day. Youngest about 20 minutes. It is useful for me. I get to know what is going on at school. Books come home and I can surreptitiously trawl them to see how they are getting on. It highlights areas they may want to work on with me. I can ‘help’ with stuff I love. Like algebra and history. And I can be ‘too busy’ when it is English. Or a fact file….saints preserve me from fact files…

Mine are very good and we operate a ‘do it on the day it is set’ policy which served me well at school. This means Saturdays and Sundays are usually free of homework which makes the contrast to Monday even more extreme.

So I get homework. I know why it is set. I try to be positive about it in front of the kids.

But in some ways I hate it. And Mondays are particularly bad. And this is because Youngest brings home her spelling sentences. Every week she has a list of 15 words to learn to spell. Usually based around a sound. This week that sound was ‘or’. She writes them out each morning in her book before breakfast. And has a test on a Friday. So far so OK. I did this as a child. Along with my times table tests. I have no issue with it.

What I have an issue with is the Monday task of putting these words into sentences. In her handwriting book. She has to come up with a sentence for 5 of the words. And then write them out so her risers and fallers (get me all ‘Primary Teachery’) fall exactly between the sets of lines provided in the special handwriting book.

So far this term her words have been too loopy, too small, too far apart, too close together, too god knows what. I don’t get the point. She doesn’t write in this way in her actual books, which lack the numerous sets of lines provided in the handwriting book. The fact that her writing is joined up and legible is enough for me. I find it particularly irritating as it is impossible to read some of her teacher’s marking comments as their writing is so illegible. My writing is illegible. My doctor’s writing is illegible. It doesn’t really matter. Especially in the modern world. Where writing in pen is dying out. I never hand write anything except greetings cards and shopping lists.

So I find it a banal task. Extremely.

Today these are the sentences we came up with. Youngest wasn’t brave enough to actually write them in her book. I wish she had.

Please transport me to a place where spelling sentences do not exist. Period.

I cannot afford the time to write out these spelling sentences. I have a life. I am eight and my hand writing is better than yours.

The pupil found writing out spelling sentences so depressing that she committed Harakari with a sword.

Coming up each week with an interesting assortment of spelling sentences is driving my mother mad.

Writing out these spelling sentences is pure torture.

I think we should have written these. Seriously.