JustPickOneUK

Your child going to school for the first time is a big change for any household. But there are things you can do as parents to help make things smoother on you. I have sent my child in to school and I work in one as a teaching assistant and these are some things which I feel may help others.  i. Label everything. You have worked hard to choose the right school, got all of the uniform, a bag, a new bottle, lunchbox, coat, hat, gloves etc.  Most of these items will be put down or taken off and potentially lost. If you put a label on it with your child's full name your class teacher or teaching assistant has a much better chance of keeping track of it and getting it back to the right child. You don't need to use expensive labels, a Sharpie will do a good job on its own. But please check it every so often to make sure its still visible.   ii. Leave your child at the door. It sounds easy but if your child is having a wobble and in tears about going in to school, most of t...

After much deliberation, I decided to buy a National Trust annual pass for the family. We were visiting Bath earlier in the year and we have ideas for the summer holidays to travel around the UK and so I thought it would be a good idea to have the option of some plans for days out, culture, beauty and generally less thinking would be involved when we travel.  For anyone outside the UK or does not know, the National Trust is an charitable organisation which looks after and manages over 500 properties, gardens and land of historical or cultural interest within the UK. For example it looks after The Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland, Cliveden House in Berkshire and is linked with English Heritage for Stonehenge.    The Giants Causeway Cliveden House Stonehenge   These are all very important sites and without organisations like the National Trust, a lot of them would have been lost to time or disrepair.    Each location has a place to park either on site or n...

I was always a reluctant camper. Why have a thin piece of canvas over my head, sleep on the floor and be cold and wet the whole time when there is a lovely hotel with a comfy bed, shower and toilet in the room with you and a TV? Because it's fun! My husband would say.  Back in the mid 2000's we went on a camping trip with our smallish tent around the south coast of England. The journey was fine, seeing lots of nice places and everything but we only camped once in 10 days because the weather was seriously against us. Biblical wet springs to mind. Noah may have thought about putting more provisions on the Ark if he saw it.   We decided to give it another try, given the 2 year hiatus from overseas holidays and the costs of going on one now. Camping seemed like a good alternative.  Well I said, if we are doing this then we doing this properly. I want a big tent and comfortable mattresses. So we bought this... A *Coleman Vail 6 man tent which according to tenting companie...

Being a parent is hard work. That's a simple fact. Getting children ready and out the door to come to school can be a challenge. When your child gets to school, I hope they are greeted with a warm welcome so they feel they are in a safe environment with people they can trust. I try to create that environment for the children in my classroom.  Sometimes children can have a bad morning due to a variety of reasons. A bad sleep, a relative or pet passing away, a fall out with friends, family divorce, a house move or even a toy going missing are all examples of things outside school which can significantly impact their behaviour, concentration and friendships within the classroom.  Sometimes children take a different approach to dealing with tragedy than adults do (yes, a toy being lost for 10 minutes can be tragic for them). They are still learning to cope with emotions and do not have the logic as a back up to work out how to deal with them. Sometimes the reaction to bad news or ...

When I decided to write a blog, I had a few ideas about things to write. Mostly about things to do with being a parent and school as these are the biggest things in my life right now. They are both eye opening experiences every day. But what should I call it that is individual and connected to a niche but generic enough so that I can write about anything and everything? (As the advice columns tell you to do).  Making decisions is not something that comes very naturally to me. In a world when growing up as a millennial means that the world is at your feet, you can do anything with your life. For some it's very freeing "I can do anything- WOW!" But if you are like me then it's more "I can do anything - that's too big, how do I choose?"  I struggle to make decisions about most things, which holiday shall we go on, do I want this item of clothing or not or even just what shall we eat for dinner tonight? Mostly my indecision is about a silly first world probl...