The end of an era

I thought I would add a quick post to mark the end of an era. Torvy has finally (aged not quite 14) ousted most of his stuffed toys. They have been languishing in the bottom of his wardrobe for some time, but tonight the axe finally fell for all but a select few, including Nala, his first ever stuffed toy. Should the day ever come that she gets the chop, I shall secrete her in my wardrobe until his own children come along. After all, Björn still has Tender Bear, and the same rule applies to him. Not to mention the fact that we still have John's 46 year old Scruffy Bear!

I confess to a lump in my throat at the sight of the toys piled up in the passage. They made a sizeable pile and it was a slightly pathetic sight. He has loved stuffed animals with such disregard for popular opinion that I recognise it as a milestone that he now feels he has outgrown them

A converted stable!

After John's tankdriving experience, we spent the night with some people we know in Winchester. I met the husband at work - he has a contract with my current client - and we hit it off straight away. So we invited them to join us for a braai a few weeks back. Since they live in Winchester, when they heard about our forthcoming jaunt there, they immediately insisted that we spend the night with them. It's a long time since we've encountered that kind of hospitality, but the wife is from a small town Afrikaans family, and it comes as second nature to her.

They have a lovely home, part of which was a 16th century stable, and we spent a very pleasant evening with them.

Playing soldiers

For his birthday this year, I gave John one of those Experience Voucher things. This one was for a half day of driving tanks and things. When he was in the army, he was a transport officer, so he got to drive just about everything with wheels. But he neither drove nor travelled in anything with tracks, and he regreeted that fact. So this was his chance.

He booked his session for a time of year when he could hope for decent weater, which was thins Saturday past.

So bright and early on Saturday morning, we tootled down to Winchester. John spent the morning bucketing about on a quadbike:










A tank:









An armoured personnel carrier:










And an Abbot:

Looking for new schools

Things aren't looking good for Torvy at school. The bullying continues sporadically and his academic performance is slipping. We have had a run-in with one teacher and look set to have one with another teacher. He has simply given up on maths.

In despair, we have started looking around at other schools. Yesterday we went on a tour of a grammar school outside of the MK local authority (MK doesn't have grammar schools). We were quite impressed with the school, and it quickly became clear that Beej would excel there. This exactly what happened before when we looked at a private school because Torvy was struggling - it looked good for Björn but not for Torvy.

Grammar schools have a selection process, unlike the kids' current school which take kids who live in their catchment. Normally, kids write an optional exam called the 11+ in Year 6, and they get selected or rejected by grammar schools on the basis of their scores. We didn't bother with these because there are no grammar schools in MK. The school we looked at yesterday is the only one within a reasonable distance. It has the highest criteria in the county, and is enormously oversubscribed. When kids apply to go there after Year 7, obviously it's too late for the 11+, so the school runs separate tests. They can choose to test a child or not, and they base this decision on academic performance.

In Björn's case this is not a problem, because he has done a set of high school exams last year, and aced them. Torvy hasn't done any yet, so decisions in respect of him would have to be based on his CAT predictors (predictions made at the beginning of Year 8 of how well they are expected to do when they write their GCSEs 4 years later). He didn't do very well on those, so the chances are slim that the school will even agree to test him. (Note: Björn's CATs weren't great either, because he was sick when he took them, but he is totally outperforming the predictions)

We desperately want to get Torvy out of Stantonbury Campus, but all the options seem only to be available to Björn, who will do well wherever he goes - including staying at Stantonbury. So we have aching hearts and a quandary to deal with. Bearing in mind that kids from grammar schools get a better look from the top universities, do we split them up, and give Björn the opportunity of going to an elite school? Do we deny Björn this opportunity because Torvy can't get in anywhere else? Torvy's academic potential might not be as great as his brother's but he's still a bright kid and he's being allowed to slip through the cracks. We can't stand by and watch that happen, but there seem to be no courses of action open to us.

What to do, what to do....