Diary as therapy

So here’s the plan, Fin hates school, homework, writing, reading and all the things he should be doing at 8 years nearly 9. I have been told that moving schools is the wrong thing to do. Sticking at the one he’s at and trying to get change actioned is the way forward.

So, to make our lives bearable and stop rows on the weekend due to Fin’s built up angst over the week. I have decided to try getting him to dictate a diary about how he feels. Here is today’s entry. He was calmer afterwards. We’ll see if this carries on….

Saturday, 25 September 2010 – Finlay talks about school, I type.

I don’t really like sitting in a stuffy classroom and I think they could make it better. I think they should do things like an experiment on our school like that wood thing where they make the boys work in the woods and the girls in the classroom.

I wish they did it on our class.

Assembly is rubbish. Normally Ms Patterson’s assembly, she does all this ‘we have been working very hard this term’ and doing stories about stuff that we already know. We already know about not jumping out in front of a bus so why does she have to read stories about it. Normally there is thinking time right at the end and sometimes she doesn’t say what we should think about and it’s just really boring. And every time we have an assembly, they get their time to teach us but we don’t get our time outside because they waste our time and I would like that to change. Because it is a waste of our playtime and our free time to let us do what we want outside. If you added all of that time together all the plays we have, it would probably be just about 50 mins that we get outside and about 8 hours of the day they teach us and normally the 20mins in our first break the teachers make us go out late because they chat too long and they normally let our class go out last even though all the people in our class sit very nicely.

Most of the time they don’t give us extra break time even though they have kept us in 10 mins into our play time.

We are stuffed in a stuffy, sticky classroom all the time, they normally get to go out whilst we are stuffed in assembly and they get to have tea and eat biscuits while we are stuffed in. Ms Alavi, I know it was not her fault, she did this experiment on us and half the class had a biscuit and went on the computer and the second group had to sit down and write. Francis, he is sort of quite strange and he is like YEY when he had to do writing.

I hate writing because, well I sort of like writing when I have my face stuck into a story that I am writing, I sort of enjoy that, but when I am doing work differently, like copying words of the board it’s sort of like really boring.

In maths, I actually quite like maths, and I don’t know why. Science is quite good this year because after a couple of lessons we get to do experiments ourselves with liquids and solids at school. Geography I don’t really like it because I don’t really like looking at the weather and stuff.

Design Technology, I really like it because DT last year was making sandwiches and then we got to eat them. I don’t know what DT will be this year and I am really excited to find out. History I know what history will be this year and I am really excited to learn about the Egyptians and children in WW2. I think I have been in that class before, Mr Barnes’ class.

Reading I absolutely hate. But sometimes I do like it, if it is a good book. I can read really quickly in my head and I get some of the words wrong, but normally I get the words right and normally I have a good idea of what the book is about. Reading out loud, I find it very slow for me. I am slow at reading out loud, that’s what I think.

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