Maybe you are my friend, or maybe we’ve never met before.
Maybe we speak to each other daily, or maybe we’ve never so much as passed on the street.
Maybe I know you virtually in my on-line world of Twitter, of flickr, of moblog  or facebook.
Maybe I know you in the real world and every so often we’ll see each other in the pub or you come to my house and we laugh and joke the night away…
…but but however we may, or may not, know each other friend, family, acquaintance or stranger may I wish you the best for this festive season and a very prosperous new year…..

Merry Christmas.
Steph
xxx

The #welovethenhs twitter hashtag was started  to help defend the National Health Service from  attacks that are being launched on it by some of the opposition in the USA. President Obama has made health care reform a hot topic in the states by trying to approach the subject of re-balancing the inequalities they have there, mainly a  health care system which penalises the most needy and rewards the most privileged.

Personally, I have many reasons to moan about the NHS, but I also have many reasons that make me thankful for them, So when people start debating their own flawed medical systems by jumping all over our established system they have, in all likeliness, no first hand experience of  so cannot put forward a balanced debate, then I feel compelled to defend.

In the US without decent health insurance (and in some cases with  it) if I were in an accident or if I, or TBK fell ill. I would have to choose my/his/our treatment based on what I could afford, not on what would be best for us. At least with the NHS our options are sorted, I wouldn’t have to choose between paying for mine or TBK health care if I couldn’t afford both. I don’t have to worry about any unforeseen accidents or illnesses,  I know that if and when we fall ill or accidents  happen we would be dealt with in a fair, non for profit system.

Now  I know the NHS isn’t perfect, the waiting list  for basic medical care (I’m thinking about my 6 months wait for physiotherapy here) for example is atrocious, I know it has boundaries, we’ve read enough negative headlines about post code lotteries and NICE withholding medicines because of costs to know it’s not perfect but it’s what we have and in my opinion it’s a whole lot better than the alternatives.

For every 2 or 3 horror stories you hear there are 2 – 3 HUNDRED maybe THOUSAND successes. It was NHS surgeons who operated on both my mother and grandmother who without surgery would have both succumbed to different forms of cancer long ago.  When I was younger and had to have operations to correct my sight, it was NHS surgeons who treated me and made sure that I can see well enough to be sitting here writing this blog today and when I was in labour with TBK and he was lying the wrong way around, stuck and going nowhere fast it was the NHS midwives and doctors who helped me deliver him with not a second glance towards my paperwork to check which painkillers my policies covered.

The US is a deeply divided nation on health as in many other policy areas – it is simultaneously home to some of the planet’s best hospitals, the best research in medical advances and the best healthcare practioners – and also home to some of the worst poverty and barriers to healthcare, the worst developed-world child mortality rates.

Alex Foster , LDV

I know people personally who will argue back at me that our system is flawed, and from their experience they think the whole system needs to be altered, but to them I say this;

Fall down the stairs, be hit by a car, suffer a brain hemorrhage, develop cancer, suffer from MS, ME, asthma, eczema, give birth, twist your ankle, be the wealthiest or the neediest person in the UK, it doesn’t matter because when you need it the NHS will be there. You will be treated the same as the next person regardless of your economic standing, and you will be treated for free, So UK doubters and the US critics, give the NHS a break no system is perfect and where ever there is something to be paid for there will be restrictions but if it wasn’t for the NHS and  what they do, I along with countless others wouldn’t be here today.

I’m going on Holiday in October Term time AND taking my 9 year old son with me. I take him out of school every year for a holiday and for other activity days, as was agreed with his school that I be allowed to do so in advance of enrolling him.

Flexi Schooling is the correct term for it.

I take my responsibility as a parent very seriously and TBK consistently scores in the top percentile in his class  and receives glowing praise every year from his teachers, he has friends in school who come home to play (please read create havoc), and is fully integrated into society, he is bright and articulate, and as bias as I may be as his mother I do have the school reports to back this up, His education and social skills are not suffering because of it, if anything they are prospering.

YET the local paper is yet again reporting on an increase of “Truancy Fines” and while the article itself didn’t really rub me up the wrong way.  As, I will never have to pay a truancy fine for my son  as we’ve the proper protocol in place for our educational choices, But taking out holiday leave from the debate,  it still leaves the question unanswered of WHY these young people feel the need to play truant in the first place?*,  What really wound me up was the ignorance of some of the commentators who posted both before and after me.

These trips or in some peoples eyes “absenses” provide an education kids just can’t get when in school and also teaching shouldn’t just happen, and in our life DOESN’T, just happen from 9am – 3pm in the classroom!

On our holiday, just like last year, we will be teaching TBK Maths (currency conversion), Geography (he knows where we are going and surrounding countries) History, (we often like to visit cultural and historical monuments while away and actively encourage TBK to involve himself in the culture). R.E. (Turkey (this years destination)  is a predominantly a Muslim country) and much more, all on a one to one basis for periods of time he would never get in the classroom.

Previously he’s also been out of school to have the opportunity to attend HESFES, (the home educators seaside festival) where he has taken part in wood work and metal work excersizes,  fabric painting and labyrinth building amongst other things, using skills he’d have never developed sat behind a desk.

We’ve taken him out of school to have a hands on learning experience  as a zoo keeper for the day.  He’s had time off to go to an archery day, and to attend other exhibitions and events. Once, when he was in reception class, I even kept him off school on a Monday JUST so he could have a day off, As over the weekend he had participated in clay building with us, visited a monkey sanctuary, spent an afternoon playing drums and for a child of only 6 this was a lot, he needed the rest!

So how about we stop stereotyping parents who take their kids out of the classroom for any period of time as losers (as one commentator metioned) or selfish (as another did) and look at the beneifts these extra curricular activities can and do provide!

The real time and effort should be concentrated on dealing with the parents who’s children aren’t getting any education through truancy because the parents just don’t care!

* Yes I played truant as a teen, and I was duely punished for it by my mother, But I know why I did it. I hated my English teacher and she hated me, proven fact as she marked all my work down and told me , and my mom, I woudln’t get higher than a D,  myc oursework was sent to the invigulator and came back marked higher and I left school with a B (lit) and a C(lan)  Take that Mrs Smith!

Maybe if I’d have been listened to as a teen and moved to another class I’d have attended those sessions I missed and maybe that tis the answer now, listening to what our young people want!