Saturday started well, no internet... don't know if it is my laptop or the university's server is down. Feel like my right arm has been cut off. So I am writing this in notepad to post on the blog later

Lectures have finally started and been condensed into two days. The reading list is phenomenal it will be a full-time job to work my way through it. This week reading list is already longer than War and Peace. Plus I have discovered I can no longer speed read... that is something I need to sort asap

With reading lists in mind I have persuaded the Applied Social Science Librarian to give me a one to one tour of library and the on-line library and Journal catalogue system. Plus anything else he thinks someone who last university library experience in the early 1980's was a card system and then very high tech microfiche.

Also got 2 out of essay question set... I guess I shouldn't be surprised that one is about Khyra Ishaq and Peter Connelly and whether the Children Act provides sufficient balance between family independence and state intervention. If any of you lovely home edder's have any articles, links, or references re: Khyra and / or the BADMAN Report send them my way.

I also intend to do my dissertation on home education and safeguarding.

My second essay, with a very short submission date is on around the issue that Social Workers need to wake up to the threat of Hepatitis C. As with Khyra if you have any info on Hep C send it my way.

It will be interesting in the weeks ahead to see social work training from the inside. My Michaelmas term [yes they still use Michaelmas and Lent] modules are on
Preparation for Practice
Social Work with Children and Families
Policy and Legal Context of Social Work
Social work and Drug Use
There is also a one off lecture on the 'Future of Social Work, Social Enterprise and the Big Society'... thank you Cameron!

In November I get to shadow a Social Worker for a day, plus I have to sit in on Court sessions, this is part of the Fit to Practice element of the course. In March I will go on my first of 2 placements, placement 1 lasts 80 days while placement 2 is 120 days - one should be a statutory placement.

The excitement of the week came yesterday when the fire alarm went off at 07.30h, I was still in bed. It was all due to my neighbour burning toast. But I am so stiff and in pain first thing I always have to slowly pour myself into the day... fire alarms don't allow for that. If it was a 'real' fire I might have ended up as burnt as the toast. When I eventually made it to the fire point i finally 'met' my neighbours or rather didn't as when I said "hi I Fe, what a way to meet, they 7 people there looked me up and down, said nothing and one actually turned their back on me. Maybe they were is desperate need of a coffee, or perhaps I was to scary a vision for them at that time in the morning. Whatever they seem an unfriendly bunch.

The University are now suggesting I should be moved to the ground floor. But I like the first floor, as no one can look directly into my room. I am trying to negotiate being allowed to use a tension rod and net curtain, which is normally not allowed. My other problem with moving is all my stuff, I can't physically move it. My lovely son installed me and also took the cases and boxes home with him.

Sunday UPDATE it was the university server... after six hours the internet sprang back to life and I got my internet fix ;-)

But me and laptop seen to be having a tiff, it refused to open pdf's so on the recommendation of the IT bods I installed Adobe reader but then it refused to reinstall. So yesterday downloaded another pdf reader, which was free until midnight on the 16th [last night] The only draw back it has a blooming advert at the bottom. But at least I can now open pdf's. I was getting embarrassed having to email others on my course to open them and then copy and paste to me or print off those that wouldn't copy and paste.

Did my basic life saving course yesterday with St Johns Ambulance... crickey it has all changed since I did my last course 20 odd years ago. CPR was 5 compression and 2 breathes now it is either non stop compressions and no breathes. Or if you done the course 30 compressions and 2 breathes. It was fun as I couldn't get down on the floor to do recovery position or CPR. So I got to instruct a 'passer by' and to CPR on the table. So please if you are going to need life saving when I am around... get on the table first

Lastly and with thanks to the Liverpool Home Education folks for my very ungranny shopping trolley... My Asda order came so I went down. with my shopping trolley to bring it all up... did get a fair bit, but should last a couple of weeks, unless I need milk or bread. Worth paying £3 for delivery, but would have been £2.95 return. But do prefer doing my own shop, bring on my car. the trolley has also visited the library and the launderette... made my life so much easier so to LiverpoolHEd thank you.

Quiet before the storm

Well actually not so quiet... it is Fresher's week and the undergrads are celebrating their new, parent free, university lives BIG TIME. Witnessing the fun and games I wonder how they are surviving it, it seems to be a constant round of drinking, partying, with lots of free junk food and sweets thrown in? Being a campus university, where all first years are guaranteed a room, it means it is very lively around here at night. This morning as the sun came up they finally quietened down. Being an old fogey I have taken to 'sleeping' with the World Service and ear plugs. Having watched the excess, I think I am glad that my children have all done the Fresher thing and only one of them ever lived in halls... I can hear them now "oh mum"

But academically it is the quiet before the storm. Formal lectures don't start until Wednesday and the course has been very well structured all lectures fit into two days, which mean's I can treat studying a bit like a 9-5 job on the other three days if I wish... it wont work like that but.

The majority of students on the course are living off campus and are travelling up to 50 miles to uni. Some are worked based students so will be combining their work in 'social service' areas with training to be a Social Worker. A couple of these work based students are Education Welfare Officers... I predict some lively debate about Elective Home Education, while I try my best to re-educate them.

This term [we still have the 'old' terms here] I will be doing modules on:-
Preparation for Practice
Social Work with Children and Families
Policy and Legal Context of Social Work
Social Work and Drug Use

It will be very interesting to start to see Social Work from the practitioner perspective, while I try to maintain a good dose of cynicism. So watch this space.

A not so fresh Fresher

Just a very quick update:-

I've been here for three days now, fully installed in my little studio flat - yes you can squeeze your life into 15 sq m, infact I still have some space.

Was amazingly fortunate to already 'internet met' four other students from my course, so the first night we met in the Grad Bar [some interesting ciders by the way] These first few days have been less lonely and less stressful than they would have been had I not already stumbled across a forum which had a thread on my MA.

But it has been tiring, lots of events and lots and lots of walking. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a walker - my arthritis riddled hips do tend to complain. I am now glad that I did have the steroid joint injections, because it has given me an increased degree of mobility [I can do steps!!] if not entirely pain free. My internet girls have put up with me lagging behind and slowing them down I sure... for which I am grateful.

Tomorrow is a day of bureaucracy as the final process of registering, with the course and the university begins. AND the introductory Social Work talk. So from tomorrow I should have more of an idea of what is involved... scary.

Thursday I an going to attend preparation lectures on 'Effective Reading' Essay Writing and What is Referencing. Having been out of university for 26 years I have a lot of catching up to do. Then it is FRESHERS Fair... emmmm?

The rest of the week has various other events and then it is wind down to the real work beginning next week. Saturday is my birthday and hopefully a couple of my children will come over for the day... I miss them already, but somehow I think they won't have noticed I'm gone, which is as it should be. I still fret that my son remember to feed the animals, the cats TWICE' a day, I suspect they will make their needs known, the fish I am not so sure about.

Four thirty in the morning and sleep has deserted me yet again, so how better to spend these sleepless hours than create my blog. A blog were I hope to record and share my reflections on the major life change that is about to hit me full in the plexus.

On Saturday a strange role reversal will take place in my family, instead of me waving my children off to university, they will wave me off, as I leave to do an MA in Social Work. I am doing the whole student thing living on campus in a tiny studio flat. Well maybe not quite the entire student life as I decided I just had to have my own facilities...

For 30 years I have been defined as someone's wife, someone's widow, someone's mother and someone's daughter. I have cared for family as my children became independent, my parents became dependent. Now at 52 I am carefree and it is time to build me a future. Frightening, exciting, am I brave or insane - only the next two years will tell.

As for my choice of MA... I am hoping I am not going to become poacher turned gamekeeper. Why? Well I am from the home education community and Social Services and Social Workers do not generally have a positive reputation in HE land. My community have been pilloried as possible abusers with the erroneous implication that as our children are "unseen" so we can and may well get away with all manner of negative behaviours. Reality our children spend most of their lives out in the community, Home Edders are great users of community resources.

We have suffered all manner of attacks due to a perfectly legal lifestyle choice. The NSPCC, OFSTED, Government Ministers and their advisor's, Local Authorities, the BBC and many other organisations have misinformed, scaremongered and attacked HE in the last two years. HE has been blatantly been used as an scapegoat for the very failings of the organisations and services which should have protected societies children. High profile child abuse and safeguarding cases have been incorrectly linked to home education were no valid link existed... in fact the children involved WERE known to Social Services, to the NSPCC, to the Local Authorities. But they failed to act, failed to understand, let alone use the powers they had, that would have saved these children. Far easier to whip up a moral panic that Home Education was to blame, even when the link to HE was tenuous or worse non-existent, than accept that the 'powers that be' themselves got it wrong.

My plan is to record my adventure to the 'darkside' I hope to be inspired, surprised and challenged. I hope to educate about HE. I hope I don't get beaten, disheartened, desensitised and demoralised. It is going to be a interesting journey, one to be travelled little by little.