I have sat in numerous hospital waiting rooms over the past few weeks trying to get to the bottom of why one of my children spends most of the night crying and complaining of leg pain. I had heard of these things called “growing pains”, but never realised they literally keep your child and indeed the entire family awake all night for weeks at a time.
My husband and I no longer sleep and apparently there is very little we can do to help our child who is in agony all night long and then beside herself with exhaustion during the day and cannot be reasoned with on any subject at all. If any of our readers have any tips on how to survive this, I would be most grateful to hear them.
The hours spent in hospital waiting rooms, which miraculously my daughter seemed to enjoy (they are, much like motorway service stations, places of great anthropological interest and she, like her mother, has a keen eye for other people’s habits and appearances), seemed the perfect opportunity to try out our new Faith in Phonics books, which I bought after seeing an advert for them in the back of the Catholic Herald.
Unable to fathom how a single teacher is going to be able to teach a class of 30 five-year-olds how to read, I, perhaps a little naively, decided to take matters into my own hands and teach her to read myself, in the hope that she will learn before she actually starts school so she has a bit of a head start.
Published by the wonderfully named Redemptorist Publications, Faith in Phonics Set 1 is a series of 12 books for early readers which are supposed to complement a school’s existing reading scheme. Titles include Zac the Greedy Taxman, based on Luke 19 1-10, A Star for a King, based on Matthew 2.1-10, and Can You Hear Me?, based on the story of Hannah who prayed to God for a baby boy.
The children love them because they are proper, serious stories which have stood the test of time and come with important life lessons. Also, written in a way which emphasises the phonics, the stories are full of humour and each line has an appealing ring to it.
A particular favourite of the girls is The Rash Lad, based on Luke 15: 11-24, which goes like this: “The lad was rash. He spent his cash in shops. He went to clubs and pubs. He sang songs. He had fun with his chums.” My three-year-old, who sits with us as we try to decipher the words, enjoys the books just as much as her older sister does.
As far as the learning to read is concerned, however, every time I ask my daughter what one of the words says, she shouts indiscriminately either “God!”, “heaven!” or “Jesus!”, rather than “book”, “shop” or “rock”, etc, so so far I’d say I am not a natural pedagogue or perhaps my daughter is still a bit young. Or perhaps I just need to come up with some complementary activities such as using flashcards. I am also starting to concede that I may have to defer to the professionals on this one to some degree. But at least the children’s knowledge of the Bible is improving.
As much as I enjoy fumbling about and teaching my children new things, I also dream of one day being able to send them to private school where, if you want it to be, your child’s education is almost completely taken out of your hands by the best in the business.
Recently, in my role as editor of the Catholic Herald’s annual Good Schools Guide, I visited Downside and was staggered by the level of attention that is paid there to each individual pupil. On a walkabout with the head, Andrew Hobbs, I noted that he knew every single one of the 360 pupils by name and much more about each of them besides that.
But this kind of service comes with a hefty price tag. Going through the school fees for the academic year 2023/2024, I noted with a heavy heart that every single school has raised its fees again this year. St Mary’s Ascot now costs over £45,000 per annum, and that’s not including extras such as uniforms and school trips. Imagine if, as many Catholic families do, you have three or four or five children? These schools are increasingly going to be available only to the 0.1 per cent.
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