Category Archives: Family

On meeting Commander Hadfield!

Family, ,

Early last year I started to follow Commander Hadfield on twitter, mostly because of the amazing photos that he tweeted from the International Space Station. My kids loved looking at the pictures taken from space and so did I – it was amazing to be able to see the world from such a different perspective. We also had a lot of fun watching his videos on YouTube – short, fun clips about how to clean your teeth in space, or making and eating space food, or what happens when you squeeze a flannel out in zero gravity.

This opened up a new world for me – I genuinely had not been aware that there was a manned space station up there! And it was real fun discovering stuff alongside the kids – they’d ask me questions about space, I’d pretend to think about the answer while googling frantically, then they’d wander off and google the answer themselves in half the time and come running back to tell me. My eldest even did a presentation in school on life in the Space Station, and watching the ISS lIvefeed in NASA TV became quite the family hobby for a while!

I remember thinking at the time that Commander Hadfield seemed like one of life’s good guys – I mean I guess they have to do some outreach/educational stuff on the ISS but he really did seem to put his heart into it and actually care about what he was doing. Taking the trouble to take and tweet a picture of Wales as the ISS passed over on St David’s Day, that sort of thing, goes beyond the effort you’ll see on most ‘celebrity’ twitter feeds. And it wasn’t just a one way process – helped by his son Evan, he regularly answered Facebook and Twitter questions, both mundane and technical, people like me and my kids. (Ours were of the mundane kind, obvs).

I’m sure all astronauts are aware of the fact that they undergo an experience way beyond the reach of most of us – but Commander Hadfield took the time to share that experience in a way that made people like me feel like they were playing a part in it, and, much more importantly, made kids everywhere understand that they COULD be a part of it, that cool space jobs aren’t just for boffins and celluloid Men in Black. And this of course carries the wider message – ‘if I can be a spaceman, I can be anything I want!’

When I heard that Commander Hadfield was coming to Cardiff to do a book signing, I asked my eldest kids if they would like to go along and meet him. What, a real, live astronaut? Didn’t take them long to think about it – YES PLEASE came the answer. So we duly went along, with a few hundred other people…and now, instead of ‘thinking’ that he’s one of life’s good guys, I am pleased to report that he most definitely IS. Despite the fact that he had signed about 300 books by the time we got to him and had a huge queue still to come, he was absolutely lovely to my kids. They both had questions they wanted to ask him but when it came to it they were so in awe that they were actually struck dumb – even so, he took the time to speak to both of them individually, showing my boy a picture of himself at the same age in the book, and making sure they both got a proper chance to shake his hand. What a gentleman!

My kids were so proud that they’d met ‘their’ astronaut, and the signed books have not left their sides yet. Which is kind of annoying as I didn’t buy myself one, it being the season of skintness, and I was sort of counting on being able to read one of theirs!!

No matter. They are still over the moon at meeting their hero, and I am over the moon for them that their hero did most definitely turn out to be one of life’s Good Guys. Thank you Commander Hadfield for making their day!

Ps my Good Guy assessment was in no way influenced by the fact that Commander Hadfield also told my daughter ‘You’re beautiful. Just like your Mum’ *swoons a little bit*

20131219-221651.jpg

Considering Welsh Medium Education?

Family, Learning Welsh, Wales, Welsh Medium Education, , , , , ,

I’ve noticed (or rather those clever bots at Google Analytics have noticed) that the most popular posts on the blog at the moment are the ones about our experiences of Welsh Medium Education. I guess the folk stumbling upon my witterings are probably researching the choices for their own children, so I thought I’d do a quick summary of the advice I’d give to English speaking families considering Welsh Medium Education.

  • If you think you might choose Welsh Medium Education, then start learning Welsh yourself, now. You will need to understand and be able to read/pronounce at least basic Welsh to be able to support your child in learning to read, and beyond the early days, the more comfortable you are in Welsh, the more help you can be.
  • If both parents can learn, even better. If one never gets round to it, the reading/homework burden will always fall on one person. Just saying!
  • I’m sure you’d never dream of sticking your pre-schooler in front of the telly, but you know,  in case an emergency arises and you’re all out of organic baking ingredients or non-toxic finger paints then stick’em in front of Cyw rather than Beebies. And watch with them – it’s amazing how much you will pick up.
  • Same advice for the iPad – there are lots of Welsh language activities on Cyw that you can do together.
  • Choose Welsh medium childcare – or a bilingual setting at the very least. The more Welsh your son or daughter knows when they start school, the more comfortable they’ll be in an all-Welsh environment.
  • Even if you are not at all sure that Welsh Medium Education will be the route you choose, I’d seriously consider doing all the above in any case. That way you’re keeping your options open for as long as possible, and it’ll be a good grounding for your child since they’ll learn Welsh from day one in an English medium school in any case.
  • It’s very easy to find out about the benefits of bilingual education – and quite hard to find out about possible disadvantages. If I was making the choice again, I’d actively seek out parents who feel that their children have not benefited from being educated in Welsh, to find out what issues they faced and what they did about it. It may or may not have changed my decision, but I’d have felt better prepared for the situation we find ourselves in now with our eldest child.
  • You might well be told, as I was, that children not managing in Welsh and therefore switching to an English school, ‘just does not happen’. Well, it does happen  to some children,  so you may want to think through the implications of changing school at a later date. Particularly if you have a large family. I’d probably switch my eldest to English school right now if he was an only child, but what would going to a different school to his siblings mean to him?
  • When you’re looking at schools, make sure to ask about what additional language support is available to children whose first language is not Welsh. Also, ask where the trigger point is for accessing this support, and, importantly if there is flexibility in this.    If your child doesn’t take to Welsh like a duck to water, you need to know that you’ll be able to identify and act on this as early as possible, and with the support of your chosen school.

 

So, just some things to think about if Welsh is not your family language, but you are considering Welsh Medium Education for your children. It’s not meant to be a comprehensive guide, just a reflection of the advice I’d give now I’m four years into the journey. There may be more to add as time goes by!

As always, your comments/thoughts/suggestions are more than welcome, here or via @learnermother – thank you/diolch!